While the Holy Land and Sudan continued to suffer ruinous wars this month, Iran had elections with record low turnouts as it prepared to celebrate Nowruz, the Persian new year.
Unrelenting conflicts in Gaza and Sudan have brought both countries to a new level of suffering. Many of the 300,000 Palestinians still living in the north of Gaza have been reduced to eating animal food, and increasing numbers of infants are dying from malnutrition and dehydration. In Sudan the World Food Programme estimates that 18 million people face acute hunger, and 5 million, trapped behind the front lines, face starvation. As the Muslim month of Ramadan (10 March) approached last week, international efforts to end both conflicts were intensifying.
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Last week a UN resolution was drafted calling on all warring parties in Sudan to cease fighting and allow “full, rapid and safe humanitarian access” in all areas. Mediation efforts in Ethiopia, Saudi Arabia and Bahrain have so far failed to make peace between the rival military forces of de facto president and Sudan Armed Forces (SAF) leader Abdul Fattah al-Burhan and Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, chief of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF). The RSF has been accused of ethnically motivated massacres and gang rape in the Darfur region while the SAF have used air power to bomb civilian areas indiscriminately. Please pray for Sudan’s people and for a return to the democratic transition that was underway three years ago.
Hopes on hold
Hopes that a 40-day ceasefire between Hamas and Israel was in sight and could be agreed by the start of Ramadan were disappointed last week. On Thursday, Hamas representatives left the Cairo-based talks mediated by Egypt, and Qatar and the US, to consult with their leadership. Negotiations are set to resume this week. They come as relatives of the estimated 130 surviving hostages still held by Hamas pleaded with the Israeli government to do all in its power to release them. In Gaza, the crisis reached a new level as famine took hold. Almost no aid has reached the north of the enclave and deliveries across the strip fell by half last month due to security constraints and regular border crossing closures.
Bombing by Israel continued at a reduced level while its army has so far held off a threatened ground invasion in Rafah. NGOs say this would be catastrophic for the 1.3 million mostly displaced people who have taken refuge there. Among them is Dalia, a teenage girl who told SAT-7 about her hopes to finish her education and be part of future efforts to rebuild her devastated homeland. “Children need safety; they need to return to their schools and see their friends,” Dalia, 17, told SAT-7 ARABIC’s You Are Not Alone programme. “I ask that they stop the war. The children and women are fed up. We need provisions and safe places to live. Consider the children who are homeless, and stop the war.”
Watch Dalia’s story
Lebanon and Syria
Since the start of the Israel-Hamas war, Hezbollah forces in Lebanon have been firing missiles and mortar rounds into northern Israel in support of Hamas and Israel has responded in kind. Tens of thousands of civilians have been displaced on both sides and Israel has spoken of wanting to push Hezbollah back beyond the Litani river, 18 miles from the border. A Hezbollah withdrawal would be in line with the UN resolution that ended the Israel-Hezbollah war in 2006. The US fears that exchanges of fire could continue beyond the Gaza conflict and could easily escalate. Last week US Special Envoy, Amos Hochstein, met with political leaders in Beirut, including parliament speaker Nabih Berri, a Hezbollah ally. Hochstein said temporary ceasefires were not enough but stressed the need for a lasting diplomatic solution with Israel that will guarantee security for both states.
Meanwhile, as the UK prepares for an election year, political tensions over the rights to protest about the conflict have increased. The Observer, reporting on the rise in both antisemitism and Islamophobia, highlighted a poll commissioned by More in Common, that found that 9% of Britons have negative views about Jews, and 21% about Muslims.
We should not forget Syria. Although out of the news, millions remain displaced abroad and in neighbouring countries. Those who return – including increasing numbers forcibly transferred by host countries – risk serious abuses by the Syrian government, by de facto authorities and by armed groups, according to a new UN report. They include arbitrary detention, torture and ill-treatment, sexual and gender-based violence, enforced disappearance and abduction. Returnees also share the economic hardships of much of the population for whom rocketing inflation makes basic foods and medicines unaffordable. Some choose to take serious risks to make ends meet. February to April is a traditional time for foraging for valuable truffles in the Syrian desert, but the area is also a hideout for jihadist groups. Over 30 foragers were killed in two incidents in the last month, some by a mine left by so-called Islamic State (IS) and others in an attack by suspected IS fighters.
Low turnout
The Persian new year, known as Nowruz, begins with the spring equinox on 20 March. Despite elections that took place at the start of this month, however, citizens in Iran expect to see little change in their country’s politics. Some 245 of Parliament’s 290 seats were decided by voters with another 45 requiring a run-off in April or May. Aggressive scrutiny of the thousands of applicants by Iran’s real powerbase, the 12-member Guardian Council, removed the vast majority of reformists. An Associated Press analysis concluded that some 200 of the successful candidates were supported by hardliners. Also elected were the 88 members of the Assembly of Experts, the group that will select the next Supreme Leader when Ayatollah Khomeini (age 84) dies. Once again, relative moderates were disqualified from running.
Iran’s elections came 18 months after mass protests were triggered by the death in custody of a young woman, Mahsa Amini, for the alleged incorrect wearing of the headscarf. According to many observers, the most significant thing about last month’s elections was the record low turnout – estimated at around 41 per cent nationally and much lower in Tehran. In a nation where authorities traditionally point to the elections as a sign of public support, some chose to boycott them as a form of protest. In the same week that Iran’s leaders were urging citizens to go out and vote, authorities gave a three-year, eight-month prison sentence to Shervin Hajipour, the musician whose song became the anthem of the Women, Life, Freedom movement.
End persecution
This month also saw important calls to end human rights violations, including the persecution of Christians, in Iran. In his final report on human rights there, UN Special Rapporteur Javaid Rehman urged Iran to “end criminalisation of the peaceful expression of faith” of Christian converts and other religious minorities. He said that the “systematic, state-initiated persecution” of Christian converts for “peaceful religious gatherings” and “convicting leaders [on] national security-related charges” were breaches of their “fundamental human and minority rights”. Rehman called for Article 13 of the Iranian constitution, which recognises Jews, Zoroastrians, and Armenian and Assyrian Christians, to be amended to guarantee freedom of religion or belief to everyone. Pray that these recommendations will be heard and that God will bring about a change of heart in Iranian leaders. Read more about how SAT-7 is supporting persecuted Christians in some of the world’s most hostile places here.
North Africa
In Tunisia thousands have protested against deteriorating living conditions as the country seeks to reduce foreign debts that amount to over 90 per cent of GDP. The leader of the main trade union confederation said the rate of repayment was “to the detriment of the people and resulted in shortages of basic products”. Amid the nation’s continuing economic woes, some 40 per cent of 16- to 25-year-olds are out of work. One sector that is doing well is medical tourism, which now contributes around half of Tunisia’s important tourism income.
Neighbouring Algeria this month inaugurated the world’s third largest mosque. The official ceremony had faced delays since the Djamaa El-Djazair was completed five years ago – caused partly by unrest that led to the resignation of former President Bouteflika. The mosque is intended to promote moderate Islam in a country that endured a decade of conflict between the army and Islamists in the 1990s. Its cost of $898 million has brought criticism, as authorities continue to ignore applications for church premises and have shuttered 43 of the country’s 47 Protestant churches. The closures are, understandably, having an impact on Algerian believers. “I got baptised in my church,” said Fatima, an Algerian SAT-7 viewer. “But life is becoming harder after churches were closed down. I learned so much from your teachings. I can see my life changing… I am growing in faith… I now know how to pray and read the Bible. I am thankful to God for SAT-7.”
40 Minutes of Prayer for the Middle East – LIVE
The news paints a worrying picture of the Middle East and North Africa – but when we zoom out, we can see that God is at work. Join us for 40 minutes of dedicated prayer for the MENA, live on Zoom. We’ll take you on a whistlestop virtual journey from Morocco in the west to Tajikistan in the east, hearing stories of God at work in people’s lives along the way. Click here to find out more.
