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her-satanic-wiles · 7 months

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October 12th

Medical Play, Papa Emeritus III x Reader

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Words: 2.5k

Warnings: Medical play; GN!Reader; dom!Reader?; cringey Terzo; subby!Terzo; established relationship; latex kink?; glove kink; hand job; mild praise; anal fingering; taunting; mild degradation; mild humiliation; power kink; mild edging; cum eating; cumswap; reads like an 80s porno; awful medical terminology, I'm sorry to all the doctors and nurses reading this lmao;

Taglist: @sodoswitchimage @enchantedbunny @bitchywitchygardener @thew0man @sodomiser @the-did-i-ask @copias-sewer-rat @gehrmansbignaturals

🔞 MDNI 🔞

The graveyard shift was always the worst - or rather, the slowest. As most of the Siblings were asleep in the dead of the night, you had free roam of the medical centre of the Ministry. Not that there was ever much to see given that it was hardly decorated and filled to the brim with medicine and multiple medical journals, all of which you’d perused on your off or slow hours.

Thankfully, your job was always made easier by the fact that no one in the Ministry was stupid enough to get themselves into a lot of trouble. Even during the day, the worst injury you’d seen was someone’s ritual or blood play wounds get infected, but thankfully it was easy enough to sort out. It was the most difficult thing, becoming a doctor and going through university - even getting a job within the Ministry itself was a difficult task. The job itself though - paid to read books mostly.

Though, it was different that night. Your socked feet were up on your desk and a book was in your lap. You were, of course, reading what your friends liked to call your “dirty girl books”, when there was a gentle knock at the door. “Come in!” You called. Immediately you brought your feet off the desk and put your bookmark in the book, hiding it from the view of your guest. You still didn’t want to appear unprofessional, even though there was no one around… well, almost no one.

The door opened to reveal a smaller man, black hair and wrinkles. You recognised him instantly. “Good morning, Papa.” You said, standing to your feet out of respect.

“Ah, hello, doctor. I hope I am not disturbing you while you are busy?” Terzo stood there in the doorway uncharacteristically awkward in his demeanour and make up chipping from his face. He looked tired.

You looked at the clock: four o’clock. It was so early. “I always have time for you, Papa. How can I help you?”

“Ah, it is a little embarrassing, doctor.”

“Whatever it is I’m here to help, judgment-free.”

This was the moment you’d been waiting for. The thing is - you weren’t Terzo’s personal physician. Given the nature of their job and the importance of their status, each of the Papas had their own personal physicians at their beck and call all times of the day and night. You weren’t part of that club, rather, dealing with the rest of the Ministry including the Ghouls and the Clergy. You may not have been Terzo’s physician, but you were his partner… so to speak. This whole arrangement had been set up and pre-decided weeks ago, and when he had time, he’d drop in to see you with some “medical emergency” and you would be the doctor to “treat him”. You would pretend not to know each other which was the most crucial part of the whole scene. So now you were just waiting for Terzo to say his next line, not that you knew what his next line was.

“Well you see, I am an old man. And my, how do you say? My dick is broken.”

This fucking guy.

“Okay, in what way?”

“It doesn’t stand for very long. It grows tired very quickly, like me. Or my fratello.”

Please don’t compare your penis to your brothers.

“R-right.” You blinked at him a few times, not quite expecting him to be so forthcoming with his “issue” - or even quite so chaotic. “Please come and take a seat on the bench for me.” He did as you instructed. “Would you mind unbuttoning your shirt, Papa?”

“Ah, doctor, that is the other thing. My fingers are tired today, too. I am afraid they can’t unbutton anything.”

Of course they can’t.

He looked at you and gave you the biggest shit-eating grin, clearly eating up his role. Despite knowing Terzo as intimately as you did for a number of years, he still managed to find ways to fluster you.

You moved forward, trying your best not to smile and keep it “professional”, but the excitement within him was simply radiating off of him and infecting you. He was, for lack of a better term, buzzing with it. Your fingers carefully began to unbutton his white shirt and avoiding his gaze, but you could feel it on you. His mischievous eyes studying you and your expression so intently you were sure it would leave a mark.

Once his incredibly hairy chest was completely exposed to you, you took the stethoscope from around your neck and set yourself up to use it. “This may be a little cold.” You warned before placing the bell over his heart. Of course, this wasn’t a real check up, so it didn’t matter what you heard. In fact, you were only doing this for his benefit because you knew he’d want it.

“Can you hear that, doctor?” He asked.

“There’s nothing unusual.”

“But my heart, you should hear that it beats only for you.”

This. Fucking. Guy.

It took everything in you not to blush or react to his words in any way. “Okay, I think we should do a few tests just to make sure everything’s okay. Would you mind removing your pants, Papa?”

You took a step back and allowed Terzo to stand from the bench and do as you’d asked. You looked away to feign privacy, despite the fact that you’d been up close and personal with that part of his body for a long while. But out the corner of your eye, you noticed that the little shit had decided to forgo underwear. How you were surprised was a mystery unto itself.

“You know, doctor, usually I buy ladies dinner before I let them undress me in their offices.” He teased.

“Usually ladies don’t examine you for erectile dysfunction.” You taunted back. “Are you ready, Papa?”

“Of course, doctor. I await your professional opinion.” He plonked himself back up on the bed and leant back confidently, completely exposing himself to you. He was enjoying this game a little too much for your liking. You began prepping your hands, first sanitizing them then putting latex gloves on to keep up appearances. When you moved back over to him, you noticed that his mismatched eyes were heavily trained on you, only moving when you did and fixating on your gloved hands. Time to bullshit your way through this. “To make sure you can maintain a healthy erection, we need to give you one first. Is this normally something you have a problem with?”

“Not at all. Usually my partner is able to get me up just by looking at me.”

You nodded. “So you won’t need any help from me today, then?”

“On the contrary, doctor. My partner is not here, and so I am having trouble. Please take care of me.”

He gave you the best doe eyes he could muster knowing that it would work on you because it usually did. And so, you nodded, and poured some of the office’s lubricant onto your hand. “This will be cold.” You warned him.

As soon as your lubed hand made contact he hissed and jumped, perhaps making more of a show of it than he ought to. Your hand began to work away at his flaccid length, which was filling up with blood a lot quicker than you anticipated. With each tight stroke of your hand, Terzo’s hips bucked slightly. He wasn’t quite ready or sensitive enough for it to feel mind-numbingly good, but the little breaths and whimpers he was releasing was proof enough that it was working. One of his own gloved hands came up to your arm and gripped onto it, trying to keep himself grounded. The other hand grasped onto the bench with as much force as he could.

You tightened your grip and began focusing entirely on the head of his cock, making sure he was feeling as much pleasure as possible. The feeling of the lubed latex on his head had his mind reeling. His eyes were tightly shut, his bottom lip had been taken into his mouth and trapped between his teeth. He was trying so hard to keep up the pretense but he was obviously feeling good. You decided to be a bitch. “Tell me, Papa, what do you usually do to keep the erection?”

“What?” He asked, opening his eyes and coming to his senses.

“Well, this is a new problem, isn’t it? What usually works? What usually feels good?”

Terzo, whom you had never seen so flustered before, gulped and took in a sharp inhale before continuing. “M-my partner usually uses their mouth.”

“Where?”

“What?”

“Where does their mouth go?”

“M-my cock and sometimes my a-asshole.”

You moved your other hand to his taint and then to the rim of his hole. “Here?”

“Yes! Merda! There!”

Then, all of a sudden, you removed all of your hands and took a step back. “You seem to be healthy, Papa. I think maybe you’re just stressed.”

His eyes were wide and he couldn’t quite believe you’d done that. “What?”

“Lack of sleep can also be a cause of dysfunction. Do you get enough sleep?”

“Yes. Doctor, I- I am confused.”

“What with?”

“Well, I… you… stopped.”

“Of course, Papa. You needed help maintaining an erection, we’ve since discovered that you don’t struggle with that regularly, and you’re certainly not now.”

“You can’t just leave me like this.” He gestured to his now angrily erect cock before muttering something in Italian, clearly irritated by you.

“Maybe if you were to ask nicely, I might help you out.”

Terzo hesitated for a second, clearly wanting to say something but not wanting to either be so desperate that he begs for it, but also being to embarrassed to say anything. He was perhaps the filthiest person you knew, never shy or bashful, but apparently when his partner had the upper hand he was a total mess.

“Per favore.”

“Not good enough. Try again.”

“Will you… help me out?”

“Sure, what with?”

“Porca puttana! Make me cum… please, Doctor.”

He almost forgot himself.

You stood and sauntered back over to him applying more lube to your gloved hand as you passed that shelf. “Good boy.” You told him with a teasing smile, wrapping his cock back up in your hand and continuing exactly where you left off. “Nothing wrong with you now, is there? You’re keeping it up well enough, aren’t you?”

The same hand that was gripping onto the bed had moved up onto your shoulder, a gorilla grip on it. His eyes were open but focused on the wall, glazed over a little in the sheer pleasure your hand was providing. Your other hand went straight back to the rim and began rubbing over it again. His noises got louder when you did, hips having a mind of their own. The position wasn’t great so you got him to sit back, keeping him width-ways on the bench with his cheeks on the edge and his feet propped up and legs spread. You cursed your boss for giving you the wrong chair to use for today, what you would have killed to use the gynecology chair with the stirrups. It would have humiliated him so much to be so exposed. He would have loved it. Though he looked like such a whore in this position, you thought perhaps this was more humiliating.

With more lube on your hands, one went back to his head, and the other started pushing inside his hole. His mouth dropped open in a perfect ‘O’ and his brow furrowed, the pleasure almost overwhelming him. “We do have to make sure all parts of you are working correctly, hm? Especially this nice little button in here.”

“Cazzo!”

Only your pinkie was inside him at the moment. You didn’t want to hurt him and as he hadn’t pre-stretched himself out, you thought it was best to take your time. You wiggled it around a little, trying to make his hole fit two of your better, and kept at it until he was lose enough. Eventually, your index and middle fingers were able to fit inside him, and so you went in search of that button you mentioned. “Touch your cock for me.” You instructed. Like the obedient whore he was today, he did as you asked, wrapping his own hand around the head and moving quickly. “Ah-ah.” You scolded. “Slow down.”

“But-”

“Slow!”

His hand gradually put the breaks on, dropping to an almost torturous level. You could see how much it pained him. Given the fluttering of his hole around your two fingers, you could tell he was already too close. He was too overwhelmed. He needed that sweet release that you were refusing to give him. Why? Why wouldn’t you just make him cum? Why would you drag it out as much as you did? He couldn’t fathom it. But he was so desperate to finish he couldn’t ask you to stop.

This was a completely different man in front of you. The head of the Satanic Church was riding your fingers in your office as if he didn’t hold all of the power. Because right now he didn’t. You did. In his desperate need to cum, he was obeying your orders down to the letter. He was whining and writhing for you and only you. No one else got to see him like this: his entire body on fire and chasing a release he’d practically been begging for since he entered the medical ward, drool dripping from the corner of his mouth where it had opened so wide, and loud moans were spilling out with it. His pants completely removed and his white shirt unbuttoned completely. He was positively sinful right now - a proper Babylonian whore giving himself to another for his own pleasure. And oh how he sang for you when you reached that spot. How he stopped breathing when you finally hit it. How expletives poured from his lips to cope with the devastating bliss your fingers were giving him. Choruses of “yes!” and “right there!” and “don’t stop!” providing him comfort while you had your way with him. His own hand matched yours and as you got faster, so did he. He was so close. He could almost taste the sweet release that was on its way to him.

It was when your hands came up to play with his balls he finally tipped over the edge. Cum spurted from his cock and pooled over his hairy stomach, and even reaching up his chest in the intensity of the orgasm he was experiencing. His toes curled and his body seized up. You were, the whole time, talking him through it. “That’s it,” you told him, “give it all to me, Papa. Give me everything. Such a good boy.”

When you were sure he was fine, you gently removed yourself from inside him and bent forward, your tongue running through his spend and lapping it up into your mouth, keeping it there. You looked up at him and saw his eyes were ablaze with something. More lust? Frustration that you were doing something so sexy and he was too tired to do anything about it? You weren’t entirely sure. But the moan he released when you kissed him, swapping his cum from your mouth to his was enough to tell you all was forgiven… at least for now.

Previous Day ⛧ Next Day

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silicacid · 4 months

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'Israel' commits new massacre in Jabalia, besieges another hospital

Israeli occupation forces continued their airstrikes on several areas in the Gaza Strip on Tuesday, resulting in the killing and injuring of dozens of Palestinian civilians.

Al Mayadeen's correspondent in Gaza reported, on Tuesday, that the Israeli occupation committed a a new massacre in the center of Jabalia camp, bombing an entire residential square.

The Gaza Ministry of Health reported a rise in the number of casualties in the Jabalia camp massacre, with the death toll now standing at 13 martyrs and 75 injuries, including numerous people in critical condition.

Concurrently, the spokesperson for the Ministry of Health in Gaza, Ashraf Al-Qudra said there was adjacent targeting to Jabalia Medical Center, leading to the injury of journalists Islam Badr and Mohammed Ahmed with various injuries.

Palestinian media also reported a rise in the number of martyrs due to an Israeli shelling of several homes in eastern Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip to at least 29, including journalist Adel Za'rab. This raises the number of martyred journalists to 97 since the start of the Israeli aggression on the Gaza Strip.

Israeli warplanes also bombed 3 homes in Rafah early this morning, one of which belonged to the Za'rab family.

The Israeli warplanes also launched intense raids on the northern areas of Khan Younis city in the southern Gaza Strip, while heavy artillery shelling targeted all areas of the city, resulting in the killing and injuring of dozens of civilians.

The Israeli war on hospitals is ongoing: IOF besiege al-Awda Hospital

The Ministry of Health in Gaza confirmed, on Tuesday, that Israeli occupation forces have converted Al-Awda Hospital in the northern part of the Gaza Strip into a "military barracks", detaining 240 Palestinians, including 80 medical personnel, 40 patients, and 120 displaced civilians inside the medical facility.

#from the river to the sea palestine will be free #free palestine #palestine #gaza #i will never leave my hope in the arms of the west again.#adel zorob #adel za'arab #islam badr #mohammed ahmed #another journalist #never forget #THEY BOMBED RAFAH AGAIN AND AGAIN #nowhere is safe #jabalia medical center #al awda hospital

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workersolidarity · 1 month

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[ 📹 A Palestinian youth is stunned and horrified, speechless after Israeli occupation air forces bombed his friend's family home in the Gaza Strip in the early morning hours of Saturday, March 16th, 2024.

"I pulled out one of them, but two were left," the youth tells reporters. Asked what his message would be to the world, the youth responds by saying, "we are alive, and not dead. I don't know what to say..." before he is overcome by emotion at his loss.

Another man searches the rubble for his two children, his father, mother, brothers and sisters and their children, all missing in the debris of the ruined building.]

🇮🇱⚔️🇵🇸 🚀🚀🚀🏘️💥🚑 🚨

SCORES OF CIVILIANS KILLED IN ISRAELI BOMBING AND SHELLING ON THE 162ND DAY OF ISRAEL'S GENOCIDE IN GAZA

On the 162nd day of Israel's ongoing war of genocide in the Gaza Strip, the Israeli occupation forces (IOF) committed a total of 7 new massacres of Palestinian families, resulting in the deaths of at least 63 Palestinian civilians, mostly women and children, and wounding another 112 others over the previous 24-hours, according to Gaza's Ministry of Health.

The Israeli occupation continued its bombing and shelling across the north, central and southern Gaza Strip, killing at least 80 Palestinians and wounding scores of others as part of an unprecedented bombing campaign well on its way to causing 150'000 casualties since the beginning of the current round of Israeli occupation aggression.

While bombing and shelling intensified in the Gaza Strip, Zionist occupation Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced on Friday that the Israeli occupation army has approved a plan for ground operations in the city of Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip, which the Hebrew media described as a "stick Jerusalem continues to hold over the terror group in efforts to reach a hostage release."

Netanyahu currently claims that four battalions of Hamas Mujahideen fighters remain in Rafah as the last major stronghold in the Gaza Strip under Hamas control.

The Netenyahu government has previously said that a ground offensive into the southern Gazan city is "necessary" to achieve the war's goals, adding that it wasn't a question of "if" but "when" the Zionist entity would have to enter the city.

Meanwhile, in a new horrific war crime, Zionist air forces bombed a 7-story residential building filled with displaced Palestinian families, not far from Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, killing dozens of civilians and wounding many others.

Similarly, occupation warplanes bombarded a civilian residence in the Al-Tuffah neighborhood, north of Gaza City, resulting in the deaths of at least five civilians and wounding dozens of others.

Meanwhile, Israeli fighter jets bombed another residential home, this one on Al-Jalaa Street in Gaza City, martyring and wounding dozens of Palestinians, while another strike targeting a civilian home in the Al-Nasr neighborhood of Gaza City also resulted in several casualties.

Occupation Forces also shelled the area near the Al-Kuwaiti roundabout, at the intersection of Steet 10 and Salah al-Din Street in Gaza City, where starving Palestinian families wait for food aid trucks to arrive. The Israeli shelling killed at least one civilian and wounded a number of others.

Local Civil Defense teams also announced recovery efforts to rescue several killed and missing Palestinians after IOF fighter jets bombed a residential building on Al-Lababidi Street in Gaza City.

Elsewhere, Zionist artillery forces shelled two residential homes, west of the Nuseirat Camp, including a residential home belonging to the Tabatabi family, in the central Gaza Strip, slaughtering at least 36 civilians and wounding a number of others, while intense Israeli shelling also targeted the Al-Shati Refugee Camp, west of Gaza City.

Earlier, occupation warplanes bombed a number of civilian residences the Nuseirat Camp, which resulted in the martyredom of seven Palestinians and the wounding of several others, while an additional airstrike targeting the Abu Dawabeh family home in the village of Al-Masdar killed at least one civilian and wounded multiple others.

Heavy bombing and shelling also concentrated on several areas of Beit Hanoun, in the northeastern Gaza Strip, while simultaneously, Israeli occupation forces fired banned phosphorus shells into the town, lighting up the sky during operations there.

Zionist occupation forces didn't spare the southern Gaza Strip with its intense bombing and artillery shelling campaign, which turned its ugly attention towards Rafah where Israeli forces shelled an inhabited civilian home, resulting in a number of casualties.

In another tragic atrocity committed by the Zionist army, three civilians with the Dhahir family were martyred after IOF artillery shelling targeted them on their way to the local mosque in the Al-Adas neighborhood of Rafah city.

As a result of Israel's ongoing war of genocide in the Gaza Strip, the infinitely rising death toll now exceeds 31'553 Palestinians martyred, more than 25'000 of which being women and children according to the United States Pentagon, with an additional 73'546 civilians wounded since the beginning of the current round of Israeli aggression beginning on October 7th, 2023.

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#videosource

@WorkerSolidarityNews

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3rdeyeblaque · 5 months

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On December 1st we venerate Elevated Ancestor & Voodoo Priest Frank Staten aka Prince Ke’eyama on the 25th anniversary of his passing 🕊 [for our Hoodoos of the Vodou Pantheon by way of New Orleans & Haiti]

Prince Ke’eyama was a Healer, Rootworker, & intuitive reader - recognized as the King of New Orleans Voodoo by many for his ;the locals knew him simply as, “The Chicken Man".

Born Frank Staten of Haitian descent, his family relocated from Haiti to New Orleans when he was an infant in the late '30s. Though raised Baptist under the ministry of his grandfather, it was his grandmother who initiated him into Rootwork & introduced him to Haitian Voodoo. Through his grandmother he learned to work the roots & the Lwa in order to help others.

At the age of 9, a revelation changed the course of his life forever. It was then that his grandfather revealed to him that he was blessed with magick & was a Healer. This was amplified by his grandmother's revelation that he was born of royal descent; to a lineage of powerful kings of the past whose legacy was his mantle to carry for the rest of his life. From this moment forward he was given a new name: Prince Ke’eyama.

Under the firm guidance of his grandparents, Ke’eyama developed into a powerful worker. Once his most peel animal spirit totem was revealed to him during meditation & prayer, he began following a strict diet of including chicken in his every meal. Doing so was said to enable him to swallow glass & consume fire unharmed. He'd go on to travel across the States to other Voodoo communities & frequent his roots in Haiti. He was an unmistakable figure in his appearance; locs decorated with feathers & ribbons, his signature straw hat, a long staff, & a big smile. Thus, his reputation & strength blossomed.

It wasn't until the early 70s that Prince Ke’eyama returned to New Orleans & witnessed the tumultuous nature & chaos of rampant drug abuse that swept the city. He was determined to make this is ground zero to answer his life calling of being a Healer. To attract the people, he fell back on an old nightclub act that he'd perform during his adventures on the road. He'd amaze his audiences with his mastery of Voodoo, revealing the power of God. Thus, "The Chicken Man" was born. His shows included: tribal dancing, simple magick, & fire-eating then was climaxed by eating a live chicken raw; he'd bite the head off & drink it’s blood, fixing it's neck into a makeshift straw. Though this reviled many, just as many others perceived this act less about entertainment & more of a sacrifice on the part of Prince Ke’eyama on behalf of everyone present. Those who did began to seek him out for counseling & aid in healing. By making a spectacle of himself, Prince Ke’eyama was able to fulfill his work as a Healer. His shows, counseling, conducting readings, & selling gris-gris etc was his ministry. The streets of New Orleans - particularly the French Quarter - were his congregation. Most people encountered him on the street as The Chicken Man by him intuitively reading them at a distance. By the time he zeroed in on someone, he had already had their prescription in mind. Unlike many priests or workers, he pursued his patients.

He developed a tremendous following in the 70s-80s. Many locals saught him out for his services. And was recognized as a powerful priest by those of the local Voodoo Community practicing what they proclaimed to be “true” Voodoo – most prominently Lady Bianca. Still, many popular vodusi dismissed him as sheer entertainment. This ostricization spurred The Cult of the Chicken Man; secret group of dedicated followers. This became one of the largest secret societies in the city since the time of Voodoo Queen Madame Marie Laveau.

Upon his death in 1998, Prince Ke’eyama's ashes were donated to the Voodoo Spiritual Temple in New Orleans where they remain enshrined by Sister Miriam Chamani.

We pour libations & give 💐 today as we celebrate him for his dedicated healing work, imparting the wisdom of his & the collective of ancestral elders through his teachings, & for being a symbolic lesson of what it means to be a product of self-determination in the wake of Maafa.

Offering suggestions: raw or cooked chicken, Baptist prayers/scripture, bourbon, snake charms

‼️Note: offering suggestions are just that & strictly for veneration purposes only. Never attempt to conjure up any spirit or entity without proper divination/Mediumship counsel.‼️

#hoodoo #atr #hoodoos #the hoodoo calendar #atrs #ancestor veneration #rootwork #rootworkers #Haiti #Ayiti #Prince keeyama #Frank Staten #NEw Orleans #Voodoo #Haitian Vodou #New orleans Voodoo

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blueiskewl · 5 months

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‘Lost’ Botticelli Masterpiece Worth $109 Million Found in Italy

A painting by the 15th-century master Sandro Botticelli, recorded as missing since the 1980s, has been found at a home in southern Italy.

The depiction of the Virgin Mary and infant Christ was discovered in a home in the town of Gragnano, near Naples, according to the Carabinieri Cultural Heritage Protection Unit of Naples.

The painting by the artist most famous for “The Birth of Venus” and “Primavera” is estimated by Italian authorities to be worth at least €100 million ($109 million). It was commissioned for the Roman Catholic Church in 1470.

The 58- x 80-centimeter (23- x 31-inch) work, painted in tempera on wood, had hung in a church in the Neapolitan suburb of Santa Maria la Carità since the early 1900s, after the church it was originally given to burned down.

When an earthquake damaged the church in 1982, the painting was given by the parish to a local family named Somma for safekeeping, according to a spokesman for the Italian ministry of culture, who said that there is an official decree on file that entrusts the painting to them, and they are not facing any criminal investigation.

For the first few years after the family was entrusted with the painting, local authorities checked on its condition, advising them on where to keep it and helping move and clean it.

But for some reason the checks stopped in the 1990s and the painting was listed on the culture ministry’s inventory of missing works.

The list is frequently updated, and this summer the painting was traced to the Somma family, who had displayed it in their homes over the years, commander Massimiliano Croce said during the presentation of the find.

After tracking down the branch of the family that currently held the painting, the police worked with the local mayor, who was already aware of the Botticelli’s presence in the Somma home and helped mediate its retrieval, Croce said

“This is a work totally unknown to the public which will now be exhibited again thanks to the intervention of the State. We acted in an administrative manner, without resorting to the Prosecutor’s Office or a seizure, thanks also to the mediation of the mayor,” Croce said.

“The family continues to hold the title of the work, which, however, will be preserved in a museum,” Croce added.

The painting, which will need extensive restoration, shows the Virgin Mary, with blonde hair covered by a veil, holding a chubby baby Jesus on her lap — similar to other depictions by Botticelli, according to the culture ministry.

It is missing some paint and has been scratched, probably during the earthquake in the 1980s and in subsequent house moves.

It is not clear why the state stopped checking on the painting.

“The last time the authorities had inspected the private residence where the Botticelli painting was kept was over 50 years ago,” Croce said. “Since then, inexplicably, the painting had been forgotten by the authorities.”

It is thought to be one of the final paintings by the master, who died in 1510.

The painting will eventually be exhibited in one of the national museums in Naples, but restoration will take at least a year, according to the ministry.

By Barbie Latza Nadeau and Jack Guy.

#Sandro Botticelli #‘Lost’ Botticelli Masterpiece Worth $109 Million Found in Italy #italian artist #painter #painting #tempera on wood #art #artist #art work #art world #art news #lost and found #history #history news

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testure-1988 · 6 months

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Everybody talks about how Disco "died" but that's completely false. Sure, Disco was out of the mainstream consciousness in the United States after the infamous "Disco demolition night" in 1979, but the genre never stopped being popular in Europe, especially in France and Italy (The genre became Italo, and then transformed into Eurobeat in the early 90s. Italo was never popular stateside, but some tracks managed to chart, like Tarzan Boy by Baltimora). 80s synthpop & New Wave absorbed elements of Disco (Blue Monday by New Order, Work For Love and I Wanted To Tell Her by Ministry, etc) and Hi-NRG dance music found some popularity, which is basically just uptempo electronic Disco. The genre was reborn as House Music in the mid-1980s. And then House Music birthed Nu-Disco. So no, Disco never died.

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beardedmrbean · 11 days

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Ten years ago, Solomon Maina's daughter, Debora, was one of 276 schoolgirls kidnapped from their dormitory in the middle of the night by Nigeria's Boko Haram Islamist militants.

Global outrage was swift. A ubiquitous "Bring Back Our Girls" campaign, drawing support from the likes of Michelle Obama and Sylvester Stallone, shined a spotlight on the abductions. Then, in 2016 and 2017, negotiations led to the highly publicised liberation of around 100 of the captives.

Debora was not one of them.

A decade after that fateful night in April 2014, the world has largely forgotten the plight of the so-called Chibok girls.

But for the victims and their families, the tragedy is ongoing.

"Especially at night, I think about my daughter," Maina, in tears, told Reuters in an interview at his home in Chibok, a Christian enclave in the West African nation's majority Muslim north. "I will never forget her."

Abductees who have returned home have struggled to resume their interrupted lives. Some are raising children fathered by their captors. Others have waited years for funds promised by the government to continue their education.

Those who spent the longest time in captivity have often had the most difficulty reintegrating with civilian life.

Dozens freed only in the past few years are living inside a military-run rehabilitation camp with surrendered Boko Haram fighters they married in the bush, according to the Murtala Muhammed Foundation, a charity that advocates for them. With them are more than 30 children.

"I'm tired of staying in the camp," one Chibok survivor told Reuters, asking not to be identified for fear of reprisals by the military. "I want to go home and stay with my family. There is no place like home."

Three of the surviving women told Reuters that in at least five cases women who arrived at the camp unmarried have been married to surrendered fighters once there. Government officials have officiated over such weddings, in an apparent effort to appease the surrendered fighters, family members say.

Aid groups and relatives say there is no clarity surrounding when - or even if - the women in the camp will be allowed to return home.

"They were brainwashed and their psychological thinking and mindset were changed to favour their abductors," said Dauda Yama whose daughter is inside the camp.

The state official in charge of the rehabilitation project did not respond to a Reuters request for comment.

Still missing

Roughly 90 Chibok girls are still missing. Based on the accounts of former abductees, the Murtala Muhammed Foundation believes a third of those have died in captivity.

"Some died of childbirth, some of starvation or snakebite others in government air strikes" against Boko Haram, said Aisha Muhammed-Oyebode, the foundation's head. A parents association for the Chibok girls also estimates dozens are now dead.

Nigeria's president's office and the interior ministry did not respond to requests for comment on how many of the missing Chibok girls were believed to still be alive.

Early on, as the girls began emerging from captivity in the bush and their fate was still a rallying cause around the world, the government pledged to fund their studies in "any field of their choice."

Some liberated captives are attending universities as far afield as the United States. But some say the assistance never arrived.

Yagana Yamani waited for government funds for six years after escaping her captors. She finally asked her mother, a farmer, to help. Now 25, she is studying public health.

"They didn't fulfil their promise," she said.

The federal government did not respond to requests for comment on the question of whether it failed to provide promised support.

Nigeria's military has been fighting Boko Haram since 2009 in a conflict that killed tens of thousands of people and displaced more than 2 million.

While the group aims to topple Nigeria's government to establish a state based on its own interpretation of Islamic law, to many people around the world it is best known for the Chibok kidnapping.

Soon after the raid, then-President Goodluck Jonathan promised that the girls would be brought home. Solomon Maina feels he is alone grappling with his daughter's fate.

Through a freed abductee, he learned that Debora had been injured but survived a bombing raid on Boko Haram. He believes she's still out there, alive.

"Where is she now? Is she in a comfortable place?" he said.

"I think about this all the time."

#nunyas news

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tieflingkisser · 1 month

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Al Jazeera journalist freed after 12-hour arrest by Israeli forces in Gaza

Media watchdogs decry Ismail al-Ghoul’s arrest from al-Shifa Hospital, where thousands of civilians are trapped.

Al Jazeera Arabic correspondent Ismail al-Ghoul has been released after being arrested for 12 hours and severely beaten by Israeli forces in Gaza City’s al-Shifa Hospital. Al-Ghoul was there early on Monday with his crew and other reporters to cover the Israeli army’s fourth raid into the hospital, where thousands of civilians are trapped, including medical staff, patients and displaced families. Witnesses said the Al Jazeera reporter was dragged away by Israeli forces, who also destroyed the broadcasting vehicles of news crews at the medical facility. He has since been freed after 12 hours in Israeli custody. Al-Ghoul told Al Jazeera after his release that Israeli forces destroyed media equipment and arrested journalists gathered in a room used by media teams. He said the journalists were stripped of their clothes and forced to lie on their stomachs as they were blindfolded and their hands tied. Israeli soldiers would open fire to scare them if there was any movement, al-Ghoul said. He added that he had heard that some of his colleagues were also released, but he did not have enough information about their whereabouts. Al-Shifa Hospital, the largest in the Gaza Strip, has served as a base for journalists to report on Israel’s more than five-month war on the Palestinian enclave. Al Jazeera’s Hani Mahmoud, reporting from Rafah, said al-Ghoul was “tortured, beaten and detained by the Israeli military along with his crew member on the ground”. Mahmoud, quoting witnesses, said many Palestinians were beaten and verbally abused, some blindfolded and their hands tied behind their backs. They were then put inside an Israeli military truck and taken to an unknown location, he said. Gaza’s Ministry of Health said Israeli forces launched missiles and opened fire on one of the hospital’s buildings, killing and injuring Palestinians, and a section of the hospital’s courtyard was bulldozed. According to Mahmoud, Israeli forces had also arrested more than 80 other Palestinians, including “women medical staff and [other] journalists”. “The Israeli army made a list of allegations that they are looking for wanted people inside the complex but so far haven’t provided any substantial evidence … to justify what is happening inside al-Shifa,” Mahmoud said.

[keep reading]

#free palestine #palestine #news

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cyberpunkonline · 6 months

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The Rise and Fall of The Rivethead: The Beat that Shook the Industrial Labyrinth

The '80s and '90s saw the burgeoning of a darkly vibrant subculture known as Rivetheads, whose identity coalesced around the pulsing, machine-like rhythms of industrial music. The progenitors of this movement—bands like Front 242, Skinny Puppy, and Nitzer Ebb—fused electronic synths, heavy metal guitar riffs, and themes of dystopian futurism, resonating with the post-punk disenchantment of the era.

At its inception in the mid-1980s, the Rivethead scene was deeply intertwined with the cyberpunk genre, both aesthetically and philosophically. This was a time when William Gibson's "Neuromancer" was not just fiction but a blueprint for a subcultural manifesto. Rivetheads adopted the gritty, high-tech-low-life style, blending the nihilistic bravado of punk with the speculative tech visions of cyberpunk literature.

By the early '90s, Rivetheads had carved out a niche in the underground club scene, a place where strobe lights and fog machines mirrored the chaotic energy of their music. This was a scene less about mosh pits and more about the stomp—an aggressive dance fitting for the mechanical assault of the music. As bands like Ministry and Nine Inch Nails broke into the mainstream, so too did elements of Rivethead culture, propelling it into a broader public consciousness.

The fall—or perhaps more aptly, the dispersal—of the Rivethead movement began in the late '90s. As the music industry shifted, and the internet began to reshape subcultures, the tightly-knit communities of Rivetheads started to fragment. The underground clubs that were once the heart of the scene couldn't compete with the changing landscape of digital music and social media.

By the 2000s, the once-thriving Rivethead scene had faded into a cultural echo, though it never truly died. Like the cyberpunk ethos to which it was kin, the essence of Rivethead culture persists in various forms—be it in fashion, in the continued cult following of industrial bands, or in the thematic undertones of modern techno-industrial acts.

The Rivethead culture, much like the cyberpunk narratives it mirrored, illustrated the fleeting nature of subcultures in the modern age. It served as a powerful reminder of the cyclical rise and fall of collective identities, offering a heady mix of sound and fury that, for a time, defined an era of industrial counterculture.

- Rev1

#cyberpunk #industrial #music #rivithead

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jeffament · 8 months

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apparently there’s a uk 80s electronic synth group that’s also called screaming trees. they kinda fuck n it’s fun to pretend mark lanegan had a fake british accent phase like al jourgensen did in early ministry

#how am i just discovering this tho fr #jeffamentalbreakdown

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catdotjpeg · 1 month

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In the early hours of Monday morning, Israeli forces stormed al-Shifa Hospital in northern Gaza with tanks and heavy gunfire. There have already been a “number of martyrs and wounded” in the ongoing Israeli onslaught, which began around 2:00 a.m. Gaza’s Ministry of Health said about 30,000 people, including displaced civilians, wounded patients, and medical staff, are trapped inside the complex. Sniper bullets and quadcopters target anyone who tries to move. A fire also broke out at the entrance to the hospital, and cases of suffocation occurred among the displaced women and children inside. Less than two hours after the attack began, the Israeli military announced that it was conducting a “precise operation” in the al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, claiming that Hamas was using the medical facility to “conduct and promote terrorist activity.” “We know that senior Hamas terrorists have regrouped inside the [al-Shifa] Hospital and are using it to command attacks against Israel,” Israeli military spokesperson Daniel Hagari said in a video posted on X.

The Israeli military used similar unverified claims to justify three prior attacks on the medical complex, killing dozens of Palestinians. Hagari added in his English video statement that the Israeli military would be conducting a “humanitarian effort” during the planned assault, providing food and water. At the same time, he emphasized that there is “no obligation” for patients and medical staff to evacuate the hospital.

However, in Arabic, Israeli military’s spokesman Avichay Adraee called on Palestinians to evacuate the hospital and its surrounding area on X: “In order to maintain your security, you must immediately evacuate the area to the west and then cross Al-Rashid (Al-Bahr) Street to the south to the humanitarian area in Al-Mawasi.” Al-Mawasi, a “humanitarian zone” in western Khan Younis, is a severely overcrowded strip of land in the west of the Gaza Strip, serving as one of Gaza’s few designated safe areas despite being subjected to Israeli fire.

According to Gaza-based Al Jazeera correspondent Hani Mahmoud, “leaflets dropped by the Israeli military told people inside al-Shifa Hospital, its vicinity and the entire residential blocks surrounding the medical complex to evacuate immediately.” “People are caught up between whether to leave and trust the statement or stay where they are. We are talking about thousands of Palestinians who have been sheltering inside the complex since the start of the war,” Mahmoud continued. “In early December, the Israeli military made a list of allegations and stormed al-Shifa Hospital, destroyed the vast majority of its property, and severely damaged major buildings and medical equipment inside the hospital. About 250 people were arrested from inside the hospital,” Mahmoud said.

The Times of Israel, citing the Israeli military, reports that the army has taken control of al-Shifa Hospital and detained 80 people since the most recent attack began. “The crimes of the [Israeli] occupation will not create any image of victory for Netanyahu and his Nazi army,” Hamas said, as cited by Al Jazeera. “The crimes of the occupation express confusion and loss of hope of achieving a military achievement.” In a joint statement, Palestinian factions said targeting hospitals “is a continuation of the war of extermination waged by the occupation against the Palestinian people and a flagrant violation of all international conventions and laws,” reported Al Jazeera. Gaza’s Health Ministry has described the assault as a “massacre against the sick, the wounded, the displaced,” and has called on all international institutions to immediately stop the invasion. “What the occupation forces are doing is a flagrant violation of international humanitarian law,” the Ministry continued. “The Israeli occupation is still using its fabricated narratives to deceive the world and justify the storming of the al-Shifa Medical Complex.”

-- From "‘Operation Al-Aqsa Flood’ Day 164" by Leila Warah for Mondoweiss, 18 Mar 2024

#palestine #gaza #gaza city #al mawasi #khan younis

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myrsinemezzo · 4 months

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2023 Music Recap

It’s the end of the year! Basically, anyway. And I wanted to share a musical recap for 2023 from rediscovering my love of live shows to sharing the three albums I heard for the first time that absolutely made my world better and got me through the rough spaces of this year. Feel free to share your own favorite live show or album :)

Live Show Extravaganza:

Taylor Swift - What can I say? The Eras tour was truly epic. I cried, I sang my heart out along with every person in the audience (except the dad in front of me who downed 6 hard seltzers throughout the show to cope 😂). Still have to watch the tour video and relive it all.

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Muna - I was so ridiculously excited that they opened for T Swift and then they had a truncated set because of the weather. But! That meant they switched up their set and played my favorite along with “Silk Chiffon”!! (Anything But Me):

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Nine Inch Nails/Ministry/Nitzer Ebb - This triple headliner was wild with a capital ‘W’. Aging dancing goths and everyone pogoing-up and down like an old school 90’s show. I’ll treasure the playlist I have from this one since NIN was what Myrs’s teenage rebellion sounded like. (Less Than):

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Death Cab for Cutie/The Postal Service - Transatlanticism is pretty much my favorite album of all time, so this concert was truly amazing. I bawled during the title track. Absolutely wept. Getting to share it with a haladriel friend made it even better. And the Depeche Mode encore? Impeccable. (Transatlanticism live):

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Pedro the Lion - The sound of my 20s to early 30s because I just couldn’t quit listening to it. As an exvangelical, his music is everything, and hearing him play the whole album live was unreal. (Rapture):

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Nation of Language - 80s style synth pop!! And perfect synth pop at that. I named my first long-form Haladriel fic after this one. (Across That Fine Line). So good live, and the venue was tiny, so it was me near the front with a friend bopping and swaying all night long:

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Michigander - their music is just fun, and I love that. Solid pop rock and a great live show that had the crowd singing along at the top of their lungs. (Stay Out of It):

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Albums of the Year:

Frightened Rabbit’s “Midnight Organ Fight” - huge thanks to @rebelrebelwrites and @bad-surprise for introducing me to this album in their own playlists and mentionings this year. “While I’m alive, I’ll make tiny changes to earth” will probably be my next embroidery text project, and a vinyl recording is making its way into my brother’s arms as a holiday present. (Good Arms vs. Bad Arms live A/V club recording):

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Hozier’s Unreal/Unearth - It was stressful as all hell, but I scored a ticket to see him when he comes to my city, and I just know there will be copious weeping and lip wobbling. This whole album is my favorite of his three, when I never expected it to top “Wasteland, Baby”. But so many songs scream fic material and are so beautiful and lush. Here’s my sing at the top of my lungs car song (Who We Are):

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Ethel Cain’s Preacher’s Daughter - the utter vibes of this album are absolutely out of this world. Switches between the darkest and broodiest to americana to a track played in the opener to headliner switch at the Taylor Swift show. Just incredible. (Family Tree):

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#2023 music recap #my music #personal post

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silicacid · 5 months

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Almost 1.9M Palestinian displaced across Gaza Strip since Oct. 7: UN

Almost 1.9 million people, or over 80% of the population, have been displaced across the Gaza Strip since Oct. 7, the UN Agency for Palestinian refugees or UNRWA said Monday in a statement.

As of Dec. 2, 111 UNRWA staffers have been killed since the beginning of the war, it added.

The Israeli army resumed bombing the Gaza Strip early Friday after declaring an end to a weeklong humanitarian pause.

The death toll from Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip has surged to 15,899 since the start of the conflict on Oct. 7, the Health Ministry in the besieged Palestinian enclave announced Sunday.

The number of wounded through the same period has risen to 41,316.

The official Israeli death toll stands at 1,200.

Many were displaced early in the war, when Israel ordered Palestinians in northern Gaza to move to the southern strip, implying that they would be safer there, despite warnings that such a huge displacement would be a humanitarian catastrophe.

In the days and weeks since, however, Israel has also targeted the southern strip, leading many observers to say that nowhere in the strip is safe.

#palestine #gaza #free palestine

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mariacallous · 4 months

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EL GENEINA, SUDAN—Once crowded, El Geneina’s main street was empty other than a few pedestrians in civilian dress, but with AK-47s slung over their shoulders. As our car drove across West Darfur’s capital in October, I was trying to remember the buildings that, two years ago, were packed with displaced people.

In 2021, local Arab militias, including members of Sudan’s paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), had stormed the nearby camp of Kirinding, which was then hosting some 50,000 civilians. The displaced had found shelter in the town itself, in more than 80 buildings, including schools, ministries, and courts, which they filled with hastily built huts of branches and straw.

The compounds were now deserted, their walls riddled with bullet holes. The displaced had been displaced again, now to neighboring Chad, only 20 miles away. They mostly belong to the Masalit community, the main non-Arab tribe in West Darfur, which once ruled over a powerful precolonial sultanate.

In theory, there was no reason for the Masalit, with few armed forces nor influence in national politics, to be victims of the conflict between the regular army and the RSF, both focusing on control of remote Khartoum. But the war did not spare Darfur, and in El Geneina, it immediately took an ethnic turn. The RSF is largely made of Darfuri Arab militias, the same or similar to those known as the janjaweed that had displaced the non-Arab communities 20 years ago alongside the army.

In El Geneina over the past nine months, whether part of the RSF or acting on their own, Arab fighters had enough arms to settle their accounts with the Masalit. Meanwhile, the army, led by officers from central Sudan, did not seem to care about protecting Darfuri civilians. More than 5,000 Masalit were reportedly killed in June, and the Doctors Without Borders hospital in Adre, Chad, received 1,000 injured people in a week. A retrospective mortality survey conducted in a new camp in Chad, where most refugees came from El Geneina, found that the death rate had multiplied twentyfold between the beginning of the crisis and the survivors’ arrival in Chad, and more than 80 percent of the deaths had been caused by violence.

After that first wave of killings, the new administration of El Geneina, dominated by Arabs and close to the RSF, has been trying to send signs of appeasement. The Masalit are welcome to return, several officials told me. But not in town itself, some added. They accused the disgruntled Masalit youth born in the displaced camps of having formed criminal gangs known as “Colombians.” Some specified that the Masalit should not live less than six miles from El Geneina. But in rural areas, they’re likely to lack essential services (such as water healthcare, and education) and often suffer exploitative practices, such as giving up a share of their harvest in order not to be attacked, as has been common in Darfur in the last 20 years. Under such conditions, their return might not come anytime soon.

As I was driving back to the Chadian border after a week in El Geneina, I saw a truck full of people stopped at a military checkpoint, likely to pay taxes. A couple of weeks later, in early November, about 10,000 people—mostly Masalit civilians—followed them when Ardamata, a Masalit neighborhood on the outskirts of El Geneina where survivors had taken refuge around the army garrison, was evacuated by the regular army forces and attacked by RSF forces and Arab militias as well. Up to 2,000 people were reportedly killed.

Adre, once a small Chadian border post, looked like a small city when I visited in October. Its so-called transit camp hosts more than 120,000 refugees, waiting for the UNHCR to register them and move them to official refugee camps, where the pace of construction struggles to keep up with new arrivals. For now, the refugees have built tents with branches covered with plastic tarpaulins, women’s clothing, and cardboard. It seems almost as if all of El Geneina—at least all Masalit, the majority of the town’s population—have moved to Adre.

Some 120 miles farther north, the border crossing of Tina—with only a dry riverbed to cross between the Sudanese town and its Chadian twin—has also been welcoming refugees daily, many coming from much more remote places than El Geneina. A few miles outside the Chadian town, similar shelters to those in Adre have been built by about 1,500 refugees around an empty concrete fence.

The morning I visited, Abderrahman, who arrived the night before with his family of six other refugees (three women and three children), was erecting a frame made of branches and covering them with plastic sheeting. It would likely be their home for some weeks or months—the time that UNHCR needs to move them to a regular camp, where they will receive some relief—food, water, a better tent, blankets and some medical assistance.

For now, his 20-year-old niece, Manahil, helped him build the shelter in spite of injuries to her shoulder and arm from the bombing that destroyed their house one week before, in Nyala, the capital of South Darfur and Sudan’s second-largest city. But no health care was available in the camp, and refugees had to pay for water delivered from the town on trucks.

Abderrahman then had to walk into Tina to find work while I stayed to speak with Manahil under a tree.

The Darfur war first displaced her family from their village 20 years ago, “when I was still breastfed,” she said, so she has no memory from that first war. The new war is the first that she saw. Her neighborhood was controlled by soldiers from the RSF, who were “entering houses, looting properties, and whipping or killing those resisting,” she told me. “They also kidnapped many girls in our area, until now they haven’t come back.”

The family left town after an army plane bombed their neighborhood. Her three brothers were killed, and six members of the family were injured. They saved the food they could from their kitchen, separated from the rest of the house by a heap of rubble. Across a hole, they could see RSF soldiers looting their clothes in the living room. At the city’s exit, the RSF also took the phones and money of those leaving.

The 300-mile journey to Chad, on a pickup truck with 15 passengers, lasted a week. She couldn’t remember how many checkpoints—controlled by the RSF, unidentified Arab militias, or non-Arab rebel groups—they crossed. Each time, the driver had to pay. Now the family is broke and can’t move further.

“We only want a quiet place here in Chad,” Manahil said. “Unlike the others, we don’t want to migrate.” She pointed at a group of young men, university students who said they were on their way to Europe to resume their interrupted studies.

In the town of Tina itself, I met similar refugees on the road. Mohamed, 27, and Ilham, 20, are a recently married student couple from Khartoum’s middle class. He had studied computer science; she was still in high school but hoping to study the same subject. For them, too, it was their first time seeing fighting; indeed, this war is the first of Sudan’s almost continuous conflicts since independence in 1956 to engulf the capital city, which historically had been a place of refuge for displaced people from the peripheries.

“We realized it would last years, and that we were eating the little money we had,” Mohamed said. In July, they decided to leave with what remained. In Kosti, a city on the Nile to the south of Khartoum, for about $100 each, they joined the monthly convoy to Darfur, escorted by former rebels who were presenting themselves as neutral in the ongoing conflict.

A month after they left Khartoum, they reached Tina. “It was still the good season to take the sea, but we had no more money,” said Mohamed, referring to the journey across the Mediterranean. He began working as a day laborer, cutting grass in the bush for the livestock. In the convoy, most of their fellow passengers had wanted to go to Europe, Mohamed said: “Some already reached Libya, then Tunisia, from where crossing is cheaper. One is now in France. I know the risks, but we will continue. I know that in Libya, there are prisons where they call your parents so that they pay a ransom. I know that at sea, it’s between life and death, but we have no other solution.”

As soon as they have money, the two will travel with Khalil, a pseudonym for a smuggler based in Tina, whose phone number they had been given when they were still in Khartoum. The 37-year-old Sudanese man came to Chad as a refugee himself 20 years ago. In 2014, as there was no work in the camp where he was staying, he began to work as a driver to support his family. Gold had recently been discovered in the borderlands between Chad and Libya, and new routes were opened. Drivers such as Khalil began carrying both miners and migrants, dropping them at the border, from where the latter were quickly entrusted to Libyan smugglers.

Last year, Khalil turned himself from smuggler to migrant, traveling with his jobless younger brother, “who had heard some were crossing the sea and succeeding in life.” They reached the gold mines without enough money to continue. They looked for gold, got 30 grams (worth about $1,500), and continued to Zawiya, a main departure hub on the Libyan coast.

Then they decided that it was better not to risk both their lives at sea. Khalil gave up his share of the gold and returned to Chad. His brother carried on, but his boat was intercepted by the Libyan Coast Guard, which is supported by the European Union in order to decrease flows of migrants toward Europe. He was brought back to Libya, then decided to go to Algeria and, like many Sudanese asylum-seekers, entered Morocco, from where he made three unsuccessful attempts to reach Spain. This year, he managed to get on a plane to Turkey and is now in Greece.

Khalil resumed driving gold-miners and migrants. He said he’s been doing well since the war broke out in Sudan; the number of passengers has increased, and rates have doubled between North Darfur’s capital El Fasher and Tina.

By the end of December 2023, more than 7 million Sudanese had been displaced by the new war. Among them, 1.3 million sought refuge outside Sudan, nearly half of them in Chad and 380,000 in Egypt. Depending on sources, only 5,000 to 14,000 officially made it to Libya, but many more likely crossed the largely unpatrolled Libyan border, including through Chad. New routes opened and older ones were reactivated, from Chad to Libya, as well as to Niger, then Algeria, then Tunisia. Gold mines in the Saharan borderlands acted as hubs; there, migrants could quickly shift from a Chadian truck to a Libyan taxi, or from a Nigerien smuggler to an Algerian one.

Many Sudanese quickly reached Tunisia, and unlike other African migrants, they had no intention to stay and work. They went directly to Sfax, the main departure hub along the Mediterranean coast—only 117 miles from the small Italian island of Lampedusa—and camped in city parks.

The local population was not so happy. It was alleged that on July 3, a Sudanese refugee (though other sources alleged it was two Cameroonians) killed a Tunisian man. The incident became the trigger for local mobs that rounded up Black Africans in an attempt to expel them from Tunisia’s second city. The police, pretending to offer protection, put the migrants into vehicles amid racist shouting by locals, before deporting them to the Libyan border. As many as 1,200 people were stranded in the no man’s land between Tunisian and Libyan forces for a week, and some remained for more than a month.

It became a deadlock, with Tunisian and Libyan forces playing ping-pong with the migrants before eventually striking a deal to share them between the two countries. There were reports of nearly 30 deaths, including from violence and thirst. At first, the only water available was from the sea.

The European Union remained astoundingly silent during the waves of violence against Black Africans in Tunisia. While they were taking place, the European Commission and some members states (chiefly Italy and the Netherlands) struck a cooperation deal with Tunisia, including a migration component described by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen as a “blueprint” for future similar deals. It is mostly aimed at paying Tunisia more than $115 million to tighten its borders to prevent migrants leaving by sea and to accept the “readmission” of those Tunisians who succeed in crossing. (In 2023, more than 60 percent of sea arrivals to Italy had come from Tunisia, rather than Libya—as had been common in the past).

I visited southern Tunisia in August. The UNHCR noted a sharp increase around then of Sudanese registration in the country, as well as of Sudanese asylum-seekers crossing from Tunisia to Italy. During a morning of medical consultations I attended at a UNHCR center, of 20 patients, 19 were Sudanese. Six had left Sudan after the war began, including three who had reached Tunisia in about a month. Six had foot injuries from having walked too much.

Among them, Issa, who preferred not to use his real name, had left his displaced camp near El Fasher 40 days before. He said he had been pushed back to Libya three times by Tunisian border guards and had then gone from Libya to Algeria before walking 450 miles to the Tunisian coast. Among those who had spent longer on the road, Abdallah had left Khartoum in 2017, spending seven years in Libya and only coming to Tunisia after 12 failed attempts to cross the sea, generally followed by stays in Libyan detention centers. “Each time, I had to pay a bribe, or to escape,” he said.

Ismail, from Nyala, decided to go to Libya even though his father, who made the journey first, was jailed for five months and tortured for ransom until he died. The family did not have enough money to get him released, even after selling their house. “I left Sudan in 2021. I didn’t have enough information on Libya but knew my father’s story. I had to be ready for anything,” he said.

He failed to cross the sea and went on to Morocco, where he tried more than 10 times to climb the walls surrounding the Spanish enclave of Ceuta. “My life was like that of a gazelle running from a lion. I tried to reach Europe from Libya and failed. From Morocco, I failed too. Then I found lots of migrants were coming to Tunisia. Everywhere there’s just a small hole to reach Europe, migrants go through.” A month later, he messaged me after arriving in Lampedusa.

In the past, most Sudanese used to try to make a living in Libya. But the increasing violence in the country has pushed more to cross the sea. The same thing took place this year in Tunisia, in spite of increasing interceptions by the coast guard.

There is a bitter irony in seeing Europe again panicked by growing migrant flows, including from Sudan, transiting through its new model partner, Tunisia. Indeed, in 2016, Sudan itself had become a main EU partner on migration, with the capital hosting the headquarters of the EU’s regional “Khartoum Process.”

The EU was then accused of cooperating with a regime whose president, Omar al-Bashir, was indicted by the International Criminal Court for genocide; and with his then-trusted, RSF, which he had specifically tasked to control migration, and whose leader, Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo—also known as Hemeti—repeatedly bragged that he was arresting migrants on behalf of Europe.

The EU only admitted to working with the police, which also included a paramilitary component involved in crimes in Darfur—namely, the Central Reserve Police, a force that’s now under U.S. sanctions for killing pro-democracy protesters in Khartoum in 2022.

Whether regular or not, some of the Sudanese forces that benefited from Europe’s financial (or at least political) support to fight migration are now fighting each other, and provoking new refugee flows.

Sudanese refugees know they have high chances of success at getting asylum in Europe and North America, in particular since the latest war started. The United States, France, and other nations see them as perfectly legitimate refugees. In August, the U.S. government extended its temporary protected status for Ukrainian and Sudanese nationals through 2025.

Since July, the French asylum appeal court also granted similar temporary protection status to several Sudanese refugees from Khartoum and Darfur whose asylum claims had first been rejected, arguing their regions of origin were in “a situation of blind violence of exceptional intensity”—thus creating legal precedents for anyone from the same regions to get protection, at least temporarily.

Maybe because its decisions are too generous in the eyes of the current government, that court is now under attack from the interior minister, whose new law on immigration (hardened and approved on Dec. 19) is set to reduce typical asylum appeal panels of three judges—one representing the UNHCR—to only one. It also reintroduced into French law an infraction known as “illegal stay,” while the new European Commission Pact on Migration and Asylum, agreed upon the same night, will allow detention of some asylum-seekers at the EU’s external borders. UNHCR head Filippo Grandi congratulated the EU, tweeting his readiness to support.

The temporary protection status is based on older, more generous EU laws, most notably a 2001 directive allowing immediate protection, rather than detention, in case of mass displacement, which was enforced for the first time in the case of Ukraine in March 2022. Together with measures facilitating Ukrainians’ entry and circulation within Europe, this allowed more than 4 million Ukrainians to receive immediate protection in the EU. But there seems to be little appetite in Europe to expand the Ukrainian exception to other war-torn countries.

Sudanese migrants still have to reach Europe by themselves and face obstacles—across the Sahara, the Mediterranean, or the Alps between Italy and France—that are not only natural, but also caused by European policies. The EU has been gradually building a network of both physical and legal walls south of the Mediterranean, harming both economic migrants and political refugees, violating both the U.N.’s 1990 convention on the rights of migrant workers and its 1951 Geneva refugee convention, and using all kinds of excuses—from COVID-19 to the war in Ukraine—to make exceptional measures permanent—in effect, as Foreign Policy pointed out at the height of COVID-19, the end of asylum as a practical possibility. Now the new EU pact uses the vague concept of “crisis” to allow members states to ignore their asylum obligations.

Europe’s reaction to the new Sudanese war was not particularly vocal other than recognizing that it was also a refugee crisis, merging with Europe’s existing migration crisis. Calling for much-needed funding for the new refugees, the U.N., to which the EU is a major donor, did not hesitate to play on Europe’s fears; the reasoning being that Europe’s interest was to keep the refugees in the camps in Chad, and thus fund relief or face increasing flows.

But once in Chad, the newcomers quickly realized that those who preceded them 20 years before had suffered from the fickleness of the aid sector, which is always moving from one crisis to the next. When rations had decreased, many had decided to travel to find work (from gold-mining in the Sahara to cheap labor industries in Europe) and send remittances to their families in the camps.

UNHCR resettlement processes remained extremely limited because of the lack of slots in Europe and North America. Everywhere I went, in Chad, Libya, or Tunisia, I heard of a few cases of Sudanese resettled to the United States or Canada—but some had waited 20 years, and others were still waiting.

UNHCR admits being compelled to look for “durable solutions” within those three African countries, even though they are neither durable, nor solutions. In Libya as in Tunisia, even refugees registered by UNHCR have been arrested—including by being rounded up when they were camping or protesting in front of the U.N. agency’s offices—before being detained or deported.

Among those who travelled to Tina with Mohamed, the computer science student, some registered as refugees in Chad in the hope that they’d be resettled, then changed their minds and are now in Libya or Tunisia.

Khalil, the smuggler, knows he won’t be short of clients: “Some applied to resettlement since 2003 and never left,” he told me. “Legal migration is too difficult.”

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