At least 25,000 ordered to evacuate as wildfires burn in Canada’s Jasper National Park
(NEW YORK) — At least 25,000 people have been forced to evacuate due to wildfires in Jasper National Park in Canada, officials said.
The town of Jasper and Jasper National Park in Alberta have closed and are being evacuated due to active wildfires, the park said Tuesday.
The evacuation impacts 15,000 people who were visiting and staying in the park when the order was issued, as well as about 10,000 people in the town of Jasper, including seasonal workers, according to the Alberta Emergency Management Agency.
“The Town of Jasper and Parks Canada’s priority is the safety of our staff, residents and visitors,” Jasper National Park said in a statement on Tuesday. “We acknowledge this is a stressful time and appreciate patience as this is an evolving and complex situation.”
Thousands of residents and visitors already evacuated overnight, as multiple wildfires burn in Jasper National Park, the largest national park in the Canadian Rockies, the park said.
Parks Canada is mobilizing additional firefighting resources and aircraft to assist in battling the blazes, according to Jasper National Park.
“Our priority is to protect the town and community of Jasper, limiting wildfire growth towards town, Highway 16 and critical infrastructure,” Jasper National Park said.
Reservations through Aug. 6 in Jasper National Park have been canceled. A reopening date has not yet been announced.
Alberta is experiencing “extreme wildfire conditions,” with more than 170 wildfires burning across the province, according to the government of Alberta.
(LONDON) — The United States has announced it has invited Sudan’s warring parties to talks in Geneva, Switzerland, as international and regional efforts intensify for a cease-fire in the northeast African nation’s civil war.
The U.S.-mediated talks are set to be co-hosted by Switzerland and Saudi Arabia, a senior U.S. official told ABC News, building off the unsuccessful Jeddah negotiations process with additional observation from the African Union, Egypt, the United Nations and the United Arab Emirates.
“A few things have changed: One is the acuteness of the horrors, and two is the greater alignment across the region among our African and Gulf counterparts that this is an unacceptable situation, and that nobody wins from the continued destabilization,” the senior U.S. official told ABC News.
“We have to listen to the Sudanese people and deliver a process on a cease-fire and humanitarian aid access,” the official said.
The talks are set to begin in about three weeks, on Aug. 14, in Switzerland. The U.S. official said the U.S. is also looking into civilian participation at the talks. The talks are expected to be attended by representatives of the warring parties, who met separately with a U.N. envoy.
It comes as talks in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, broke down at the end of last year, with the warring parties refusing to budge or honor their commitments under the Jeddah declaration. However, recently concluded talks in Geneva were described by The U.N. Secretary-General’s Personal Envoy for Sudan Ramtane Lamamra as an “encouraging initial step” in the complex process.
In a statement posted on X, Rapid Support Forces Paramilitary Group (RSF) chief Mohamed Daglo — commonly known as Hemedti — said the RSF is “ready to deal with these talks constructively.” He said he welcomed the invitation by U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken.
Sudanese Army chief General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan was yet to make a public statement on the invitation.
The scheduled negotiations arrive as the war in Sudan approaches its 16th month, U.N. Spokesman Stéphane Dujarric in a briefing on Tuesday, adding that the U.N. “continues to be extremely alarmed” by the situation.
“Almost 26 million men, women and children are acutely hungry,” said Dujarric. “The equivalent to the entire population of Australia. 750,000 people are just one step away from famine.”
On April 15, 2023, war broke out in Sudan’s capital Khartoum following months of tensions between the SAF and RSF paramilitary group linked to a planned transition to civilian rule. Fighting has since spread across the northeast African nation and intensified with allied militias joining the fight.
The conflict has precipitated the world’s “largest internal displacement crisis,” driving over 10 million people — about 20% of Sudan’s population — from their homes according to the U.N.’s International Office of Migration. At least 16,000 people have been killed according to the U.N.
A new report by Doctors Without Borders this week revealed civilians are enduring “horrific levels of violence,” with thousands across the country being treated for war-related injuries caused by explosions, gunshots and stabbings amid “shocking” reports of sexual and gender-based violence.
“The scale of death, suffering, and destruction in Sudan is devastating. This senseless conflict must end,” said the U.S. State Department in a statement. “The United States calls upon the SAF and the RSF to attend the talks and approach them constructively, with the imperative to save lives, stop the fighting, and create a path to a negotiated political solution to the conflict.”
(LONDON) — At least 14 more people were killed and 450 injured in Lebanon on Wednesday after a series of new explosions of wireless devices rocked the South, the Bekaa and the southern suburbs of Beirut, according to the Ministry of Health and the Lebanese Red Cross.
More than 30 ambulances are providing treatment and evacuations to wounded people in Lebanon on Wednesday, the Lebanese Red Cross said.
The Lebanese Army command has asked citizens not to gather in places witnessing security incidents to allow medical teams to arrive.
Members of the Lebanese Civil Defense are working to extinguish fires that broke out inside homes, cars and shops in the Bekaa, the South, Mount Lebanon and the southern suburbs due to the explosions, officials said.
All walkie-talkie devices were taken from security services members at the Rafiq Harir International Airport in Beirut after news of the devices exploding.
Pagers explode across Lebanon on Tuesday
At least 12 civilians were killed and at least 2,800 people injured in the explosions that took place Tuesday, according to Lebanese authorities. Around 460 of the injuries were critical and required surgery, Lebanese Health Minister Firass Abiad said. Most victims are suffering from eye and facial injuries, while others suffered injuries to hands and fingers, he said.
Israel was behind the deadly explosion of pagers across Lebanon on Tuesday, sources told ABC News on Wednesday.
The Hezbollah militant group said it is conducting a “security and scientific investigation” into the explosion of pagers across Lebanon on Tuesday.
Hezbollah said 11 of its members were killed on Tuesday, though — as is typical in its statements — did not specify how they died.
“We hold the Israeli enemy fully responsible for this criminal aggression, which also targeted civilians and led to the deaths of a number of martyrs and the injury of a large number with various wounds,” Hezbollah said of the pager explosions in a Tuesday statement.
In a Wednesday morning statement, Hezbollah said it would continue operations to “support Gaza,” and vowed a “reckoning” for Israel for the “massacre on Tuesday.”
The dead and injured included people who are not members of Hezbollah. Lebanese officials said that an 8-year-old girl and an 11-year-old boy are among the dead.
Israel has not commented on explosions
Israel has not commented on its alleged involvement in the apparent attack, which prompted chaos in the capital Beirut and elsewhere in Hezbollah’s south Lebanon heartland.
Around 100 hospitals received wounded people, the Lebanese Ministry of Public Health said, with hospitals in Beirut and its southern suburb quickly filling to capacity. Patients were then directed to other hospitals outside the region.
The Iranian ambassador to Lebanon, Mojtaba Amani, was among those who had one of the pagers and was injured in an explosion Tuesday, according to Iranian state TV. The diplomat said in a phone call that he was “feeling well and fully conscious,” according to Iranian state TV.
“I am proud and honored that my blood has become one with the blood of the honorable Lebanese people, as a result of the horrific terrorist crime that targeted our brotherly Lebanon yesterday. This noble country has stood with dignity and pride since the first day of al-Aqsa Storm,” Amani said Wednesday.
At least 14 people were also injured in targeted attacks on Hezbollah members in Syria, according to the Syrian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Fears grow of Israel-Hezbollah escalation
The alleged Israeli operation has again piqued fears of escalation in the Israel-Hezbollah conflict ongoing since Oct. 8, when members of the Iranian-backed group began cross-border attacks in support of Hamas’ war with Israel in the Gaza Strip.
Frontier skirmishes, Israeli strikes and Hezbollah rocket and artillery salvoes have been near-constant through 11 months of war in Gaza. Israeli officials have repeatedly threatened to launch a new military operation against Hezbollah along the Israel-Lebanon border. Tens of thousands of Israelis have left their homes in border regions due to the fighting.
The Israel Defense Forces said warplanes hit Hezbollah targets in six locations in southern Lebanon overnight into Wednesday. Artillery strikes were also conducted, it added.
Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah is due to make a public address on Thursday afternoon to address the situation. In February, Nasrallah urged members to stop using their cellphones, describing the technology as “a deadly agent.”
Schools across Lebanon will be closed on Wednesday, Lebanese state media reported, citing the country’s Minister of Education. Schools and offices closed include public and private schools, high schools, technical institutes, the Lebanese University and private higher education institutions, Lebanese state media reported.
The Lebanese Council of Ministers collectively condemned “this criminal Israeli aggression, which constitutes a serious violation of Lebanese sovereignty and a crime by all standards.”
It added that “the government immediately began making all necessary contacts with the countries concerned and the United Nations to place it before its responsibilities regarding this continuing crime.”
World reacts to pager attacks
The United Nations special coordinator for Lebanon condemned the attack on Lebanon, calling it an “extremely concerning escalation in what is an already unacceptably volatile context,” in a statement released by the U.N. Office of the Spokesperson for the Secretary General.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken said during a press conference in Egypt on Wednesday that the U.S. “did not know about and was not involved” in Israel’s pager attacks in Lebanon and Syria — but said that officials were still gathering information and did not directly blame Israel.
“Broadly speaking, we’ve been very clear, and we remain very clear about the importance of all parties avoiding any steps that could further escalate the conflict that we’re trying to resolve in Gaza,” Blinken said. Its spread to other fronts, he added, is “clearly not in the interest of anyone involved.”
A cease-fire deal in Gaza, Blinken added, would “materially improve the prospects of defusing the situation” on the Israeli-Lebanese border and allow thousands of people living near the area on both sides of the divide to return home.
The U.S. and the European Union have both designated the Hezbollah militant group a foreign terrorist organization.
ABC News’ Luis Martinez, Shannon K. Kingston, Ghazi Balkiz, Morgan Winsor, Anne Flaherty, Nasser Atta, Joe Simonetti, Jordana Miller and Helena Skinner contributed to this report.