Reuters World News Summary

The eruption of fighting eight days ago between the army and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) paramilitary group has triggered a humanitarian crisis, killed 420 people and trapped millions of Sudanese without access to basic services. Russia claims progress in battle for Bakhmut Russia's defence ministry on Sunday said its forces had advanced in Bakhmut, while a top Ukrainian commander posted photographs with his forces saying they were holding the frontline that runs through the city, all but destroyed in some of the bloodiest combat of the 14-month war.

Following is a summary of current world news briefs.

New migrant caravan heads for Mexico City to speed up legal route to US

Thousands of migrants, detained for months in southern Mexico, formed a new caravan in protest on Sunday to head for the capital to speed up their applications for U.S. asylum. The migrants, mostly Venezuelans, started their march north early in Tapachula, the city bordering Guatemala whose detention centers have been overwhelmed by their vast numbers. Some said they expected to reach Mexico City in about 10 days.

Limit access to most secret US documents, Senate intel panel head says

Too many people have access to the U.S. government's closest secrets and a central entity should oversee the classification process, the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee said on Sunday, addressing leaks of documents in an online chat group. A U.S. Air National Guardsman was charged on April 14 with leaking classified documents online in what is believed to be the most serious U.S. security breach since more than 700,000 documents, videos and diplomatic cables appeared on the WikiLeaks website in 2010.

Tensions over Karabakh rise after Azerbaijan blocks land route from Armenia

Azerbaijan said on Sunday it had established a checkpoint on the only land route to the contested region of Nagorno-Karabakh, a step that was followed by claims of border shootings by both Azeri and Armenian forces. Nagorno-Karabakh is internationally recognised as part of Azerbaijan, but its 120,000 inhabitants are predominantly ethnic Armenians and it broke away from Baku in a war in the early 1990s.

Ukraine war spurs record global spending on military, Stockholm think tank says

Global military spending rose to a record last year as Russia's war in Ukraine drove the biggest annual increase in expenditure in Europe since the end of the Cold War three decades ago, a leading conflict and armaments think tank said on Monday. World military expenditure rose by 3.7% in real terms in 2022 to $2.24 trillion, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) said in a statement.

A journey across Sudan's capital Khartoum, a city transformed by war

In the Sudanese capital, charred paramilitary pick-up trucks hit by air strikes litter main streets and weary residents queue for bread in neighbourhoods largely emptied of civilian life. On the outskirts, people lug suitcases long distances by foot towards bus stops as they try to flee the city.

Foreign states rush high-risk Sudan evacuation, some foreign citizens hurt

The armed forces of the United States and the United Kingdom have evacuated embassy staff from Sudan, while other nations rushed to get their citizens to safety as rival military factions battled in the capital Khartoum on Sunday. The eruption of fighting eight days ago between the army and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) paramilitary group has triggered a humanitarian crisis, killed 420 people and trapped millions of Sudanese without access to basic services.

Russia claims progress in battle for Bakhmut

Russia's defence ministry on Sunday said its forces had advanced in Bakhmut, while a top Ukrainian commander posted photographs with his forces saying they were holding the frontline that runs through the city, all but destroyed in some of the bloodiest combat of the 14-month war. The Telegram post by Ukrainian Colonel General Oleksandr Syrskyi followed a statement by the Russian ministry that its troops had secured two blocks in western districts, and airborne units were providing reinforcements to the north and south. Russia sees Bakhmut as a stepping stone to more advances in eastern Ukraine.

Peru's Toledo returns home to join two other former heads of state in jail

Former Peruvian President Alejandro Toledo returned on Sunday to Peru from the United States, becoming the third head of state to be imprisoned as the South American country seeks to shake off years of corruption by its rulers. Toledo, 77, has been ordered to serve a pre-trial detention of 18 months inside a police base on the outskirts of the capital Lima, an official statement said.

Around 60 civilians killed in northern Burkina Faso attack - prosecutor

Around 60 civilians were killed on Friday in northern Burkina Faso by people wearing the uniforms of the Burkinabe armed forces, local prosecutor Lamine Kabore said on Sunday, citing information from police in the town of Ouahigouya. He said an investigation had been launched after the attack on the village of Karma in Yatenga province in the borderlands near Mali, an area overrun by Islamist groups linked to al Qaeda and Islamic State that have carried out repeated attacks for years.

Jordan says Israel detains lawmaker on suspicion of arms smuggling

Israel has detained a Jordanian lawmaker on suspicion of smuggling arms and gold into the West Bank and Amman is working to secure his release, the kingdom's foreign ministry said on Sunday. Imad al Adwan, a member of parliament who had crossed a main border crossing along the Jordan River earlier on Sunday by car, was being held and interrogated by Israeli authorities, Sinan al Majali, a Jordanian foreign ministry spokesperson said in a statement to state media.

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)