At least seven people were killed and 20 injured in an attack on a hospital and market in South Sudan on Saturday, a medical charity has said, as fears mount that the country could return to all out civil war.

Doctors Without Borders, also known as Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), condemned the early morning attack on its hospital in Old Fangak, Jonglei State, in the northeast of the country.

MSF said helicopter gunships dropped a bomb on their pharmacy and fired on the town for 30 minutes.

The pharmacy burned to the ground and all medical supplies were lost in the attack, destroying the last remaining hospital in the area. A nearby civilian market was also bombed by a drone, according to MSF.

“This attack has severely compromised our ability to provide lifesaving care in Old Fangak – the only hospital serving over 110,000 people in the area,” MSF said.

It’s not immediately clear why the hospital was targeted, or by whom, but the attack comes amid fears the country is on the brink of returning to civil war amid growing tensions between South Sudan’s President Salva Kiir and Vice President Riek Machar – who lead rival factions in a unity government formed following a peace deal in 2018. Machar was arrested in March and accused of trying to stir up a rebellion.

MSF called on all parties to the conflict to respect and protect civilians and humanitarian infrastructure, adding that Saturday’s deadly attack was the second assault on its facilities in less than a month. On April 14, armed men looted an MSF hospital in Ulang, Upper Nile State, cutting off access to secondary healthcare for thousands, the charity said.

Fangak County Commissioner Biel Boutros Biel, in an audio message aired on local TV, alleged government forces – the South Sudan People’s Defense Forces (SSPDF) – had carried out the attack on the hospital and market, which he said had displaced more than 30,000 civilians.

Fangak county is ethnically Nuer and has been traditionally associated with the opposition party loyal to Vice President Machar.

“The government is using natural resources to kill its own people because of their identity as Nuer,” and perceived loyalty to opposition groups, Biel said, referencing a recent government directive labeling nine counties, including Fangak, as “hostile.” He condemned the violence, urging the global community to act.

A day prior to the attack, the embassies of Canada, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, the UK, and the US, alongside the EU, warned of South Sudan’s rapidly deteriorating security situation and demanded President Kiir release Vice President Machar from house arrest.

“All parties must end the use of violence as a political tool,” the countries said in a joint statement.

A fragile ceasefire

South Sudan split from the rest of Sudan in 2011 after decades of pro-independence unrest but has since struggled to keep the peace in its territory.

It is divided along ethnic lines – between the majority Dinka tribe, which Kiir hails from, and Machar’s Nuer ethnic group, the second-largest in the country.

It plunged into a civil war in 2013 after Kiir removed Machar as vice president, with the ensuing five-year conflict killing an estimated 400,000 people before the two sides reached a fragile ceasefire and power-sharing agreement in 2018.

The country, which has never held a national election, is now governed by a coalition led by President Kiir and five vice presidents, one of whom is Machar, the leader of the SPLM/A-IO party.

Following Machar’s arrest in March, the SPLM/A-IO issued a statement saying his detention “effectively brings the (peace) agreement (between him and Kiir) to a collapse.”

According to a 2025 UN Refugee Agency report, the situation in South Sudan is one of Africa’s most severe refugee crises, with 2.3 million refugees and asylum-seekers in neighboring countries and a further 2 million South Sudanese internally displaced within their own country by conflict or natural disasters.

Serbia’s President Aleksandar Vucic has cut short a visit to the United States and returned to Serbia after feeling sudden chest pain apparently caused by high blood pressure, doctors said on Saturday.

Vucic, 55, suddenly fell ill during a meeting in the US on Friday and decided to return home against the advice of US doctors, said cardiologist Dragan Dincic, from Belgrade’s Military Hospital, where Vucic was treated upon arrival.

Dincic said Vucic took additional therapy after the incident and was now in “stable and satisfactory condition.” Dincic added that Vucic won’t be hospitalized but “cannot be expected to return to his regular activities for several days.”

Vucic was previously in Miami, Florida, where he had met with former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani. Vucic had said he also was hoping to meet with US President Donald Trump.

Richard Grenell, US presidential envoy for special missions, expressed hope that Vucic would recover. “Sorry to miss you but hope all is ok,” Grenell wrote on X.

Serbia’s populist leader also has said he would travel to Russia later this month to attend a Victory Day parade in Moscow, despite warnings from European Union officials that this could affect Serbia’s bid to join the bloc.

Vucic has refused to join Western sanctions against Russia over its invasion of Ukraine. He also has been under pressure at home following six months of persistent anti-corruption protests triggered by the collapse of a roof at a train station in the country’s north that killed 16 people.

Five people have been rescued from an alligator-infested swamp almost two days after their plane crashed in the Amazonian jungle in Bolivia.

The small aircraft, carrying the pilot, three women and a child, crashed on Wednesday, but the group were not rescued until Friday morning, the Bolivian Defense Ministry said in a statement.

None of the group were seriously injured and they survived on chocolate and cassava flour during the ordeal.

The plane had taken off from the Baures municipality in northern Bolivia and was bound for the city of Trinidad, the Ministry said.

An hour after take-off, the pilot reported technical issues before all contact with the aircraft was lost, according to the Ministry.

The pilot, identified by local media outlets as 27-year-old Pablo Andrés Velarde, was able to carry out an emergency landing but landed near an alligator nest, he told local outlet Unitel.

“We fell into a swamp, and right next to it, there was an alligator nest. But thanks to the fuel that spilled from the aircraft, it contaminated the water and the strong smell of that scared them off, not completely, but they didn’t approach us to attack us,” he told Unitel in an interview from his hospital bed on Friday.

One survivor, Mirtha Fuentes, told local media of her emotional disbelief after surviving the plane crash. “We all cried with happiness because we were alive, with bruises, but alive and very lucky, thanks to God and the pilot’s quick thinking and intelligence,” she told Unitel.

Bolivia’s defense ministry and civil defense activated a search and rescue operation, but the first 48 hours were hindered by “adverse weather conditions,” the ministry said. Multiple flights passed over the survivors but failed to spot them, local media reported.

The group survived on rationed food recovered by the pilot from the submerged plane, the pilot told Unitel, before they were discovered by fishermen early Friday morning.

The five survivors were airlifted to the city of Trinidad, in a rescue helicopter from Bolivia’s Air Force, the defense ministry said.

“Thanks to the work of our specialized personnel, at this time the five rescued individuals, including a child, are alive and we are making every effort to take them to safe areas and provide them with the medical attention they need,” Bolivian president Luis Arce said in a statement.

The initiative to deliver aid comes as a total Israeli blockade of aid deliveries to the Palestinian enclave approaches its third month, and after US President Donald Trump told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu late last month that “we’ve got to be good to Gaza.”

Axios initially reported on Saturday that the US, Israel and representatives of a new international foundation are close to an agreement on how to resume the delivery of aid, citing two anonymous Israeli and US sources

For two months, Israel has carried out a total siege of Gaza, refusing to allow in a single truck of humanitarian aid or commercial goods – the longest period Israel has imposed such a total blockade.

Israel says it cut off the entry of humanitarian aid to pressure Hamas to release hostages. But international organizations say its actions violate international law, with some accusing Israel of using starvation as a weapon of war – a war crime.

While taking questions from reporters late last month, Trump was asked whether the topic of aid for Gaza came up during his recent conversation with Netanyahu.

A child carries a tray of food past a tent sheltering displaced Palestinians inside the destroyed Rashad Al-Shawa Cultural Center in Gaza City on April 21.

“Gaza came up,” Trump responded. “And I said: ‘We’ve got to be good to Gaza’ because people are – those people are suffering.”

“There’s a very big need for medicine, food and medicine. We’re taking care of it,” he said.

Late last year, ahead of the total Israeli blockade of Gaza, the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) warned that the risk of famine persists across the entire territory, projecting that 16% of the population would be in famine by April.

‘A massive wave of deaths’

Dr. Ahmad Al-Farra, the head of the pediatric department at Nasser Medical Complex in Gaza warned on Saturday that “a looming health catastrophe is threatening the lives of hundreds of thousands” in the enclave.

The World Food Programme says it is ready to surge enough aid into Gaza to feed the entire population of about two million for up to two months. UNRWA, the main UN agency supporting Palestinians, said it has nearly 3,000 trucks filled with aid waiting to cross into Gaza. Both need Israel to lift its blockade to get that aid in.

Netanyahu is under intense pressure from far-right members of his fragile governing coalition to continue fighting in Gaza and withhold aid as a means of pressure against Hamas.

Last month, Defense Minister Israel Katz said his government is working on a mechanism “through civilian companies” to distribute humanitarian aid in Gaza at a “later” stage, prompting a severe backlash from extremist politicians.

“As long as our hostages are languishing in tunnels, there is absolutely no reason for even a single gram of food or any aid to enter Gaza,” Minister of National Security Itamar Ben Gvir said at the time.

Katz later clarified that “no humanitarian aid is set to enter Gaza.”

In early April, COGAT, the Israeli agency that manages policy for the Palestinian territories and the flow of aid into the strip, announced a “new authorization mechanism” designed to “prevent Hamas infiltration into humanitarian organizations.”

“The mechanism is designed to support aid organizations, enhance oversight and accountability, and ensure that assistance reaches the civilian population in need, rather than being diverted and stolen by Hamas,” it said, without giving any details as to when it would be implemented.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has said that his conversation with US President Donald Trump at the Vatican last month was their “best” yet, with the two leaders discussing US sanctions and Kyiv’s air defenses.

The brief meeting on the sidelines of Pope Francis’s funeral in April came at a crucial time for Ukraine, amid concerns that the US could scale back support for Kyiv and abandon peace talks.

Both sides described the talks as positive, which marked their first face-to-face encounter since their disastrous Oval Office meeting in February. Soon after, Trump questioned whether Russia’s President Vladimir Putin wanted peace, the latest sign that the US leader was losing patience with his Russian counterpart.

“I believe that we had the best conversation with President Trump of all those that have taken place before,” Zelensky told journalists on Friday, in remarks released Saturday by Ukraine’s presidential office.

“It may have been the shortest, but it was the most substantive.”

Zelensky said the pair discussed US sanctions, without elaborating, and described Trump’s comments on the matter as “very strong.” He added that he reiterated his desire to bolster Ukraine’s air defenses and told Trump he hoped to have the opportunity to purchase American weapons.

“I told him about the quantity, and he told me that they would work on it, that these things are not free,” Zelensky said.

He added that he and Trump agreed that a 30-day ceasefire “is the right first step” and that “we will move in this direction.”

On Wednesday, Washington and Kyiv signed a crucial minerals deal – an agreement both sides had been trying to hammer out since Trump returned to the White House in January.

In his Friday comments, Zelensky pointed to the Vatican meeting as the turning point in securing a deal, adding that he had managed to dispel Russian claims that Ukraine was unwilling to reach an agreement with the US. “I am confident that after our meeting in the Vatican, President Trump began to look at things a little differently,” he said.

The Ukrainian leader had earlier hailed the minerals deal a “truly equal agreement” and said it was the “first result” of the pair’s meeting.

Under the deal, the US and Ukraine will create a joint investment fund, according to Ukraine’s Economy Minister Yulia Svyrydenko. The US may contribute new military aid to this fund, Svyrydenko said.

Zelensky also criticized a three-day ceasefire called by Putin late last month that the Russian leader said would last from midnight May 8 to midnight May 11.

The dates of the proposed ceasefire coincide with Russia’s World War II Victory Day commemorations on May 9 and the 80th anniversary of the defeat of Nazi Germany.

Some international leaders, including China’s Xi Jinping and Belarus’s Aleksandr Lukashenko, are expected to gather in Moscow on that date, to mark Russia’s Victory Day commemorating the more than 25 million Soviet soldiers and civilians who died during World War II.

Kyiv won’t be “playing games to create a pleasant atmosphere to allow for Putin’s exit from isolation on 9 May,” Zelensky said.

A woman has died in the northern Greek city of Thessaloniki after a bomb she was carrying exploded in her hands.

The 38-year-old was apparently attempting to place the device outside the bank early on Saturday, police reported. The blast damaged several storefronts and vehicles.

“It appears that she was carrying an explosive device and planned to plant it at a bank’s ATM,” a senior police official told Reuters.

“Something went wrong and exploded in her hands,” the official added. A criminal investigation is underway.

The woman was known to police for her involvement in past robberies, according to Associated Press. Authorities are reportedly investigating links to extremist left groups, the agency added.

The explosion comes less than a month after a bomb exploded outside the offices of Hellenic Train in Athens.

Police cordoned off the area after two Greek media organizations received warning calls that an explosive device would go off within 35 minutes, police officials said at the time. A suspicious-looking bag was spotted outside the building which was evacuated.