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A British couple held in Iran on espionage charges have appeared in a Tehran court represented by a state-appointed lawyer, their family said on Thursday.Little has been known about the plight of Lindsay and Craig Foreman, both 52, since Iranian authorities seized the pair in Kerman, in central Iran, in early January.They were passing through the country while on a round-the-world motorbike trip, but Tehran has claimed they are spies. Their family has rejected the claim.In Thursday’s update, relatives said in a statement sent to AFP that the couple was “unexpectedly brought before a court in Tehran yesterday (Wednesday) with a state-appointed lawyer”, prompting fresh fears over their treatment.”We cannot see how being suddenly whisked into a court room with no warning, with a state-appointed lawyer they only just met, could be considered to be a fair trial,” Lindsay’s son Joe Bennett said.The family added they understood Lindsay also met the UK’s ambassador to Iran, Hugo Shorter, on Wednesday and received a “comfort pack of essential supplies”.But an expected consular visit for Craig failed to materialise, they added.Relatives welcomed Lindsay’s meeting with Shorter, but said they remained “alarmed” by the conditions both detainees were facing.Earlier this month, they spoke by phone with them for the first time since the couple were detained in January. Days before the call, they learned the pair had been moved to separate prisons in and near Tehran. Lindsay was transferred to Qarchak women’s prison, which human rights groups have repeatedly criticised for its reported dire conditions.”Lindsay is likely sharing a cell of just 13 square metres (140 square feet) with nine other women,” Bennett said Thursday, noting it was so overcrowded amid three-tier bunk beds “only two prisoners can stand at one time”.He added his mother made a request to Shorter that she be transferred to Evin Prison, where Craig is being held and where “conditions are understood to be less severe”.Meanwhile, Bennett said the lack of a meeting between the ambassador and his stepfather was “deeply worrying”, in particular because Britain’s Foreign Office has been unable to transfer money to him to buy essentials.”It has been well over three and a half months since Craig was last seen. At that time, he had already lost weight. Now, with no funds and no access to food beyond the bare minimum, I can only guess at how he must be,” he added.Bennett urged the UK government to “act swiftly” and said the family had requested an urgent meeting with Foreign Secretary David Lammy.Rights groups and families of other Westerners who have been detained by Iran accuse Tehran of grabbing foreigners in a bid to get leverage over their respective governments.

In a Sudanese city long besieged by paramilitary forces, the war has taken an even more violent and terrifying turn, leaving residents facing hunger and death with little chance of escaping.The paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), at war with the regular army since April 2023, has launched its fiercest assault to date on El-Fasher, the only major city in the western Darfur region still in army hands.Witnesses, volunteer groups and aid workers have reported in recent weeks intensifying RSF bombardment of El-Fasher and a nearby displacement camp, with relentless artillery fire, drone strikes and ground incursions.The United Nations says El-Fasher, the North Darfur state capital where about 300,000 people live, has become an “epicentre of child suffering”.Those able to escape the increasingly unlivable city have said the road out is lined with dead bodies.Mohamed Khamis Douda, a humanitarian worker who fled to El-Fasher in April from the Zamzam displacement camp, said the city faces “famine and other disasters”.He told AFP that disease is rampant, clean water is gone and medicine is unavailable, impacting especially the many wounded by shrapnel or gunfire.”We’re pleading with all parties to intervene, stop the fighting and help save the lives of those still left.”- Vanishing lifelines -El-Fasher, which the RSF has besieged since May 2024, is effectively sealed off — no aid, no trade and hardly any way out.Constant bombardment and restricted communications make it nearly impossible to share images of life inside El-Fasher, and residents say filming certain areas exposes them to attacks.Rare footage obtained by AFP shows children crouched around a single pot of food in a smoke-filled communal kitchen, their faces gaunt and expressionless.Nearby, women swirl long wooden paddles through a simmering mass of brown paste as families, silent and sunken-eyed, wait for whatever comes next.The high-pitched shriek of incoming mortars or the crack of gunfire are ever-present as RSF fighters push to capture the city and the adjacent Abu Shouk camp, pressing a campaign that in April brought Zamzam under their control.Famine was declared last year in Abu Shouk, Zamzam and a third camp near El-Fasher, with the United Nations warning it could spread to the city.Most residents rely on communal kitchens to eat, but even these lifelines are vanishing as supplies dry up.In one crowded kitchen, the traditional Sudanese dish assida is nearly unrecognisable — its usual grain base replaced with ombaz, a foul animal feed that can be deadly for humans.This week, a volunteer-run aid group said a mother, her three children and their two grandmothers had died after weeks of surviving on ombaz.According to UN estimates, nearly 40 percent of children under five in El-Fasher are either acutely or severely malnourished.Community leader Adam Essa told AFP this month that at least five children die daily in Abu Shouk alone.- Death on the way to safety -Since losing the capital Khartoum to the army in March, the RSF has shifted west to tighten its hold on Darfur, aiming to establish a rival authority and risking Sudan’s territorial fragmentation.The latest offensive has targeted El-Fasher’s airport, some neighbourhoods and the Abu Shouk camp, which is now largely under RSF control, as is the local police headquarters.In just 10 days this month, the UN reported at least 89 people killed in El-Fasher and Abu Shouk.Zamzam’s capture has triggered massive displacement toward El-Fasher and further west to towns like Tawila.Now the violence at Abu Shouk raises fears of another mass exodus.But the only escape route from El-Fasher, a 70-kilometre (45-mile) rugged road westward, has become a graveyard, strewn with dozens of unburied bodies.Local activists said many have died from hunger, thirst or violence.An AFP correspondent in Tawila said many arrivals are traumatised and exhausted, often bearing gunshot wounds from attacks along the route.- ‘Dangerous’ -Ibrahim Essa, 47, had tried to flee El-Fasher with his family in May but was forced to turn back amid clashes.Now, the family hide in a makeshift bomb shelter carved into the earth behind their home.”If there’s shelling, we all go into the bunker,” he told AFP.Civil servant Saleh Essa, 42, had walked for three days with his family, travelling under cover of darkness to avoid checkpoints until they finally reached Tawila.”It is safe here, but water and food are scarce,” he said.For some, escape is not an option.”We have no money,” said 37-year-old Halima Hashim, a schoolteacher and mother of four.Staying behind is like a slow death, she said, but “leaving is dangerous.”vid-ab-nda-maf/ami