ATHENS: Greek authorities say more than 170 migrants have been picked up from rickety boats in the past three days with most found off the southern tip of the country in a route that appears to be increasingly used by traffickers.
Greece’s coast guard said Wednesday that a passing Philippines-flagged tanker had rescued 29 people found on a boat 65 nautical miles (120 kilometers, 75 miles) south of the southern island of Crete.
Another 45 people were rescued overnight by a Marshall Islands-flagged cargo ship 42 nautical miles (78 kilometers, 49 miles) south of the tiny island of Gavdos.
A patrol boat on Tuesday came across a speedboat carrying migrants near the eastern island of Tilos, with a chase resulting in the speedboat driver running the vessel aground on a beach, the coast guard said. A foot patrol later located a total of 31 people, including seven children and four women, while authorities arrested a 37-year-old Moldovan national as the alleged driver.
Another 68 people were located in two separate cases in Crete and Gavdos Monday: 19 men and one boy found just having disembarked from on a wooden boat on the southern coast of Crete, and another 48 people, all men, found on Gavdos. In both cases, the migrants said they had set sail from Tobruk in Libya and had been heading to Greece.
For decades Greece has been on one of the preferred routes into the European Union for people fleeing war and poverty in the Middle East, Africa and Asia, and has seen a spike in arrivals from neighboring Turkiye and the Libyan coast over the past year. In 2024, the country recorded more than 60,000 arrivals — the vast majority by sea — compared to just over 48,000 the previous year.
While most people head to eastern Greek islands from the nearby Turkish coast, many are now opting for the perilous 300-kilometer (200-mile) journey from the Libyan coast to the islands of Crete and Gavdos, officials have said.
Greek authorities say more than 170 migrants picked up as arrivals from Libya increase
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Greek authorities say more than 170 migrants picked up as arrivals from Libya increase
- The migrants said they had set sail from Tobruk in Libya and had been heading to Greece
- Greece has been on one of the preferred routes into the European Union for people fleeing war and poverty in the Middle East
RSF shelling kills 5 children in Darfur
- Rapid Support Forces target civilians in Al-Fasher’s neighborhoods with artillery assault
PORT SUDAN: Shelling from Sudan’s paramilitary Rapid Support Forces killed five children in the besieged North Darfur state capital of Al-Fasher, a medical source said on Thursday.
The attack on Wednesday was first reported by the Sudanese army, which has been locked in a war with the RSF since April of 2023.
“The militia targeted civilians in the city’s neighborhoods with artillery shelling, killing five children under the age of six and wounding four women,” the army said in a statement.
Speaking on the condition of anonymity, a medical source confirmed the toll.
Al-Fasher, under siege by the RSF since last May, is the only one of five state capitals in the vast Darfur region that is not under paramilitary control.
Fighting in the city has intensified in recent months, as the RSF tries to consolidate its hold on Darfur after army victories in central Sudan.
The army and allied militias have successfully repelled the RSF’s attacks on Al-Fasher.
However, the paramilitary forces have repeatedly shelled nearby famine-hit displacement camps in what local activists say is retaliation.
Since Sudan’s war began, it has claimed tens of thousands of lives, uprooted more than 12 million people, and created the world’s largest hunger and displacement crises.
In North Darfur alone, nearly 1.7 million people are displaced.
Around 2 million people face extreme food insecurity, and 320,000 are already suffering famine conditions, according to UN estimates.
Famine has hit three displacement camps around Al-Fasher — Zamzam, Abu Shouk and Al-Salam — and is expected to spread to five more areas, including Al-Fasher itself, by May.
On Wednesday, the African Union said the announcement of a parallel government in Sudan risked cleaving the country.
The RSF and its allies signed a “founding charter” of a parallel government in Nairobi last month.
The AU condemned the move and “warned that such action carries a huge risk of partitioning the country.”
The signatories to the document intend to create a “government of peace and unity” in rebel-controlled areas.
They have also pledged to “build a secular, democratic, decentralized state, based on freedom, equality and justice, without cultural, ethnic, religious or regional bias.”
In early March, the RSF and its allies again signed a “Transitional Constitution” in Nairobi.
The AU called on all its member states and the international community “not to recognize any government or parallel entity aimed at partitioning and governing part of the territory of the Republic of Sudan or its institutions.”
A statement said the organization “does not recognize the so-called government or parallel entity in the Republic of Sudan.”
On Tuesday, the EU also reiterated its commitment to Sudan’s “unity and territorial integrity.”
“Plans for parallel ‘government’ by the Rapid Support Forces risk the partition of the country and jeopardize the democratic aspirations of the Sudanese people for an inclusive Sudanese-owned process that leads to the restoration of civilian rule,” it said in a statement.
It follows a warning from the UN Security Council last week that expressed concern over the signing, adding it could worsen an already dire humanitarian situation.
Iraq repatriates more families from Daesh-linked Al-Hol camp
BAGHDAD: Iraq has repatriated more than 150 additional families from Al-Hol camp in the neighboring Syrian Arab Republic, an Iraqi security official said on Thursday, the latest such transfer from the camp where many have alleged terrorist links.
Kurdish-run camps and prisons in northeastern Syria still hold about 56,000 people from dozens of countries, many of them the family members of Daesh suspects, more than five years after the terrorists’ territorial defeat in Syria.
While many Western countries refuse to take back their nationals, Baghdad has taken the lead by accelerating repatriations and urging others to follow suit.
The latest group of 505 people is the sixth since the beginning of the year to be repatriated.
They left the camp on Wednesday, said Jihan Hanan, Al-Hol’s director.
The Iraqi security official confirmed that about “153 families arrived yesterday” in Iraq.
Daesh captured nearly a third of Iraq before local forces, backed by a US-led coalition, defeated them in 2017.
In Syria, US-backed Kurdish forces dislodged IS from the last of its Syrian-held territory in 2019.
Al-Hol is located in the semi-autonomous Kurdish region of Syria.
Iraq has intensified its efforts to bring back its nationals amid concerns about the security situation in Syria following the ouster of Bashar Assad in December, Iraqi National Security Adviser Qassem Al-Araji said last week.
Gaza rescuers exhume dozens of bodies from Al-Shifa Hospital
- The Palestinians medical facility is now largely in ruins following multiple Israeli assaults during the deadly war
GAZA CITY: Gaza’s civil defense agency reported that its crews had exhumed 48 bodies on Thursday from the courtyard of Al-Shifa Hospital, once Gaza’s biggest medical facility but now largely in ruins following multiple Israeli assaults during the war.
The agency has carried out similar work in the past to return remains to their families if they can be identified or, failing that, to remove them and give them a proper burial elsewhere.
Rescuers handed over 38 bodies after they were identified by their relatives, who took them to be reinterred in other cemeteries, agency spokesman Mahmoud Bassal said on Thursday.
“The other 10 exhumed bodies were handed over to the forensic department at the Ministry of Health for identification,” he said.
Bassal added that around 160 bodies remained buried within the hospital complex and that the process of exhumation would continue for several days.
AFP footage showed rescuers digging in parts of the courtyard and removing white bags reportedly containing human remains, which were then wrapped in blankets and carried away.
Gaza resident Mohammed Abu Asi, who identified the body of his brother, had come to the hospital to receive the remains.
“It’s like experiencing the war all over again. Recovering my brother’s body feels as though we are burying him today — the pain and the wound have reopened,” he said.
Another Gaza resident, Suha Al-Sharif, came to the site hoping to find her son’s body.
“I know what my son was wearing. That’s why I came. God willing, I will find him,” she said.
“I want to find him. I’m a mother — I am exhausted and do not know where my son is.”
Hospitals in Gaza, particularly Al-Shifa, have been repeatedly targeted by Israeli forces since the start of the war, following the Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel.
Gaza health workers have previously discovered bodies at Al-Shifa Hospital.
Last year, the UN Security Council expressed “deep concern” after reports of mass graves containing hundreds of bodies in or near hospitals in Gaza.
The Oct. 7 attack resulted in the deaths of 1,218 people on the Israeli side, according to official Israeli figures.
During the attack, militants took 251 people hostage, 58 of whom remain in Gaza, including 34 the Israeli military says are dead.
Israel’s retaliatory military campaign has since killed at least 48,524 people, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry. The UN considers these figures reliable.
Chief of Bahraini National Guard holds talks with heads of Pakistan’s armed forces and air force
- Sheikh Mohammed bin Isa Al-Khalifa is visiting the country to take part in celebrations for Pakistan Day on March 23
- The military leaders discuss shared concerns and review military cooperation between their countries
LONDON: Sheikh Mohammed bin Isa Al-Khalifa, the commander of Bahrain’s National Guard, held talks with the heads of Pakistan’s armed forces and air force on Thursday during an official visit to the country.
When he arrived at the headquarters of the armed forces in Rawalpindi for his meeting with Gen. Sahir Shamshad Mirza, chairperson of Pakistan’s Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee, Sheikh Mohammed was greeted by a guard of honor and a formal ceremony during which the national anthems of Bahrain and Pakistan were played.
He praised the strong military cooperation between the two nations, and acknowledged the contribution of Pakistan’s armed forces to regional and international security. He and Mirza discussed shared concerns and reviewed joint military operations, the Bahrain News Agency reported.
Sheikh Mohammed, who is visiting Pakistan to take part in celebrations for Pakistan Day on March 23, also met separately with the country’s air force chief, Marshal Zaheer Ahmed Baber, at its headquarters in Islamabad.
Baber highlighted the significance of the sheikh’s visit as part of efforts to strengthen military relations between Manama and Islamabad, the news agency added.
Pakistan Day, a public holiday celebrated on March 23 each year, commemorates the day in 1956 when the country adopted its first constitution and became the world’s first Islamic republic.
Lebanese boy, 12, dies of head injury after man opens fire over half a chicken
- Reports that Chadi Yousef was mistakenly shot before iftar
- Lebanese Internal Security Forces search for shooter who fled crime scene
BEIRUT: A 12-year-old Lebanese child died on Thursday after suffering a critical head injury on Monday, shortly before iftar at a chicken restaurant in northern Lebanon.
A man opened fire at the location in the Al-Zahriyeh area of Tripoli, reportedly because the owner had refused to sell him half a chicken after running out of the dish.
It was reported that Chadi Yousef was mistakenly shot, sustaining a head injury before being rushed to hospital.
A staff member at the Tripoli hospital where Yousef was treated told Arab News: “He was in an ICU (intensive care unit) and today (Thursday) his situation deteriorated as he slipped into a coma and passed away a while ago.”
Lebanon’s National News Agency reported that the shooter, identified as MK, opened fire at the restaurant after the owner refused to sell him half a grilled chicken. In addition to the boy, a man, referred to as AT, was shot in the hand and also rushed to hospital.
Lebanese Internal Security Forces arrived at the scene, opened an immediate investigation, and began searching for the shooter who had escaped the crime scene immediately following the incident.
