BASRA: Every Friday, Alawi crosses the border from Iran into Iraq to sell his produce in the markets of Basra, which serve as a haven for Iranians grappling with economic sanctions.
He is just one of many Iranian pedlars who endure the arduous journey into southern Iraq through the Chalamja border crossing.
They bring essential goods such as chicken, eggs, cooking oil and household items to sell at low prices, hoping for a profit that would be unimaginable back home due to sharp currency depreciation and soaring inflation.
“The situation is difficult due to the embargo,” Alawi said, referring to Western sanctions against Iran.
Asking to withhold his surname for fear of repercussions back home, the 36-year-old said he had not given up easily on his country, and had tried to sell his produce in a market there.
“There were no customers, and the products would spoil, so we had to throw them away and end up losing money,” he told AFP.
Instead, for the past seven years, he has been traveling to Iraq where he sells okra in summer and dates in winter, earning between $30 and $50 a day — much more than he could make at home.
“When we exchange Iraqi money” for Iranian rials, “it’s a lot,” the father of two said.
“We can spend it in five days or even a week,” he added.
'A lifeline'
After a brief period of relief from sanctions in exchange for curbs on Iran’s nuclear program, US President Donald Trump reimposed the biting measures during his first term in 2018.
Ever since, the value of the Iranian rial has plunged, fueling high inflation and unemployment.
Prices soared last month by more than 32 percent compared to March the previous year, according to official figures.
Trump announced this week that his administration would restart negotiations with Iran over its nuclear program, with talks to take place in Oman on Saturday.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi has said his country’s chief aim is for US sanctions to be lifted.
In the meantime, Basra’s markets continue to bustle with Iranian vendors.
At the Friday market, bags of rice were stacked on plastic crates next to bottles of detergent.
While some vendors chatted with customers, others dozed off beside their shopping bags, rubbing off the weariness of a long journey.
Hayder Al-Shakeri of the London-based Chatham House think-tank’s Middle East and North Africa program said informal cross-border trade “has expanded significantly over the past decade as sanctions on Iran have increasingly impacted everyday life.”
Basra’s proximity to Iran’s Khuzestan province, where many residents speak Arabic and share cultural values with Iraq, makes it a primary target for mostly working-class Iranian vendors, Shakeri said.
Among them are women and elderly men whose livelihoods have been severely impacted by inflation, he said, calling the cross-border trade “a vital lifeline.”
“Earning in more stable currencies like the Iraqi dinar or even US dollars provides a financial buffer” against the devaluated rial, he added.
Better and cheaper
Iran wields considerable political influence in Iraq and is a major trade partner for the country, the second-largest importer of non-oil Iranian goods.
Trade between the two countries amounts to tens of billions of dollars.
Milad, 17, and his mother have been selling household essentials in Basra for the past two years. Fearing a worsening situation back home, they recently rented a small shop.
In Iran, “finding work is hard, and the currency is weak,” said curly-haired Milad, who declined to give his last name, adding that his cousin has been looking for a job since he graduated.
Iraqi maths professor Abu Ahmad, 55, strolls to the market every Friday, looking for fresh Iranian goods.
“Their geymar is better than ours,” he said, referring to the cream Iraqis have with honey for breakfast.
It is also cheaper.
“They sell it for 12,000 dinars ($8)” compared to an Iraqi price of 16,000, he added.
Shakeri from Chatham House warned that local vendors “resent the competition,” and Iraqi security forces sometimes remove Iranians, though they know they will eventually return.
Umm Mansur, a 47-year-old Iranian mother of five, has had a bitter experience since she joined other pedlars six months ago.
At the border, “they insult and mistreat us,” she said.
Other pedlars have described similar experiences, saying they were held up for hours at the crossing.
Umm Mansur said she is willing to overlook the mistreatment to earn four times what she would at home.
“In Iran, there is no way to make a living,” she said.
Iraqi markets a haven for pedlars escaping Iran’s economic woes
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Iraqi markets a haven for pedlars escaping Iran’s economic woes

- Iran wields considerable political influence in Iraq and is a major trade partner for the country, the second-largest importer of non-oil Iranian goods
British Airways cancels Israel flights until August

- UK carrier suspended route to Tel Aviv after Houthi attack on Ben Gurion Airport in May
- Air France flights remain suspended but Delta, Aegean flights recommenced this week
LONDON: There will be no British Airways flights from the UK to Israel until at least August, the airline has said.
BA cited security concerns for the decision, having suspended flights to Tel Aviv in May following a Houthi missile attack that injured six people at Ben Gurion International Airport. The airline subsequently evacuated staff staying in the city to the Austrian capital Vienna.
A BA spokesman said in a statement: “We continually monitor operating conditions and have made the decision to suspend our flights to and from Tel Aviv, up to and including 31 July. We’ve apologised to our customers for the inconvenience.”
A message on the airline’s website for the route reads: “Sorry, we have no flights available. Please edit your search to find other routes.” The next scheduled flight from London to Tel Aviv is on Aug. 1.
Air France has halted flights in and out of Israel until at least May 26. Greek airline Aegean resumed flights to Tel Aviv on Wednesday, while US carrier Delta commenced daily flights from New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport to Ben Gurion on Monday. Both had suspended their routes following the Houthi attack.
African Union urges permanent ceasefire in Libya after clashes

- Libya is split between the UN-recognized government in Tripoli, led by Prime Minister Abdulhamid Dbeibah
- The clashes were sparked by the killing of an armed faction leader by a group aligned with Dbeibah’s government
ADIS ABABA: The African Union called for a permanent ceasefire in Libya on Saturday after deadly clashes in the capital earlier this month and demonstrations demanding the prime minister’s resignation.
The latest fighting in the conflict-torn North African country pitted an armed group aligned with the Tripoli-based government against factions it has sought to dismantle, resulting in at least eight dead, according to the United Nations.
Despite a lack of a formal ceasefire, the clashes mostly ended last week, with the Libya Defense Ministry saying this week that efforts toward a truce were “ongoing.”
On Saturday, the AU’s Peace and Security Council condemned the recent violence, calling for an “unconditional and permanent ceasefire.”
In a statement on X, the council urged “inclusive, Libyan-led reconciliation,” adding that it “appeals for no external interference.”
Libya is split between the UN-recognized government in Tripoli, led by Prime Minister Abdulhamid Dbeibah, and a rival administration in the east.
The country has remained deeply divided since the 2011 NATO-backed revolt that toppled and killed longtime leader Muammar Qaddafi.
The clashes were sparked by the killing of an armed faction leader by a group aligned with Dbeibah’s government — the 444 Brigade, which later fought a third group, the Radaa force that controls parts of eastern Tripoli and the city’s airport.
It came after Dbeibah announced a string of executive orders seeking to dismantle Radaa and dissolve other Tripoli-based armed groups but excluding the 444 Brigade.
South Lebanon votes in municipal elections that will test support for Hezbollah

- Municipal elections are taking place in Lebanon as residents in the south cast their votes over the weekend
- Hezbollah and Amal representatives are among those running for elections
BEIRUT: Residents of southern Lebanon voted Saturday in the country’s municipal elections that will test support for Hezbollah in the predominantly Shiite areas, months after the end of the destructive Israel-Hezbollah war.
Hezbollah is running in an alliance with the Amal group of Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri and both are expected to win mayoral races and the majority of seats in municipal councils. Both groups already won many municipalities uncontested.
South Lebanon is the fourth and last district to vote in the elections since May 4. Among those who voted Saturday were Hezbollah members wounded in the Sept. 17, 2024, explosions of thousands of pagers that blew up near-simultaneously in an operation carried out by Israel. More than a dozen were killed and nearly 3,000 wounded.
“The will of life is stronger than death and the will of construction is stronger than destruction,” President Joseph Aoun said during a tour of south Lebanon Saturday. He told reporters in his hometown of Aaichiyeh that he voted for the first time in 40 years.
Saturday’s vote came two days after Israel’s air force carried out intense airstrikes in different parts of south Lebanon.
Residents of villages and towns on the border with Israel, including the village of Kfar Kila that was almost completely destroyed during the war, cast their ballots at polling stations set up in the nearby city of Nabatiyeh. Residents of other border villages cast their ballots in the port city of Tyre.
“Southerners are proving again that they are with the choice of resistance,” Hezbollah legislator Ali Fayad, who represents border villages, said in Nabatiyeh.
Lebanon’s cash-strapped government has been scrambling to secure international funds for the war reconstruction, which the World Bank estimates at over $11 billion.
Hezbollah began firing rockets at Israel on Oct. 8, 2023, one day after a deadly Hamas-led incursion into southern Israel sparked the war in Gaza. Israel responded with shelling and airstrikes in Lebanon that escalated into a full-blown war that left more than 4,000 dead in Lebanon and more than 80 soldiers and 47 civilians in Israel. A US-brokered ceasefire went into effect in late November.
Israeli settlers force Palestinian families to leave village

- Mughayyir Al-Deir in occupied West Bank was home to shepherds, farming families
- Settlers built illegal outpost under protection of Israeli police, military
LONDON: Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank have forced about 150 Palestinians from their village through a violent five-day campaign carried out under the protection of Israeli authorities.
Last weekend, the settler group had constructed an illegal outpost close to a Palestinian home in Mughayyir Al-Deir, east of Ramallah, The Guardian reported.
The village is home to shepherds and farmers, and by Friday this week dozens of villagers had moved their flocks away and had gathered their belongings to leave the area.
“Settlers stalked between Palestinian men who worked fast and largely in silence, grappling with the grim reality of leaving the place where most were born and grew up,” The Guardian reported. “A child cried as he was driven away on a truck loaded with the family’s red sofas.”
Israeli settlers belonging to the extremist group Hilltop Youth celebrated as Palestinian families left the village.
The group’s unofficial spokesperson, Elisha Yered, said: “This is what redemption looks like! This is a relatively large outpost that contained about 150 people from the enemy population, but it was broken.”
Several of the settlers involved in the illegal campaign, including Yered, are subject to UK and EU sanctions.
Yered was “part of a group of armed settlers” that carried out an attack in 2023 that killed Qusai Jammal Mi’tan, a 19-year-old Palestinian, sanctions files show.
Neria Ben Pazi and Zohar Sabah, two Israeli settlers under British sanctions, visited the illegal outpost at Mughayyir Al-Deir this week.
The hills surrounding the village are dotted with the ruins of other abandoned Palestinian homes, as settlers have waged a campaign to clear the area of locals.
In Mughayyir Al-Deir, Israeli police and military personnel stood guard and patrolled as the settlers began to build the outpost.
Zvi Sukkot, a far-right MP who said on TV last week that Israel “can kill 100 Gazans in one night during a war and nobody in the world cares,” visited the village to support the settlers.
A Palestinian family from Mughayyir Al-Deir filed a petition in Israel’s Supreme Court on Thursday.
They demanded an injunction and urgent hearing on the settler campaign, and asked why Israeli authorities had failed to intervene over the illegal outpost and evictions.
Many of the Palestinian families forced to leave the village had relatives who were forced to leave Beersheba during the Nakba in 1948, when some 750,000 Palestinians were forced to leave their homeland.
An Israeli military spokesperson said troops worked “to ensure the security of the state of Israel and Judea and Samaria (Israel’s name for the occupied West Bank).” The military will respond to the Palestinian family’s petition in court, the spokesperson said.
A hearing is scheduled for next week, but all Palestinian families will have left Mughayyir Al-Deir by then.
Egypt flies home 71 nationals from Libya after unrest

- 71 Egyptians were flown back to Egypt following a rise in violence in Libya as a result of anti government protests
- Protests calling for the resignation of Prime Minister Abdulhamid Dbeibah continue to grow amid deadly clashes with security forces
CAIRO: Egypt has flown 71 nationals home from the Libyan capital Tripoli after deadly clashes between rival militias rocked the city earlier this month, the foreign ministry said.
Friday’s special flight by flag carrier EgyptAir “enabled the repatriation of 71 Egyptian citizens who had expressed a desire to come home,” the ministry said.
From May 12 to 15, the Libyan capital was rocked by fighting between an armed group aligned with the Tripoli-based government and factions it has sought to dismantle.
The clashes, which saw artillery exchanges in the city center, killed at least eight people, according to the United Nations.
Although relative calm has since returned to the city, the situation remains highly volatile as calls grow for the resignation of Prime Minister Abdulhamid Dbeibah.
Turkiye evacuated 82 of its nationals from Tripoli on a similar repatriation flight last week.
Libya is split between the UN-recognized government in Tripoli led by Dbeibah, and a rival administration in the east.
The North African country has remained deeply divided since the 2011 NATO-backed revolt that toppled and killed longtime leader Muammar Qaddafi.