Region

RABAT — Morocco’s King Mohammed VI is set to celebrate his 60th birthday on Monday away from the public eye, as challenges abound almost a quarter century after he ascended the throne.

The monarch is credited with effectively maintaining stability in a volatile region — in part through suppressing criticism — as well as modernising the economy and pursuing assertive diplomacy.

But his efforts have fallen short in addressing the profound inequalities that continue to plague Moroccan society.

In his latest speech on July 30, the king called for “achieving new milestones on the path of progress and creating projects of greater scope, worthy of the Moroccan people”.

Since his coronation following the death of his father Hassan II on July 23, 1999, the monarch has retained a firm grip on economic policy, foreign affairs, defence and security in his North African nation.

“While his father was greatly present on the political stage, Mohammed VI’s style is different. He prefers to silently steer the ship while controlling the levers of power,” said political analyst Mohamed Chiker.

King Mohammed has led major infrastructure and business projects over the years.

They include the Tanger Med industrial port, the gigantic Noor solar power plant and the Tangier-Casablanca high-speed rail line, alongside developing Morocco’s automotive and aerospace industries, and more recently, so-called green hydrogen projects and the “Made in Morocco” label.

And in an effort to boost Moroccan soft power abroad, he took the initiative to partner with Spain and Portugal in a joint bid to host the 2030 FIFA World Cup.

On the international stage, Mohammed VI has diversified partnerships that were once primarily focused on former colonial ruler France and other European countries, embracing a more prominent role on Morocco’s continent since its return to the African Union in 2017.

While achieving diplomatic wins, Mohammed VI, once earning the nickname “king of the poor”, has addressed societal inequalities at home at a sluggish pace.

‘Highly controlled’ 

Gaps between rich and poor, as well as urban and rural areas, continue to widen in today’s Morocco.

A report commissioned in 2019 by Mohammed VI to find a “new development model” noted growing “inequalities”, a “slow pace of reforms” and “resistance to change”.

“The top 10 percent of the wealthiest Moroccans still hold 11 times more wealth than the bottom 10 per cent,” said the report.

The effects of the COVID-19 pandemic coupled with inflation have brought poverty rates in Morocco to levels last seen in 2014, according to the governmental High Commission for Planning.

Morocco ranks low on the UN Human Development Index in education, literacy rates and gross income per capita.

Mohammed VI has still enjoyed broad popular support as the latest head of the Alawi dynasty that has ruled Morocco for centuries and is said to be descended from Islam’s Prophet Mohammed.

Under his leadership, a long-awaited aid project for Morocco’s most disadvantaged families is expected to be completed by the end of the year.

In 2004, the monarch greenlit the adoption of a family code aimed at boosting women’s rights, though falling short of the full extent of activists’ demands.

His regime, meanwhile, has been criticised for restricting freedom of expression by targeting and at times imprisoning opponents, journalists and dissenting internet users.

Tighter security measures under Mohammed VI — also pursued in the name of counterterrorism efforts after May 2003 attacks that killed 33 people in Casablanca — reversed a liberalisation push in the late days of Hassan II’s reign.

While social media have given a platform to a variety of voices, traditional news outlets operate either under tight control or not at all.

WAD MADANI, Sudan — Fighting between two rival generals has spread to cities in war-ravaged Sudan’s south, witnesses said on Friday, raising concerns for hundreds of thousands who have fled violence in the Darfur region.

The vast western region has seen some of the worst bloodshed since the conflict erupted on April 15 between the army under Gen. Abdel Fattah Al Burhan and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) commanded by Mohamed Hamdan Daglo.

Battles resumed late Thursday in the North Darfur state capital of El Fasher, witnesses said, disrupting nearly two months of calm in the densely populated city that has become a shelter from the shelling, looting, rapes and summary executions reported in other parts of Darfur.

“This is the biggest gathering of civilians displaced in Darfur, with 600,000 people in El Fasher,” said Nathaniel Raymond of the Humanitarian Research Lab at the Yale School of Public Health.

One resident told AFP: “As night fell, we heard battles with heavy weapons from the city’s east.”

Witnesses also reported fighting in Al-Fulah, the capital of West Kordofan state which borders Darfur.

The conflict had already expanded to North Kordofan state, a commercial and transport hub between Khartoum and parts of southern and western Sudan.

‘Indiscriminate shelling’ 

Human rights groups and witnesses who fled Darfur have reported the massacre of civilians and ethnically driven attacks and killings, largely by paramilitary forces and their allied Arab tribal militias.

Many have fled across the western border to neighbouring Chad, while others have sought refuge in other parts of Darfur, where the International Criminal Court is probing alleged war crimes.

The region has been the focus of deadly fighting since 2003 when the then government in Khartoum unleashed the feared Janjaweed — precursors of the RSF — on ethnic minority rebels and civilians suspected of supporting them.

On Friday, an armed group that in 2020 signed a peace agreement with Khartoum announced it was aligning with the RSF.

The so-called Tamazuj Front said it aimed “to fight the remnants of the old regime that use the army to reinstate their totalitarian power”.

Several figures of former strongman Omar Al Bashir’s regime, which was toppled in 2019, have escaped from prison in recent months, with some voicing their support for the army.

Fighting in the latest conflict has concentrated on El Geneina, the capital of West Darfur state, where the UN suspects crimes against humanity have been committed.

Nyala, Sudan’s second city and capital of South Darfur state, has been in the throes of recent fighting.

An emergency room set up in the city said Friday that it had been “living under catastrophic humanitarian conditions” as fighting raged for a seventh straight day.

“The clashes have resulted in the death of a large number of defenceless victims... and a countless number of injuries and humanitarian violations with all state hospitals out of service,” it added.

The United States on Thursday urged the warring sides “to cease renewed fighting in Nyala... and other populated areas”.

“We are particularly alarmed by reports of indiscriminate shelling carried out by both” parties, State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said.

‘Chaos’ 

Further east, a resident of Al Fulah said “the RSF are confronting the army and the police, and public buildings have been set on fire during their fire exchanges”.

“Shops were looted and there are dead on both sides, but no one can get to the bodies in this chaos,” said another witness in Al Fulah.

The conflict has killed at least 3,900 people nationwide, according to a conservative estimate by the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project.

The actual toll is believed to be much higher, as the fighting restricts access to many areas.

UN experts voiced particular concern for women and girls caught up in the conflict, denouncing “rape and sexual violence” by RSF fighters.

“Men identified as members of the RSF are using rape and sexual violence of women and girls as tools to punish and terrorise communities,” the independent experts said on Thursday, citing survivors.

In neighbouring South Sudan, medical charity Doctors Without Borders (MSF) said more than 200,000 people, mostly women and children, had arrived from Sudan since the fighting erupted.

Many of them were “exhausted and extremely vulnerable” and require urgent aid, MSF said.

JENIN, Palestinian Territories — Israeli occupation forces on Thursday killed a Palestinian fighter and shot a health worker during a raid on the occupied West Bank city of Jenin, Palestinian and Israeli officials said.

The West Bank has seen surge in violence since early last year, with a string of attacks by Palestinians on Israeli targets, repeated Israeli army raids and violence by Israeli settlers against Palestinian communities.

"Mustafa Al Kastouni, 32, was killed after being shot in the head, chest and abdomen by the occupation (Israeli forces) during an aggression on Jenin," the Palestinian health ministry said in a statement.

It said a woman who "works in supporting medical professionals" was shot in the chest and abdomen during the raid.

Jenin's deputy governor, Kamal Abu Al Rub, said she was in critical condition.

The Israeli army said its forces entered Jenin to detain wanted Palestinians, but provided no immediate comment when asked by AFP about the reported shooting of a healthcare worker.

An AFP photographer saw Palestinians gathering following the raid around a heap of shattered timber and rubble in a narrow street of the city, a stronghold of Palestinian fighters in the northern West Bank.

The Jenin Brigades, a local armed group, said Kastouni was killed when fighters had confronted Israeli forces with “salvos of bullets and explosive devices” as the troops “infiltrated” Jenin.

Kastouni himself was a fighter from the Al Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades, a militant group linked to Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas’s Fateh movement, the Jenin Brigades said.

At least 48 Palestinians including civilians and militants have been killed so far this year in Israeli raids on Jenin city and its refugee camp.

Excluding occupied east Jerusalem, the West Bank is home to nearly three million Palestinians and around 490,000 Israelis who live in settlements considered illegal under international law.

TEHRAN — Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian arrived Thursday in Riyadh, his first official Saudi trip since a landmark rapprochement in March, state media reported.

A Chinese-brokered deal saw the long-time rivals agreeing to restore diplomatic relations and reopen their respective embassies.

Shiite-dominated Iran and Sunni Muslim Saudi Arabia had severed ties in 2016 after Saudi diplomatic missions in the Islamic republic were attacked during protests over Riyadh's execution of Shiite cleric Nimr Al Nimr.

Amir-Abdollahian "arrived at Riyadh Airport a few minutes ago for a one-day trip, and was welcomed by the deputy foreign minister of Saudi Arabia," official news agency IRNA said.

The visit "is focusing on bilateral ties, regional and international issues", according to IRIB state broadcaster.

IRNA said Amir-Abdollahian was due to meet with his Saudi counterpart and other officials in the kingdom.

The minister was accompanied by the new Iranian ambassador to Saudi Arabia, the report added. 

State media reported in May Tehran had named Alireza Enayati, a former ambassador to Kuwait, as the Islamic republic’s Saudi envoy.

Mending relations 

In June, Prince Faisal bin Farhan became the first Saudi foreign minister to travel to Iran since 2006.

Earlier that month Iran had reopened its embassy in Riyadh with a flag-raising ceremony.

On Wednesday, Iranian state media said military officials from both countries met in Moscow on the sidelines of a security conference.

Amir-Abdollahian has said this week that the new ambassador to Riyadh is accompanying him during Thursday’s visit “officially start his mission”. 

On August 9, Iran said the Saudi embassy in Tehran had begun operations but Riyadh has yet confirm.

Iran and Saudi Arabia have backed opposing sides in conflicts across the Middle East for years.

Iran has in recent months been at odds with Saudi Arabia and Kuwait over a disputed gas field.

Saudi Arabia and Kuwait claim “sole ownership” to the field, known as Arash in Iran and Dorra in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, with Tehran warning it would “pursue its right” to the offshore zone if negotiations fail.

Iran has intensified its diplomatic activity in recent months and pushed for closer ties with other Arab countries in a bid to reduce its isolation and improve its economy.

Since the March deal, Saudi Arabia has restored ties with Iranian ally Syria and ramped up a push for peace in Yemen, where it has for years led a military coalition against the Iran-backed Huthi forces.

The Islamic republic has been reeling under crippling US sanctions since Washington’s 2018 withdrawal from a landmark nuclear deal under then-president Donald Trump.

BEIRUT — For desperate Syrians, a WhatsApp message saying “I want to go to Europe” can be all they need to start a treacherous journey to Libya and then across the Mediterranean.

Twelve years after conflict broke out when President Bashar Assad repressed peaceful pro-democracy protests, Syrians are still trying to escape a war that has killed more than 500,000 people, displaced millions and pulled in foreign powers and global jihadists.

At least 141 Syrians were among up to 750 migrants thought to have been on a trawler that set off from Libya and sank off Greece in June, relatives and activists told AFP. Most of the passengers are feared drowned.

AFP interviewed Syrian smugglers and migrants about the journey to migrant hub Libya, notorious for rights abuses, and then across the central Mediterranean — the world’s deadliest migrant route.

Almost everyone requested anonymity, fearing reprisals.

 ‘A batch every month’ 

“We finalise everything by phone,” said a smuggler in Syria’s southern Daraa province.

“We ask for a copy of their passport and tell them where to deposit the money. We don’t have to see anyone in person,” he told AFP over WhatsApp.

Daraa, the cradle of Syria’s uprising, returned to regime control in 2018.

It has since been plagued by killings, clashes and dire living conditions, all of which are fuelling an exodus, activists say.

“The first year we started, we only sent one group. Today, we send a batch every month” to Libya, the smuggler said.

“People are selling their homes and leaving.”

Libya descended into chaos after a NATO-backed uprising toppled and killed leader Muammar Qadhafi in 2011, the same year Syria’s war began.

The North African country is split between a UN-recognised government in the west and another in the east backed by military strongman Khalifa Haftar, who has ties to Damascus.

Syrians deposit the money — more than $6,000 per person, with a third party, often an exchange office which takes a commission.

The smuggler declined to disclose his cut, but said he was paid once the migrants reached Italy. His partner in eastern Libya organises the actual boat trip.

‘Humiliated, beaten’ 

One travel agent in Daraa told an AFP correspondent posing as a migrant that a package deal cost $6,500.

This included a plane ticket, eastern Libya entry document, airport pickup, transport, accommodation, the boat journey to Italy and a life jacket, a WhatsApp message said.

Migrants stay “in a hotel or a furnished apartment”, it added, but Syrians said such promises were seldom kept.

They told AFP of overcrowded and disease-ridden warehouses, where armed guards subjected migrants to violence and extortion.

Omar, 23, from Daraa province, borrowed $8,000 to be smuggled to Libya and then Italy this year, saying he was desperate to leave “a country with no future”.

Now in Germany, he said he spent two weeks locked in a hangar near the coast in eastern Libya with around 200 other people.

“We were abused, yelled at, humiliated and beaten,” added Omar, who said guards gave them only meagre servings of rice, bread and cheese to eat.

On departure day, “around 20 armed men forced us to run” the distance from the hangar to the sea, “hitting us with the back of their rifles”, he said.

“When we finally reached the shores, I was exhausted. I couldn’t believe I’d made it.”

 Among mercenaries 

In part of northern Syria controlled by Ankara-backed rebel groups, a recruiter of fighters said he also smuggled migrants to Libya by listing them among pro-Turkey mercenaries.

Turkey supports the Tripoli administration in Libya’s west.

Ankara has largely shut down a once well-trodden route to Europe via Turkey.

“Every six months, we use the fighters’ rotation to send people with them,” the recruiter told AFP.

Syrians from the impoverished, opposition-held northern Idlib and Aleppo provinces, “particularly those living in displacement camps, contact us”, the recruiter said.

Listed as “fighters”, the Syrian migrants are entitled to a Turkish-paid “salary” of around $2,500, the recruiter said.

The armed group pockets $1,300, the recruiter takes the rest and the migrants get a free flight to Libya, he said.

Syrians first go to border camps for pro-Ankara fighters before crossing into Turkey and flying to the Libyan capital Tripoli.

They spend two weeks in Syrian militia camps in western Libya before being introduced to smugglers, who ask around $2,000 for the boat trip to Italy, he added.

 ‘To hide our tracks’ 

For those in regime-held Syria, getting to Libya can involve criss-crossing the Middle East on a variety of airlines and sometimes overland — “to hide our tracks”, the smuggler in Daraa said.

AFP saw a group ticket for around 20 Syrian migrants who travelled to neighbouring Lebanon and then flew from Beirut to a Gulf state, then to Egypt, before finally landing in Benghazi in eastern Libya.

Direct flights are also available from Damascus to Benghazi with private Syrian carrier Cham Wings.

The European Union blacklisted Cham Wings in 2021 for its alleged role in irregular migration to Europe via Belarus, lifting the measures in July last year.

Several Syrians told AFP that on their flights to Benghazi, direct or not, were many migrants bound for Europe.

Spokesperson Osama Satea said Cham Wings carried only travellers with valid Libyan entry documents, noting the presence of a considerable Syrian diaspora there.

He told AFP the airline is not responsible for determining whether passengers are travelling for work or for other reasons, but “it certainly doesn’t fly to Libya to contribute to smuggling or migration attempts”.

 ‘There was terror’ 

Syrians arriving in Benghazi need a security authorisation from the eastern authorities to enter.

But the Daraa smuggler told AFP this was not a problem: “In Libya, like in Syria, paying off security officials can solve everything.”

“We have a guy in the security apparatus who gets the authorisations just with a click,” he said.

Migrants told AFP a smuggler’s associate, sometimes a security officer, escorted them out of Benghazi’s Benina airport.

One security authorisation seen by AFP bore the logo of Haftar’s forces and listed the names and passport numbers of more than 80 Syrians bound for Europe.

Once in Libya, the Syrians may wait weeks or months for the journey’s most perilous part.

More than 1,800 migrants of various nationalities have died crossing the central Mediterranean towards Europe this year, according to International Organization for Migration figures.

Around 90,000 others have arrived in Italy, according to the UN refugee agency, most having embarked from Libya or Tunisia.

A 23-year-old from northern Syria’s Kurdish-held Kobane was among around 100 survivors of the June shipwreck off Greece.

He paid more than $6,000 for a trip that almost cost him his life.

“There was terror,” he said.

Six people died in desperate fights over food and water, and “on the fifth day, we started drinking seawater”.

“I wanted to leave the war behind, live my life and help my family,” he said from Europe, warning others against making the trip.

“I was promised decent lodgings and a safe trawler, but I got nothing.”

TRIPOLI — Gun battles between two leading armed groups in the Libyan capital Tripoli have killed 27 people and wounded 106, a toll update from the Emergency Medicine Centre said Wednesday.

The centre, which provides emergency services in the west of Tripoli, published the "provisional" toll on its Facebook page overnight.

The clashes between the influential 444 Brigade and the Al-Radaa, or Special Deterrence Force, two of the myriad of militias that have vied for power since the overthrow of longtime leader Muammar Qadhafi in 2011, erupted on Monday night and raged through Tuesday.

A total of 234 families were evacuated from front line areas in the capital's southern suburbs, along with dozens of doctors and nurses who had got trapped by the fighting while caring for the wounded, the centre said.

Three field hospitals and a fleet of around 60 ambulances had been dispatched to the area when the fighting broke out.

The clashes were triggered by the detention of the head of the 444 Brigade, Colonel Mahmoud Hamza, by the rival Al-Radaa Force on Monday, an interior ministry official said.

Late Tuesday, the social council in the southeastern suburb of Soug El-Joumaa, a stronghold of the Al Radaa force, announced an agreement had been reached with Prime Minister Abdelhamid Dbeibah, head of the UN-recognised government based in the capital, for Hamza to be handed over to a "neutral party".

In a televised announcement, the council said a ceasefire would follow the transfer of the force's commander and late Tuesday the fighting abated.

Both armed groups are aligned with Dbeibah’s government, one of two rival administrations that vie for power through shifting alliances with the militias on the ground.

In May, the two sides had clashed for hours in Tripoli, also after the arrest of a 444 Brigade member.

Libya has seen more than a decade of stop-start conflict since the NATO-backed revolt that toppled Qadhafi.

International appeals for calm 

A period of relative stability had led the United Nations to express hope for delayed elections to take place this year, and the latest fighting triggered international calls for calm.

The United Nations Support Mission in Libya said in a statement it was “following with concern” the security deterioration in the Libyan capital and its impact on civilians.

“All parties must preserve the security gains achieved in recent years and address differences through dialogue,” UNSMIL said.

The embassies of Britain, France, the European Union and the United States, echoed the UN call for de-escalation.