Region

AL HOL CAMP, Syria — Kurdish forces said on Tuesday they have so far arrested 53 suspected Daesh group members in a northeast Syria camp for relatives of terrorists, in an anti-Daesh security operation.

The US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) announced the launch Sunday of the sweep in Al Hol camp, which has been rocked by assassinations and breakout attempts.

Kurdish authorities have warned that the settlement, home to almost 62,000 people, is turning into an extremist power keg because of Daesh members hiding out among camp residents.

The Kurds' Asayish security forces said they have "detained 53 Daesh members, including five leaders of Daesh sleeper cells that carried out violent terrorist attacks in the camp".

They had also "confiscated mobile phones as well as several laptops", the SDF-allied police unit added.

Heavily-armed Kurdish forces stood outside the camp on guard as others stormed suspected hideouts inside the vast settlement, an AFP reporter said.

In some sections, residents stood outside their tents watching the anti-terrorist squad scour the area.

Al Hol is the largest of two Kurdish-run displacement camps for relatives of Daesh terrorists in Syria's northeast.

It holds mostly Syrians and Iraqis but also houses thousands from Europe and Asia suspected of family ties with Daesh fighters.

Many residents see the camp as the last vestige of the Daesh proto-state that terrorists declared in 2014 across large swathes of both Syria and Iraq.

Kurdish authorities have recorded more than 40 murders in Al Hol since the start of this year.

They say Daesh  sympathisers are behind most of the murders, while humanitarian sources have said tribal disputes could be behind some of the killings.

Simand Ali, a Kurdish official, told AFP jihadists had dug trenches in Al Hol that they used to hide prohibited electronic devices and other goods.

Those detained so far have mostly been Syrians and Iraqis, he said.

BEIRUT — Samir Merhi returned to Lebanon in 2009, hoping the fortune he made abroad would let him retire comfortably at home, but the country's economic crisis has upended his dreams and forced him to leave again.

For four decades, Merhi said he made "millions" working in the fashion and construction industries in Britain and the Gulf, but draconian controls imposed by Lebanese banks have trapped his life savings.

Speaking in a hotel in Beirut's commercial district of Hamra, Merhi said he was planning to fly to the United States, where he will join family, even though he isn't keen on doing so.

"I have no choice," said the 72-year-old former businessman wearing a neatly pressed suit.

"I have to start over to secure my retirement. If my money was given back to me, I wouldn't need to go to the US," he told AFP.

"What will I do there? I don't want to die in America," he said as he waited for a taxi to take him to the airport.

Lebanon is in the grips of its worst economic crisis since the 1975-1990 civil war, with more than half of its population mired in poverty.

The Lebanese pound has lost more than 85 per cent of its value against the US dollar on the black market in a devaluation that has eaten away at pensions and salaries.

Lebanese banks have limited access to pound deposits and halted all dollar transactions since 2019 to stem a liquidity crunch and shore up dwindling foreign exchange reserves.

Like many in the country, Merhi blames the dire situation on politicians who he accused of being “corrupt from head to toe”.

“I’m the victim of the biggest financial scam in history,” he said. “May God curse them all.”

‘Count on God’ 

Unlike Merhi, who can live elsewhere, many Lebanese pensioners are caught in a bind.

They include more than 108,000 ex-public sector workers who rely on monthly pensions averaging 2.2 million pounds — about $1,466 at the official exchange rate, but only around $180 on the volatile black market.

Earlier this month, the pound hit an all-time low of 15,000 against the greenback.

Jean Assaf, who was a policeman for 32 years, gets a pension of about $180, down from $1,400 before the crisis.

“I had hoped to live honourably at the end of my life,” said the ex-officer, the walls in his dark living room adorned with old photos, medals, and embroidered art.

“For the remaining years in store for me, I can only count on God,” he added, with his children also struggling to cope.

In Mar Mkhayel, a district hit hard by a devastating explosion at Beirut’s port last year that killed more than 200 people, charities aiding the most vulnerable have expanded relief efforts to include pensioners.

Among them is Grassroots, which runs a soup kitchen.

“It’s mostly retirees” who have been coming recently, said director Mayssa Mansour, standing beside a queue of people waiting for food under pouring rain.

“They are ashamed... these are people who have never needed to ask for handouts.”

Lining up for soup in Mar Mkhayel, former policeman Adib said times are tough.

The 69-year-old, who retired in 2004, waits for food for his family every day because his pension is now only worth around $100.

“I used to belong to the middle class,” he said. “Now I fall below the poverty line.”

Private sector workers are also feeling the pinch, including Sara and Fouad Ammar who used to get a combined pension of around $6,000.

Now, the retired teachers only make about $600 between them.

“Our situation is relatively better than many others,” said Sara, 68.

“But we didn’t expect things to be like this at the end of our life,” said the former teacher at a prestigious French school.

Her husband Fouad, 76, said the family has lost more than just savings, with two of their three children having left for Canada because of the crisis.

“We are at an age where we want to be around our grandchildren — to play with them and to see them,” he said with a forlorn look.

SUEZ, Egypt — The MV Ever Given was refloated and the Suez Canal reopened on Monday, sparking relief almost a week after the huge container ship got stuck during a sandstorm and blocked a major artery for global trade.

"Admiral Osama Rabie, head of the Suez Canal Authority, has announced the resumption of shipping traffic in the Suez Canal," the SCA said in a statement.

Television footage showed tugboat crews sounding their foghorns in celebration after the Ever Given, a cargo megaship the length of four football fields, was dislodged from the banks of the Suez.

The breakthrough followed what appeared to be a setback and came moments after the ship had temporarily settled back into the diagonal position it had been stuck in after running aground last Tuesday.

Maritime data company Lloyd's List said the blockage had held up an estimated $9.6 billion worth of cargo each day between Asia and Europe.

By the end of the drama, the tailback of ships had reaching 425 at the two ends of the canal, in the Mediterranean and Red Sea.

Tugboat flotilla 

The Japanese-owned ship had been partially dislodged early Monday, triggering immediate praise from Egypt's President Abdel Fattah El Sisi.

"Today, Egyptians have been successful in putting to an end the crisis of the stranded ship in the Suez Canal, despite the enormous complexity surrounding the process," Sisi said.

Egypt was estimated to have lost some $12-$14 million in revenue from the canal for each day it was closed, according to the canal authority.

After the 200,000-tonne ship was refloated, it was expected to take around three and a half days to clear the traffic jam of ships, Rabie said, praising rescue efforts.

Salvage crews have been working around the clock.

They had focussed on efforts to remove sand around the ship, with 27,000 cubic metres cleared at a depth of 18 metres, SCA spokesman George Safwat said Sunday.

The crisis has forced companies to choose between waiting or rerouting vessels around Africa, which adds a huge fuel bill, 9,000 kilometres and over a week of travel to the trip between Asia and Europe.

Russia offered assistance Sunday, following other countries including the United States that have made similar offers.

In a sign of the knock-on effects from the Suez blockage, authorities in war-wracked Syria said the crisis had hit its fuel imports from Iran and forced it to ration already scarce supplies.

Romania’s animal health agency said 11 ships carrying livestock out of the country were also impacted, while the charity Animals International warned of a potential “tragedy” affecting some 130,000 animals.

CAIRO — Egypt has arrested eight people over a train collision last week, prosecutors said in a statement on Monday that also revised the death toll down to 18 people.

A speeding train on Friday hit another in the Tahta district of southern Sohag province, sending a carriage hurtling into the air and also leaving 200 people injured.

"The prosecutor general ordered that the two drivers... their two assistants, the guard of a traffic control tower, the head of traffic control in Assiut and two other guards ... be remanded in custody," the prosecutor said.

Security and judicial sources told AFP the eight had been arrested on Friday and Saturday and placed in provisional detention for four days.

The toll from the crash — one of several rail disasters in Egypt in recent years — was revised down to 18. It had already been adjusted down to 19 from 32 by Health Minister Hala Zayed on Saturday.

The prosecutor’s statement also cited additional “body parts” that had not been identified, without elaborating and revised the toll for the injured to 200, up from 185 cited by the health minister.

It said investigators had spoken to 133 of the injured, most of whom suffered fractures, as well as 10 rail officials, station staff and three police officers “in charge of the security of trains”.

They had also carried out several signal simulations and tested the speeding train’s manual brakes, allowing them to establish that the driver could see the “signage of the control tower”.

Tough punishment 

One train was travelling between the southern city of Luxor and Alexandria on the Mediterranean coast, and the other between the southern city of Aswan and Cairo.

Surveillance camera footage of the accident seen by AFP showed a speeding train barrelling into another as it rolled slowly down the tracks, sending a carriage hurtling into the air in a cloud of dust.

A military conscript who was on the Cairo-bound train told AFP that the second train struck the one he was travelling on about 15 minutes after his had come to a stop.

Transport Minister Kamel Al Wazir, a former army general appointed by Sisi to lead the ministry, pointed to human error or intervention as playing a role in the country’s rail accidents.

“We have a problem with the human element,” he told a Saturday talk show, pledging to automate Egypt’s rail network by 2024.

President Abdel Fattah Al Sisi has pledged tough punishment for those responsible for the crash, the latest in a series of rail accidents to plague Egypt.

Such incidents are generally attributed to poor infrastructure and maintenance.

One of the deadliest Egyptian train crashes came in 2002, when 373 people died as a fire ripped through a crowded train south of Cairo.

LESBOS ISLAND, Greece — The European Union said on Monday that Turkey must “urgently” resume accepting migrants from Greece, where thousands are being held in camps, days before EU chiefs are to visit Ankara.

Greece, which has also been seeking support from EU allies in a decades-old maritime dispute with Turkey, wants Ankara to better police migration routes and take back hundreds of asylum seekers found ineligible for refugee protection.

“I call on Turkey to urgently resume the return of migrants from Greece,” said EU Home Affairs Commissioner Ylva Johansson during a visit to the island of Lesbos, which hosts more than 8,000 asylum seekers.

EU chiefs Ursula von der Leyen and Charles Michel are set to visit Turkey next week to meet President Recep Tayyip Erdogan over migration and other regional issues.

Johansson also pledged 276 million euros ($326 million) of EU money for new camps on the islands of Lesbos, Chios, Samos, Kos and Leros, where nearly 14,000 migrants are hosted.

She said it was imperative to find “new political solutions” to share the burden between EU states.

“For three years there had been no progress on finding a political solution,” Johansson said.

“I can understand that everybody has a limit to their patience... this limit is close, also here on Lesbos and in some other areas,” she said.

Greek’s Migration Minister Notis Mitarachi echoed Johansson’s call, urging Ankara to accept 1,450 migrants whose asylum applications had been rejected.

He has said new migrant camps are being built to host migrant populations, with one in Samos to completed by June and others in Kos and Leros by September.

He said that at present, EU border states were facing a tall order in having to “guard frontiers, examine asylum claims, host asylum seekers, protect the vulnerable, return those not entitled to international protection, and integrate refugees”.

Greece has toughened its migration policy since conservative Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis came to power in 2019.

Border patrols have increased, asylum processes have been quickened and benefits have been slashed, even for refugees who are granted asylum.

But opposition to housing migrants in Greece remains.

Monday’s press conference was delayed by roughly 300 people demonstrating against the planned Lesbos camp, in a protest called by local governor Costas Moutzouris.

“The islanders will not allow the construction of permanent camps on Greek and European borders,” the governor said in a statement.

Moutzouris had also whipped up opposition to the new camp last year. An attempt by the government to move ahead with construction work had prompted days of riots and clashes with riot police.

Greece has been accused by rights groups of repeatedly pushing back migrant boats in violation of international law.

Government officials have denied the claims.

“We haven’t returned boats. We have prevented boats from entering European and Greek territory, but this is something allowed by the regulations,” Migration Minister Mitarachi told AFP in an interview earlier this month.

On Monday, he once again “strongly” denied the claims, insisting that investigations by EU border agency Frontex had found “no breach of fundamental rights to the cases that have been examined”.

Greek authorities have likewise found no evidence, Mitarachi said, adding that smugglers are spreading “fake news” about the Greek coast guard.

“Greece is fully adhering to international and European law,” he said.

However, Johansson insisted at the press conference that Greece “can do more” to investigate pushbacks.

“There are some specific cases that I really think need to be looked into closely,” she said, adding that she was “very concerned” by reports by the UN refugee agency.

“We need to protect our external borders and we need to protect fundamental rights, that goes hand in hand, it’s not a contradiction,” she said.

JUBA — Sudan's government signed an agreement with a rebel faction on Sunday to guide future peace negotiations as the country's transitional leaders move to put an end to myriad internal conflicts.

The "declaration of principles" signed with the Sudan People's Liberation Movement-North (SPLM-N) faction lays out priorities including the unification of armed forces and the establishment of a democratic, secular state with freedom of religion.

It was signed by Sudanese head of state General Abdel Fattah Al Burhan and Abdelaziz Al Hilu, head of the SPLM-N wing.

The group is based in the states of South Kordofan and Blue Nile in the country's south. The signing took place in South Sudanese capital Juba.

"The next thing is the two parties will resume talks three weeks from now," mediation team official Ramadan Goch told AFP.

"They are now going to organise their teams and prepare to resume the peace talks."

The transitional government in Khartoum, which includes soldiers and civilians installed after the 2019 overthrow of Omar Al Bashir's 30-year dictatorship, have made peace with the country's rebel groups a priority.

A historic agreement was signed in October with the Sudan Revolutionary Front, an alliance of rebel groups from the Darfur, Blue Nile and Southern Kordofan regions.

A branch of the Sudan Liberation Movement led by Abdelwahid Nour in Darfur refused to sign.

Al Hilu's SPLM-North signed a separate ceasefire, allowing its fighters to keep their weapons for "self-protection" until the Sudanese constitution is amended to guarantee separation of state and religion.

South Kordofan and to a lesser extent Blue Nile state have significant Christian populations who have fought for decades to end the imposition of Islamic law by Khartoum.