40 migrants missing in Mediterranean, rescued girl tells NGO

40 migrants missing in Mediterranean, rescued girl tells NGO
More than 40 migrants are feared dead off Italy's Lampedusa after a lone 11-year-old survivor said the boat she was on capsized, a rescue group said Wednesday. (AP/File)
Short Url
Updated 11 December 2024
Follow

40 migrants missing in Mediterranean, rescued girl tells NGO

40 migrants missing in Mediterranean, rescued girl tells NGO
  • “We assume that she is the only survivor of the shipwreck and that the other 44 people drowned,” said Compass Collective
  • The girl told rescuers that the metal boat left from Sfax, Tunisia, but sank in a storm

ROME: More than 40 migrants are feared dead off Italy’s Lampedusa after a lone 11-year-old survivor said the boat she was on capsized, a rescue group said Wednesday.
“We assume that she is the only survivor of the shipwreck and that the other 44 people drowned,” said Compass Collective, which assists in migrant rescue missions in the Mediterranean.
The group’s Trotamar III vessel “heard the calls in the darkness” of the girl Wednesday morning at approximately 2:20 am (0120 GMT) while heading to another emergency.
“The 11-year-old girl, originally from Sierra Leone, had been floating in the water for three days with two improvised life jackets made from tire tubes filled with air and a simple life jacket,” the group said in a statement.
Mauro Marino, a doctor who examined her, told the Repubblica daily that he believed the girl was in the sea for some 12 hours.
The girl told rescuers that the metal boat left from Sfax, Tunisia, but sank in a storm.
“The girl had no drinking water or food with her and was hypothermic, but reactive and oriented,” Compass Collective said.
A spokeswoman for Mediterranean Hope, another charity, told AFP the girl was recuperating in hospital after her rescue.
Group representatives found the girl to be “very tired,” said spokeswoman Marta Bernardini.
Italian news agency ANSA reported that the coast guard and police boats were searching the area on Wednesday where the shipwrecked boat was found.
“They have not yet found bodies nor traces of clothing,” ANSA wrote.


Turkish prosecutors target the Istanbul Bar Association

Turkish prosecutors target the Istanbul Bar Association
Updated 2 sec ago
Follow

Turkish prosecutors target the Istanbul Bar Association

Turkish prosecutors target the Istanbul Bar Association
ISTANBUL: Turkish prosecutors have filed a lawsuit against the Istanbul Bar Association for “terrorist propaganda” over its calls for a probe into journalist deaths in Syria, the country’s main lawyers association has said.
“The Istanbul public prosecutor’s office has begun legal action to remove Istanbul Bar Association president Ibrahim Kaboglu and his executive board,” Turkish Bar Association head Erinc Sagkan wrote on X late Tuesday.
The lawsuit was filed several weeks after the Istanbul Bar Association demanded an investigation into the deaths of two journalists from Turkiye’s Kurdish-majority southeast who were killed in northern Syria.
Nazim Dastan, 32, and Cihan Bilgin, died on December 19 when their car was hit by what the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said was a “Turkish drone strike” during clashes between an Ankara-backed militia and the SDF, a US-backed group of mainly Kurdish fighters.
Turkiye sees the SDF as a terror group tied to the PKK, which has waged a decades-long insurgency on Turkish soil.
The pair worked for Syrian Kurdish media outlets Rojnews and the Anha news agency, and the strike denounced by the Turkish Journalists’ Union.
The Turkish military insists it never targets civilians but only terror groups.
At the time, the Istanbul Bar Association issued a statement saying “targeting members of the press in conflict zones is a violation of International Humanitarian Law and the Geneva Convention.” It demanded “a proper investigation be conducted into the murder of two of our citizens.”
Prosecutors immediately opened an inquiry into allegations of “making propaganda for a terrorist organization” and “publicly spreading false information” on grounds the two journalists had ties to the PKK.
The Istanbul Bar Association denounced the lawsuit as having “no legal basis” and said its executive council was “fulfilling its duties and responsibilities in line with the Constitution, democracy and the law.”
Turkish Bar Association head Sagkan said: “Although the methods may change, the only thing that has remained constant for the past half century is the effort by the government’s supporters to pressurise and stifle those they see as opponents.”

UNRWA chief vows to continue aid to Palestinians despite Israeli ban

UNRWA chief vows to continue aid to Palestinians despite Israeli ban
Updated 15 January 2025
Follow

UNRWA chief vows to continue aid to Palestinians despite Israeli ban

UNRWA chief vows to continue aid to Palestinians despite Israeli ban

OSLO: The UN’s Palestinian refugee agency UNRWA will continue to provide aid to people in the Palestinian territories despite an Israeli ban due to be implemented by the end of January, its director said Wednesday.
“We will ... stay and deliver,” UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini told a conference in Oslo. “UNRWA’s local staff will remain and continue to provide emergency assistance and where possible, education and primary health care,” he said.


Erdogan says Turkiye can ‘crush’ all terrorists in Syria

Erdogan says Turkiye can ‘crush’ all terrorists in Syria
Updated 15 January 2025
Follow

Erdogan says Turkiye can ‘crush’ all terrorists in Syria

Erdogan says Turkiye can ‘crush’ all terrorists in Syria

ANKARA: Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan on Wednesday urged all countries to “take their hands off” Syria and said Turkiye had the capacity and ability to crush all terrorist organizations in the country, including Kurdish militia and Islamic State.
Speaking in parliament, Erdogan said the Kurdish YPG militia was the biggest problem in Syria now after the ousting of former President Bashar Assad, and added that the group would not be able to escape its inevitable end unless it lays down its arms.


World must keep pressure on Israel after Gaza truce: Palestinian PM

World must keep pressure on Israel after Gaza truce: Palestinian PM
Updated 15 January 2025
Follow

World must keep pressure on Israel after Gaza truce: Palestinian PM

World must keep pressure on Israel after Gaza truce: Palestinian PM

OSLO: The international community will have to maintain pressure on Israel after an hoped-for ceasefire in Gaza so it accepts the creation of a Palestinian state, Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammed Mustafa said on Wednesday.
A ceasefire agreement appears close following a recent round of indirect talks between Israel and Hamas, with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken saying late Tuesday that a deal to end the 15-month war was “on the brink.”
“The ceasefire we’re talking about ... came about primarily because of international pressure. So pressure does pay off,” Mustafa said before a conference in Oslo.
Israel must “be shown what’s right and what’s wrong, and that the veto power on peace and statehood for Palestinians will not be accepted and tolerated any longer,” he told reporters.
He was speaking at the start of the third meeting of the Global Alliance for the Implementation of the Two-State Solution to the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, gathering representatives from some 80 states and organizations in Oslo.
Norwegian Foreign Minister Espen Barth Eide, the host of the meeting, said a “ceasefire is the prerequisite for peace, but it is not peace.”
“We need to move forward now toward a two-state solution. And since one of the two states exists, which is Israel, we need to build the other state, which is Palestine,” he added.
According to analysts, the two-state solution appears more remote than ever.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, firmly supported by US President-elect Donald Trump, is opposed to the creation of a Palestinian state.
Israel is not represented at the Oslo meeting.
Norway angered Israel when it recognized the Palestinian state, together with Spain and Ireland, last May, a move later followed by Slovenia.
In a nod to history, Wednesday’s meeting was held in the Oslo City Hall, where Yasser Arafat, Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1994.
The then-head of the Palestinian Liberation Organization, Israeli prime minister and his foreign minister were honored for signing the Oslo accords a year earlier, which laid the foundation for Palestinian autonomy with the goal of an independent state.


Syrians in uproar after volunteers paint over prison walls

Syrians in uproar after volunteers paint over prison walls
Updated 15 January 2025
Follow

Syrians in uproar after volunteers paint over prison walls

Syrians in uproar after volunteers paint over prison walls

DAMASCUS: Families of missing persons have urged Syria’s new authorities to protect evidence of crimes under president Bashar Assad, after outrage over volunteers painting over etchings on walls inside a former jail.
Thousands poured out of prisons after Islamist-led rebels toppled Assad last month, but many Syrians are still looking for traces of tens of thousands of relatives and friends who went missing.
In the chaos following his ouster, with journalists and families rushing to detention centers, official documents have been left unprotected, with some even looted or destroyed.
Rights groups have stressed the urgent need to preserve “evidence of atrocities,” which includes writings left by detainees on the walls of their cells.
But a video appearing to show young volunteers paint over such writings at an unnamed detention center with white paint and adorning its walls with the new Syrian flag, the depiction of a fireplace or broken chains has circulated on social media in recent days, angering activists.
“Painting the walls of security branches is disgraceful, especially before the start of new investigations into human rights violations” there, said Diab Serriya, a co-founder of Association of Detainees and Missing Persons of Saydnaya Prison (ADMSP).
It is “an attempt to destroy the signs of torture or enforced disappearance and hampers efforts to... gather evidence,” he said.
Jomana Hasan Shtiwy, a Syrian held in three different facilities under Assad, often changing cells, said the writings on the walls held invaluable information.
“On the walls are names and telephone numbers to contact relatives and inform them about the fate of their children,” she said on Facebook.
In each new cell, “we would write a memory so that those who followed could remember us,” she said.
A petition appeared on Tuesday calling for the new Syrian authorities to better protect evidence, and give investigating the fate of those forcibly disappeared under Assad “the highest priority.”
It slammed what it called “the insensitive treatment of the sanctity” of former detention centers.
“Some have gone as far as to paint cells, obscuring their features, which for us represents... a great wronging of detainees,” said signatories, including ADMSP.
The president of the International Committee for the Red Cross said last week determining the fate of those who went missing during Syria’s civil war would be a “huge challenge.”
Mirjana Spoljaric said the ICRC was following 43,000 cases, but that was probably just a fraction of the missing.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based war monitor, says more than 100,000 people have died in detention from torture or dire health conditions across Syria since 2011.