KIRKUK, Iraq: A curfew on parts of Iraq’s Kirkuk was lifted Tuesday and the city was calm despite fears of unrest over a vote on Kurdish independence.
Police said the curfew, imposed during the vote on Monday, had been lifted at 5:00 am (0200 GMT) and an AFP journalist saw heavy traffic and shops opening as normal.
“The situation is stable and normal,” Kirkuk police chief Khattab Omar Aref said.
The city of about one million is divided between Arab, Kurdish and Turkmen populations and took part in the independence vote despite not being part of northern Iraq’s autonomous Kurdish region.
The curfew was imposed in the city center, as well as in Arab and Turkmen neighborhoods, as night fell on Monday. Police said the move was to ensure public security and protect the city’s residents.
Baghdad denounced Monday’s vote as illegal and raised particular concern over the fact it was being held in disputed areas outside the boundaries of Iraqi Kurdistan. Results were to be announced later on Tuesday and an overwhelming “yes” victory was expected.
The non-Arab Kurds say that historically Kirkuk belongs to them, arguing that the late dictator Saddam Hussein chased them out and replaced them with Arabs.
The curfew did not apply in Kurdish areas of Kirkuk, where residents celebrated voting with music, fireworks and shots fired in the air.
Curfew lifted in Iraq’s Kirkuk after Kurdish vote
Curfew lifted in Iraq’s Kirkuk after Kurdish vote
5 bodies of migrants washed ashore in east of Libya’s capital Tripoli, police officer says
TRIPOLI: At least five bodies of migrants including two women have been washed ashore in َQasr Al-Akhyar, a coastal town in the east of Libya’s capital Tripoli, a police officer told Reuters on Saturday.
Hassan Al-Ghawil, head of investigations at the Qasr Al-Akhyar police station, said that according to people in the area, a child’s body washed ashore and because of the waves’ height the body returned to the sea, and the coast guard was asked to search for it.
Ghawil said the bodies are all dark-skinned people. The bodies were found on Emhamid Al-Sharif shore in the western part of the town by people who reported to the police station.
Libya has become a transit route for migrants fleeing conflict and poverty to Europe across the Mediterranean since the fall in 2011 of dictator Muammar Qaddafi to a NATO-backed uprising. Factional conflict has split the country into western and eastern factions since 2014.
Qasr Al-Akhyar is a coastal town some 73 kilometers (45 miles) east of Tripoli.
Pictures were posted on the Internet, and also seen by Reuters, showing the bodies of the migrants lying on the shore, where some were still within black inflatable lifebuoys.
“We reported to the Red Crescent to recover the bodies,” said Ghawil. “The bodies we found are still intact and we think there are more bodies to wash ashore.”
Earlier this month, fifty-three migrants, including two babies, were dead or missing after a rubber boat carrying 55 people capsized off the coast of Zuwara town in western Tripoli, the International Organization for Migration said.
Last week, a UN report said migrants in Libya, including young girls, are at risk of being killed, tortured, raped or put into domestic slavery, calling for a moratorium on the return of migrant boats to the country until human rights are ensured.
