LONDON: From the founder of a Kuwaiti children’s hospital to a Tunis embassy British diplomat, the New Year’s honors list set its footprint across the Arab world.
Diplomats and embassy staff from around the Middle East figured widely in the list issued by the UK Cabinet Office which features the names of 1,123 people.
More than two thirds are people recognized for work in their communities.
Among those working in the Middle East is Leila Memmi, vice consul at the British Embassy in Tunis, who was awarded an MBE for services to British victims and their families following a terrorist attack at Sousse, Tunisia in 2015.
Some 38 people, 30 of whom were British, lost their lives during the attack after a lone gunman opened fire at a beach resort.
Also in Tunisia, Patricia Coelho, political first secretary at the British Embassy in Tunis, was awarded an MBE for services to British foreign policy.
Angus John Clarkson, lately head of the Foreign Office’s Syria office in Amman, was awarded an OBE for “services to furthering UK interests in Jordan and Syria.”
Marrena Ruby Bradshaw, chief of staff to the director of the Foreign Office’s Middle East and North Africa Directorate, was awarded an MBE for services to British foreign policy.
Meanwhile, Jeremy Chivers, a former stabilization adviser at the British Embassy in Beirut, was awarded an MBE for services to UK/Lebanon relations.
Outside of the diplomatic sector, Alan David Thomson, managing director, Abu Dhabi Sewerage Services Company (ADSSC), was awarded an MBE for services to the UK and global water industry and associated charities. He previously worked in senior roles at Thames Water and West of Scotland Water.
Margaret Therese Al-Sayer, the founding director of the Kuwait Association for the Care of Children in Hospital and the Bayt Abdullah Children’s Hospice in Kuwait, received an OBE for services to child health and hospice provision in Kuwait.
Finally, Carol Angela Murray, a volunteer and member of the Bahrain Anglican Church Council, was awarded an MBE for services to charity and the community in Bahrain.
UK new year’s honors list touches Arab world
UK new year’s honors list touches Arab world
The UN says Al-Hol camp population has dropped sharply as Syria moves to relocate remaining families
The UN says Al-Hol camp population has dropped sharply as Syria moves to relocate remaining families
- Forces of Syria’s central government captured the Al-Hol camp on Jan. 21 during a weekslong offensive against the SDF, which had been running the camp near the border with Iraq for a decade
DAMASCUS: The UN refugee agency said Sunday that a large number of residents of a camp housing family members of suspected Daesh group militants have left and the Syrian government plans to relocate those who remain.
Gonzalo Vargas Llosa, UNHCR’s representative in Syria, said in a statement that the agency “has observed a significant decrease in the number of residents in Al-Hol camp in recent weeks.”
“Syrian authorities have informed UNHCR of their plan to relocate the remaining families to Akhtarin camp in Aleppo Governorate (province) and have requested UNHCR’s support to assist the population in the new camp, which we stand ready to provide,” he said.
He added that UNHCR “will continue to support the return and reintegration of Syrians who have departed Al-Hol, as well as those who remain.”
The statement did not say how residents had left the camp or how many remain. Many families are believed to have escaped either during the chaos when government forces captured the camp from the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces last month or afterward.
There was no immediate statement from the Syrian government and a government spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment.
At its peak after the defeat of IS in Syria in 2019, around 73,000 people were living at Al-Hol. Since then, the number has declined with some countries repatriating their citizens. The camp’s residents are mostly children and women, including many wives or widows of IS members.
The camp’s residents are not technically prisoners and most have not been accused of crimes, but they have been held in de facto detention at the heavily guarded facility.
Forces of Syria’s central government captured the Al-Hol camp on Jan. 21 during a weekslong offensive against the SDF, which had been running the camp near the border with Iraq for a decade. A ceasefire deal has since ended the fighting.
Separately, thousands of accused IS militants who were held in detention centers in northeastern Syria have been transferred to Iraq to stand trial under an agreement with the US
The US military said Friday that it had completed the transfer of more than 5,700 adult male IS suspects from detention facilities in Syria to Iraqi custody.
Iraq’s National Center for International Judicial Cooperation said a total of 5,704 suspects from 61 countries who were affiliated with IS — most of them Syrian and Iraqi — were transferred from prisons in Syria. They are now being interrogated in Iraq.
