BERLIN: Germany has organized the return of three women and 12 children from camps in northeastern Syria for humanitarian reasons, its foreign minister reported Sunday.
Heiko Maas didn’t further identify the women or children, who were flown back to Germany on Saturday.
However, the German weekly Bild am Sonntag reported that all three women had left Germany in recent years to join the extremist Daesh group in Syria. The paper identified the women as Merve A., Yasmin A. and Leonora M.
Also Sunday, Germany’s federal prosecutor’s office said a German citizen by the name of Leonora M. had been arrested upon her arrival at Frankfurt airport. It said she is accused of Daesh membership and allegedly committed crimes against humanity.
Maas said he was “very relieved” about the return of the 12 children and three of their mothers. He said the return was organized in cooperation with Finland, which brought home six children and two women.
“These are humanitarian cases, especially orphans and children with illnesses — cases in which the departure was urgently needed,” Maas said.
“This good news just before Christmas makes us confident that we will be able to organize the return of further cases as well,” he said.
Hundreds of Europeans — many of them young women — left the continent in the last couple of years to join Daesh and fight in Syria and Iraq. Several died while others were arrested and detained by Turkish, Kurdish or Iraqi authorities who have been eager to deport them and their children back to Europe.
European governments, however, have been reluctant to take back the often-radicalized Daesh supporters.
The Finnish government said Sunday the repatriation of its citizens from the Al-Hol camp in Syria was done for humanitarian reasons and because of the country’s legal obligations for its citizens.
“The basic rights of the children interned in the Al-Hol camps can be safeguarded only by repatriating them to Finland,” the Finnish government said in a statement.
No identities of the children or women were given, but Finnish officials said they consisted of two families.
Jussi Tanner, the Finnish Foreign Ministry’s special representative in charge of making the repatriation decision, stressed at a news conference that the Syria camps formed a highly complex case judicially for Finland and other Western countries..
“No such world exists where we are able to repatriate children only,” Tanner said, referring to parents’ legal rights to their children. He said Finland opted to cooperate with Germany as the two countries had common interests in the case and share similar legislation.
The two returning women, which Finnish media said are both known to be radicalized Daesh sympathizers, will face thorough screening by security officials upon return.
The Finnish newspaper Helsingin Sanomat said Sunday that Finnish security police consider both of them “a security threat.” It marked the first time that Finland repatriated adults from Syrian camps apart from orphaned children.
The women and children who just arrived in Germany were detained at the Al-Hol and Roj camps in northeastern Syria, the German foreign ministry said. The camps are managed by the Kurdish-led administration in northeastern Syria, but lack basic services and have been rife with diseases and lawlessness.
Al-Hol holds more than 60,000 Syrian, Iraqi and Western detainees, most either family members of Daesh fighters or supporters of the group who had remained in the territories it held until the final battle in March last year. In late 2019, Finland repatriated two orphans from the Al-Hol camp. Around 15 Finnish children and five adults still remain there, Finnish officials said Sunday.
Roj is a smaller camp with mostly Westerners — also family members of imprisoned or killed Daesh fighters or supporters.
The Kurdish-led authorities said last month they would begin releasing some of the 25,000 Syrians held in the Al-Hol camp, allowing them to return home if they choose to.
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Germany brings home 3 women, 12 kids from camps in Syria
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Germany brings home 3 women, 12 kids from camps in Syria
- German weekly Bild am Sonntag reported that all three women had left Germany in recent years to join the extremist Daesh group in Syria
Troops guard Bangladesh depots as fuel crunch hits Asia
- The oil price spike caused by the war in the Middle East has sparked unrest in Bangladesh and exasperation at petrol pumps around Asia
DHAKA: The oil price spike caused by the war in the Middle East has sparked unrest in Bangladesh and exasperation at petrol pumps around Asia, where many economies are heavily dependent on fossil fuel imports.
Even as governments move to limit the impact on fuel prices, lines have formed at petrol stations in countries including Vietnam, Pakistan and the Philippines, although the situation remains stable elsewhere.
In Bangladesh — which imports 95 percent of its oil and gas needs — the military has been deployed at major oil depots, as police patrol in and around filling stations.
“We haven’t received supply from the depot, but the bike riders weren’t convinced and vandalized the station,” said petrol station worker Ashrafuzzaman Dulal told AFP, describing violence on Sunday.
On Tuesday his station Shahjahan Traders, one of the oldest in the capital Dhaka, had hung a banner apologizing because its stock had run out.
The South Asian nation of 170 million people has started fuel rationing, sent students home and scrapped celebratory light displays over the energy crunch.
One man was killed on Saturday night in the southern Bangladeshi district of Jhenaidah after an altercation over refueling with staff.
Following the 25-year-old’s death, angry crowds torched three buses and vandalized a filling station, police said.
- ‘So, so angry’ -
On Tuesday, queues stretched for 1.5 kilometers (nearly one mile) through Dhaka’s city center.
“My boss left the car here and took a rickshaw to reach his destination,” Kamrul Hasan, who was waiting in a vehicle almost at the end of the queue, told AFP.
Filling station worker Akhtar Hossain said he had not stopped for hours.
“Even during the Gulf War, we didn’t experience this sort of rush,” Hossain told AFP.
Oil prices fell Tuesday after US President Donald Trump said the US-Israel war on Iran could end “very soon.”
The previous day, the price of benchmark crude had rocketed past $100 a barrel — its highest level since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
The market instability came as Iran targeted the crude-rich Gulf with missile and drone barrages.
Maritime traffic in the Strait of Hormuz — a key Gulf waterway through which a fifth of global crude passes — has also all but halted since the war broke out.
Thousands of motorbike riders queued for fuel Tuesday in Vietnam, where prices for unleaded gasoline have surged more than 20 percent.
Vietnam has so far avoided mass shortages, with the government scraping duties on many imported petroleum products.
A 57-year-old who gave his name as Tuan told AFP at a Hanoi petrol station that he was “so, so angry.”
“I have been waiting in line for almost one hour. Then my turn came, and they said their system is down,” he said as dozens of drivers waited but others gave up.
- Myanmar price spike -
Vehicles also lined up in scorching heat at Philippine petrol stations this week, as officials warned against hoarding fuel, with similar scenes unfolding in Pakistan and Sri Lanka.
Enrico Guda, a gas station attendant in Metro Manila, said the station had double its usual daily workload as people rushed to fuel up before prices jumped.
In Myanmar, which imports 90 percent of its fuel oil and has long suffered from a fragile energy supply chain owing to the civil war consuming the country, traffic curbs are in place.
From Saturday, half of private vehicles have been ordered off the roads each day to preserve oil stocks.
“Some drivers depend on their vehicles for work and survival... the new system has made it harder for them to run their businesses,” said Hla Htay, 56, a car rental business owner.
In the Myanmar frontier town of Tachileik, an AFP reporter saw signs cross-border supplies from Thailand had been cut — with some petrol stations shut last week after an up-to threefold price spike the day before.
In several other Asian countries, from Japan to Indonesia, as well as China, India and Afghanistan, panic appears not yet to have hit, apart from a few sporadic queues for petrol.
“I used to fill up regularly once a week, but now I try to fill up whenever I find a cheaper gas station,” South Korean businessman Lee In-tae, 42, told AFP in Seoul.
Even as governments move to limit the impact on fuel prices, lines have formed at petrol stations in countries including Vietnam, Pakistan and the Philippines, although the situation remains stable elsewhere.
In Bangladesh — which imports 95 percent of its oil and gas needs — the military has been deployed at major oil depots, as police patrol in and around filling stations.
“We haven’t received supply from the depot, but the bike riders weren’t convinced and vandalized the station,” said petrol station worker Ashrafuzzaman Dulal told AFP, describing violence on Sunday.
On Tuesday his station Shahjahan Traders, one of the oldest in the capital Dhaka, had hung a banner apologizing because its stock had run out.
The South Asian nation of 170 million people has started fuel rationing, sent students home and scrapped celebratory light displays over the energy crunch.
One man was killed on Saturday night in the southern Bangladeshi district of Jhenaidah after an altercation over refueling with staff.
Following the 25-year-old’s death, angry crowds torched three buses and vandalized a filling station, police said.
- ‘So, so angry’ -
On Tuesday, queues stretched for 1.5 kilometers (nearly one mile) through Dhaka’s city center.
“My boss left the car here and took a rickshaw to reach his destination,” Kamrul Hasan, who was waiting in a vehicle almost at the end of the queue, told AFP.
Filling station worker Akhtar Hossain said he had not stopped for hours.
“Even during the Gulf War, we didn’t experience this sort of rush,” Hossain told AFP.
Oil prices fell Tuesday after US President Donald Trump said the US-Israel war on Iran could end “very soon.”
The previous day, the price of benchmark crude had rocketed past $100 a barrel — its highest level since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
The market instability came as Iran targeted the crude-rich Gulf with missile and drone barrages.
Maritime traffic in the Strait of Hormuz — a key Gulf waterway through which a fifth of global crude passes — has also all but halted since the war broke out.
Thousands of motorbike riders queued for fuel Tuesday in Vietnam, where prices for unleaded gasoline have surged more than 20 percent.
Vietnam has so far avoided mass shortages, with the government scraping duties on many imported petroleum products.
A 57-year-old who gave his name as Tuan told AFP at a Hanoi petrol station that he was “so, so angry.”
“I have been waiting in line for almost one hour. Then my turn came, and they said their system is down,” he said as dozens of drivers waited but others gave up.
- Myanmar price spike -
Vehicles also lined up in scorching heat at Philippine petrol stations this week, as officials warned against hoarding fuel, with similar scenes unfolding in Pakistan and Sri Lanka.
Enrico Guda, a gas station attendant in Metro Manila, said the station had double its usual daily workload as people rushed to fuel up before prices jumped.
In Myanmar, which imports 90 percent of its fuel oil and has long suffered from a fragile energy supply chain owing to the civil war consuming the country, traffic curbs are in place.
From Saturday, half of private vehicles have been ordered off the roads each day to preserve oil stocks.
“Some drivers depend on their vehicles for work and survival... the new system has made it harder for them to run their businesses,” said Hla Htay, 56, a car rental business owner.
In the Myanmar frontier town of Tachileik, an AFP reporter saw signs cross-border supplies from Thailand had been cut — with some petrol stations shut last week after an up-to threefold price spike the day before.
In several other Asian countries, from Japan to Indonesia, as well as China, India and Afghanistan, panic appears not yet to have hit, apart from a few sporadic queues for petrol.
“I used to fill up regularly once a week, but now I try to fill up whenever I find a cheaper gas station,” South Korean businessman Lee In-tae, 42, told AFP in Seoul.
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