KUWAIT CITY: Kuwait received on Sunday 8 tons of documents and other items taken during the 1990 Iraq invasion led by Saddam Hussein, officials said.
It is the third shipment that Kuwait has received since 2019, according to officials from both countries.
Kuwait’s Assistant Foreign Minister Nasser Al-Hain welcomed the move, saying the shipment contained archives from Kuwait University, the Information Ministry and other institutions.
“We look forward to more cooperation and, God willing, there will soon be additional steps to complete the handover,” he said during a ceremony marking the occasion in Kuwait City.
Qahtan Al-Janabi, from Iraq’s Foreign Ministry, said that his country had previously received a list of missing items from Kuwait and “based on that, the handover is taking place.”
Iraqi forces, under ex-ruler Saddam Hussein, invaded oil-rich Kuwait in 1990, sparking international condemnation, and occupying the Gulf state for seven months before they were pushed out by a US-led international coalition.
Baghdad has paid around $50 billion in the last three decades in reparations, but faced with its worst fiscal crisis in years amid the coronavirus pandemic and plummeting oil prices, it has asked for an extension for the final $3.8 billion.
While the countries now have civil relations, issues remain over borders and the repatriation of bodies.
Kuwait receives tons of national archives from Iraq
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Kuwait receives tons of national archives from Iraq
- Iraqi forces, under ex-ruler Saddam Hussein, invaded oil-rich Kuwait in 1990, sparking international condemnation, and occupying the Gulf state for seven months before they were pushed out by a US-led international coalition
Trial opens in Tunisia of NGO workers accused of aiding migrants
- Aid workers accused of assisting irregular migration to Tunisia went on trial on Monday, as Amnesty International criticized what it called “the relentless criminalization of civil society”
TUNIS: Aid workers accused of assisting irregular migration to Tunisia went on trial on Monday, as Amnesty International criticized what it called “the relentless criminalization of civil society” in the country.
Six staff members of the Tunisian branch of the France Terre d’Asile aid group, along with 17 municipal workers from the eastern city of Sousse, face charges of sheltering migrants and facilitating their “illegal entry and residence.”
If convicted, they face up to 10 years in prison.
Migration is a sensitive issue in Tunisia, a key transit point for tens of thousands of people seeking to reach Europe each year.
A former head of Terre d’Asile Tunisie, Sherifa Riahi, is among the accused and has been detained for more than 19 months, according to her lawyer Abdellah Ben Meftah.
He told AFP that the accused had carried out their work as part of a project approved by the state and in “direct coordination” with the government.
Amnesty denounced what it described as a “bogus criminal trial” and called on Tunisian authorities to drop the charges.
“They are being prosecuted simply for their legitimate work providing vital assistance and protection to refugees, asylum seekers and migrants in precarious situations,” Sara Hashash, Amnesty’s deputy MENA chief, said in the statement.
The defendants were arrested in May 2024 along with about a dozen humanitarian workers, including anti-racism pioneer Saadia Mosbah, whose trial is set to start later this month.
In February 2023, President Kais Saied said “hordes of illegal migrants,” many from sub-Saharan Africa, posed a demographic threat to the Arab-majority country.
His speech triggered a series of racially motivated attacks as thousands of sub-Saharan African migrants in Tunisia were pushed out of their homes and jobs.
Thousands were repatriated or attempted to cross the Mediterranean, while others were expelled to the desert borders with Algeria and Libya, where at least a hundred died that summer.
This came as the European Union boosted efforts to curb arrivals on its southern shores, including a 255-million-euro ($290-million) deal with Tunis.
