TRIPOLI: More than 100,000 doses of Russia’s Sputnik V COVID-19 vaccine arrived at Tripoli’s Mitiga airport on Sunday, Libya’s ministry of health said, the first shipment to reach the country.
Around 1,000 new infections are announced daily by the National Center for Disease Control, posing a challenge to a health sector ravaged by years of conflict.
“It is the first drop of rain. Thank God, we are able to supply the first batch of corona vaccine,” interim Prime Minister Abdulhamid Dbeibeh said in a tweet.
“The rest of the shipment will arrive in succession,” he added, without giving details of how many more doses were due.
A box of the vaccine was shown being unloaded from a cargo plane in a social media post by the health ministry, saying it would be moved to the ministry’s warehouses before distribution.
In February, the disease control center launched an electronic registration campaign for vaccinations for those aged over 18. No details on the numbers of those registering have been disclosed. Libya has a population of around 6.5 million.
Libya has recorded almost 200,000 infections since the outbreak of the pandemic and 2,684 deaths, according to the latest data from the diseases center.
Libya has been torn by division and violence for a decade since the 2011 NATO-backed uprising against Muammar Qaddafi and split between warring western and eastern factions in 2014.
Dbeibeh’s new UN-backed unity government took office last month with a mandate to improve services and prepare for a national election in December.
Libya PM hails COVID-19 vaccine delivery as ‘first drop of rain’
https://arab.news/m23r9
Libya PM hails COVID-19 vaccine delivery as ‘first drop of rain’
- Around 1,000 new infections are announced daily by the National Center for Disease Control
- Libya has recorded almost 200,000 infections since the outbreak of the pandemic and 2,684 deaths
Take back and prosecute your jailed Daesh militants, Iraq tells Europe
RAQQA: Baghdad on Friday urged European states to repatriate and prosecute their citizens who fought for Daesh, and who are now being moved to Iraq from detention camps in Syria.
Europeans were among 150 Daesh prisoners transferred so far by the US military from Kurdish custody in Syria. They were among an estimated 7,000 militants due to be moved across the border to Iraq as the Kurdish-led force that has held them for years relinquishes swaths of territory to the advancing Syrian army.
In a telephone call on Friday with French President Emmanuel Macron, Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia Al-Sudani said European countries should take back and prosecute their nationals.
An Iraqi security official said the 150 so far transferred to Iraq were “all leaders of the Daesh group, and some of the most notorious criminals.” They included “Europeans, Asians, Arabs and Iraqis,” he said.
Another Iraqi security source said the group comprised “85 Iraqis and 65 others of various nationalities, including Europeans, Sudanese, Somalis, and people from the Caucasus region.”
They all took part in Daesh operations in Iraq, he said, and were now being held at a prison in Baghdad.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has said that “non-Iraqi terrorists will be in Iraq temporarily.”
The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces jailed thousands of militant fighters and detained tens of thousands of their relatives in camps as it pushed out Daesh in 2019 after five years of fighting.
