TEHRAN:Iran has protested to Iraq over the use of the name “Arabian Gulf” for a regional football competition held in the neighboring country, state media reported Wednesday.
The Islamic republic insists the body of water should be called Persian instead of Arabian, and has repeatedly raised the issue with countries and organizations that refer to it otherwise.
Iraq on Friday welcomed Arab national teams from across the region to its southern city of Basra for the 25th edition of the competition officially known as “Arabian Gulf Cup.”
It is the first time Iraq has hosted the biennial competition — commonly referred to as the “Gulf Cup” — since it was launched in 1979.
“We summoned the Iraqi ambassador” on Sunday over the issue, Iran’s Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian said, quoted by state news agency IRNA.
“Although we have strategic, brotherly and deep relations with Iraq, we have clearly expressed our protest about this issue,” he said.
“We reflected the sensitivity of the great nation of Iran to the use of the exact and complete term of Persian Gulf to the Iraqi side.”
The name of the vital oil shipping lane has for years been a bone of contention between Iran and its Arab neighbors.
The 2010 edition of the Islamic Solidarity Games, due to have taken place in Tehran, was postponed and later canceled over the dispute.
In the same year, Iran warned that airlines using the term “Arabian Gulf” on inflight maps would be barred from its airspace.
In 2016, Oman Air switched off a map that labelled the waterway as the “Persian Gulf”, after a storm of criticism on social media.
In 2012, Iran criticized Internet giant Google for leaving the waterway nameless on its online map services.
Iran protests to Iraq over Gulf football cup name
https://arab.news/j5uf5
Iran protests to Iraq over Gulf football cup name
- It is the first time Iraq has hosted the biennial competition — commonly referred to as the “Gulf Cup”
Refugees, migrants in Lebanon find rare sanctuary from Israeli strikes in Beirut church
- Beirut church offers safe haven for displaced migrants, refugees
- Many refugees lived through 2024 war, but are now more vulnerable
BEIRUT: When Israeli strikes began pummelling Beirut’s southern suburbs early on Monday, Sudanese refugee Ridina Muhammad and her family had no choice but to flee home on foot, eventually reaching the only shelter that would accept them: a church.
Eight months pregnant, Muhammad, 32, walked with her husband and three children for hours in the dark streets until they found a car to take them to the St. Joseph Tabaris Parish, which has opened its doors to refugees and migrants.
They are among 300,000 people displaced across Lebanon this week by heavy Israeli strikes, launched in response to a rocket and drone attackinto Israel by the Lebanese armed group Hezbollah.
Just 100,000 of the displaced are in government shelters. Others are staying with relatives or sleeping in the streets. But migrants and refugees say government shelters were never an option for them, saying they were turned away during the last war between Hezbollah and Israel.
Muhammad’s oldest daughter, now seven, stopped speaking after the 2024 war.
This time, they are even more vulnerable: their home was destroyed in this week’s strikes and Muhammad is due to give birth at the end of the month.
“I don’t know if there’s a doctor or not, but I’m really scared about it because I haven’t prepared any clothes for the baby, nor arranged a hospital, and I don’t know where to go,” she told Reuters as her younger daughter leaned against her pregnant belly.
Muhammad said she was registered with the United Nations’ refugee agency (UNHCR) but had not received support.
“Us, as refugees, why did we register with the UN, if they are not helping us in the most difficult times?” she said.
Dalal Harb, a spokesperson for UNHCR Lebanon, said the agency had mobilized but reaching everyone immediately was extremely challenging given the scale and speed of displacement. The UNHCR operation in Lebanon is currently only around 14 percent funded, she said.
The Jesuit Refugee Service (JRS), which helped the church host displaced in 2024, is doing so again.
Michael Petro, JRS’ Emergency Shelter Director, said the church was full within the first day of strikes, with 140 people from South Sudan, Ethiopia, Bangladesh, and other countries sheltering there.
“There are many, many more people coming than there were in 2024, and we have fewer and fewer places to put them,” he said.
Petro said he was told weeks ago that government shelters would be open to migrants if war erupted.
But when the strikes began and even Lebanese struggled to find shelter, the policy seemed to change, he said.
“We’re hearing from hotlines up to government officials and ministries that migrants are not welcome,” Petro said.
Lebanon’s Minister for Social Affairs Haneen Sayyed did not respond to a request for comment. On Thursday, Sayyed said Beirut shelters were full.
When Israeli strikes began, Othman Yahyeh Dawood, a 41-year-old Sudanese man, put his two young sons on his motorcycle.
They drove 75 kilometers (46 miles) from the southern Lebanese town of Nabatieh to St. Joseph’s, where they had sheltered in 2024.
“I know the area is safe and there are people who will welcome us,” he said.
“We don’t know where to go; there’s war there (in the south), war here (in Beirut), war in Sudan, and nowhere else to go,” he said.
