TUNIS: Tunisia has arrested a man suspected being the organizer of a ring that smuggled migrants across the Mediterranean, including an attempted crossing in which 20 people drowned, authorities said.
The North African country, which lies just 130 kilometers from the Italian island of Lampedusa, has long been a favored steppingstone for migrants attempting the perilous sea journey to Europe.
Investigators in Tunisia’s second city of Sfax had “arrested the organizer of clandestine crossings, who was wanted in 24 cases and had been sentenced to 79 years in prison”, the national guard said Thursday on Facebook.
Italian Interior Minister Matteo Piantedosi commended the arrest “of a man suspected of being one of the main traffickers involved in departures from Sfax”, the launchpad for many Europe-bound migrants.
The Tunisian national guard alleged the man was responsible for the deaths of 20 Tunisians who in September embarked on a boat from Chebba, a coastal city north of Sfax, and drowned.
In the first four months of 2023, the numbers of irregular crossings to Europe through the central Mediterranean soared almost 300 percent compared with the same period last year, with almost 42,200 entries detected, according to the European Union’s border agency Frontex.
It noted “a rise of 1,100 percent compared to last year” in sea journeys from Tunisia alone.
In recent weeks however the flow of migrants from Tunisia has diminished due to weather conditions in the Mediterranean.
The national guard said it had intercepted or rescued 14,406 migrants in the first three months of 2023, with just over 1,200 of them Tunisians and the rest from other parts of Africa.
Attempted crossings particularly by migrants from sub-Saharan African countries have intensified since President Kais Saied made a fiery speech on February 21 claiming illegal immigration was a demographic threat to Tunisia.
Tunisia itself is in the throes of a long-running socio-economic crisis, with spiraling inflation and persistently high joblessness, pushing some of its citizens to seek a better life abroad.
Tunisia says major migrant trafficker arrested
https://arab.news/y4vm7
Tunisia says major migrant trafficker arrested
- The Tunisian national guard alleged the man was responsible for the deaths of 20 Tunisians
- He has been sentenced to 79 years in prison
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.
