Tripoli: Pato looks at the picture on his phone. It shows him with his wife and daughter, all carefree smiles. “That’s the last time we were happy,” he says, completely traumatized.
A few months after the photograph was taken, his life was shattered.
A friend showed Pato, a migrant from Cameroon, a picture from the Internet of two bodies huddled together on the desert sand.
It was of Pato’s wife, 30-year-old Fati Dosso, and their six-year-old daughter Marie.
The three had become separated on a trek through the desert between Tunisia and Libya on a day in mid-July that changed Pato’s life forever.
His real name is Mbengue Nyimbilo Crepin, but his nickname is Pato. After working for seven years at various jobs in Zuwara some 120 kilometers (75 miles) west of Tripoli, Pato, 30, decided to go to Tunisia with his Ivorian wife and child.
But unlike the thousands of sub-Saharan migrants who enter Tunisia planning to cross the Mediterranean for a better life in Europe, Pato and Fati just wanted to find a school for Marie.
They were obsessed with giving her a French-language education because “since she was born, she has never been to school,” Pato told AFP from an undisclosed location near Tripoli. Other Africans had told him this would be possible in Tunisia, he said.
The first time they were intercepted was on July 13, in the Tunisian coastal town of Ben Guerdane.
They were sent back into the searing heat of the Libyan desert and later re-entered Tunisia by night without even realizing they had done so.
Pato, Fati, and Marie hadn’t had water for 24 hours when they came across a woman and asked for some. She directed them to a mosque, and after just five minutes the Tunisian police arrived.
They took them to a police station where “there were a dozen or so other sub-Saharans who’d been picked up,” Pato said.
“They beat us and searched us, then left us sitting on the sand in the sun” before taking them to another police post “where they hit us and said they’d send us back to Libya.” Another group of around 30 sub-Saharans was there too.
“They took away our phones and smashed them in front of us, and took our IDs,” Pato said.
He and his small family were driven in a truck with other Africans back to the border.
“They abandoned us there beside a trench, telling us to cross it and go straight ahead into Libya,” he said. “They threatened us with guns.”
In the desert, Pato found he had reached his limit.
“I was completely exhausted. We’d been walking for four days with no food or water. I collapsed, and we were all crying.
“My wife asked me to try and get up, to keep going.”
Pato managed to convince Fati herself to continue, to “try to save the child at least.” He stayed behind.
“In my head, I was sure I was dead.”
Two weeks later, the weight of his grief is unbearable.
The picture of the two bodies in the desert has been seen worldwide at a time when human rights groups and the United Nations have denounced Tunisia for “expelling migrants” to its borders, despite its strenuous denials.
Media organizations including AFP have also gathered many testimonies on the Libyan side.
Pato and family were not among the hundreds of sub-Saharan migrants driven out of the port of Sfax, a main point of departure for illegal migration to Europe.
Those people were hounded out of the city after a Tunisian was stabbed to death in a July 3 altercation with migrants.
Pato, his wife and their little girl were just in the wrong place at the wrong time.
He only survived after two Sudanese gave him some water. Fati and Marie died of thirst in the vast expanse of desert.
Theirs were among 24 bodies humanitarian sources say have been found in the Libyan desert since the beginning of July.
Their “image haunts my soul,” Pato told AFP.
“Every time I wake I look round to see if they are there.
“I’ve thought several times about killing myself,” he said, staring straight ahead.
“I regret not being able to get up and keep on going with them. I’d have preferred they found three bodies in the desert.”
Pato no longer has family in Cameroon, where he comes from a conflict-ridden area in the south. He has been in touch with HRW and Doctors Without Borders to obtain asylum seeker status, and also for psychological support.
He speaks softly, without anger, and recalls better days.
“I try to keep a lid on things by remembering the beautiful times we had together,” he said.
“I have lots of wonderful memories,” Pato said, scrolling through his pictures on a new phone bought with the help of friends.
Fati was his “motivation.” She used to tell him: “Don’t get discouraged — we will achieve our goals.”
Pato does not have the words to describe the years they spent together. Today he is despondent.
“My spirit is dead. This is just my body. My soul is with them and they are gone. I don’t want anything any more.”
Lost in the Tunisia-Libya desert: one migrant’s story
https://arab.news/wzqp5
Lost in the Tunisia-Libya desert: one migrant’s story
- Thousands of sub-Saharan migrants enter Tunisia planning to cross the Mediterranean for a better life in Europe
Hopes rise on Sudan as Egypt pushes peace talks
- Al-Burhan government urged to ease demands over forum set for June
CAIRO: Egypt’s plans to host a conference in coming weeks that will bring together rival Sudanese political forces has raised hopes of restoring peace in the conflict-racked country, according to analysts.
The government of Gen. Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan has already welcomed the Egyptian initiative, according to Sudan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Masad Faiez, an Egyptian political analyst, said the Sudanese statement tried to set “some conditions” for the participation of the state’s representative.
“I think these are tough conditions,” he told Arab News. “But from what I know, Egypt is currently trying to unify all parties to ensure lasting and ongoing peace.”
Faiez said Egypt “believes that the conflict is a Sudanese issue and is inviting all active national factions to participate in a future political process.”
Cairo will exert all possible efforts to help Sudan overcome the crisis it faces, and end the conflict’s damaging effects on the Sudanese people, and the security and stability of the region, he said.
According to the Egyptian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the conference will seek to reach a consensus on building comprehensive and lasting peace in Sudan.
Regional and international partners will attend the forum, which will rely on “a national dialogue based on a purely Sudanese vision,” the ministry said.
The Sudanese statement specifically opposed the participation of three parties referred to as “patrons” of the Rapid Support Forces.
Sudan also claimed that regional and international organizations had remained silent about the “crimes of the Rapid Support Forces,” and insisted on the African Union’s non-participation unless steps were taken to lift the suspension of Sudan’s activities in the organization.
Akmal Ziyada, a political expert on African affairs, said the Sudanese regime will likely ease its demands in order to achieve peace and unity.
Egypt looks forward to “active participation from all Sudanese civil political forces, and concerned regional and international partners, working together to ensure the conference’s success in achieving the aspirations of the brotherly Sudanese people,” he said.
The Sudanese Unionist Democratic Party, led by Mohammed Osman Al-Mirghani, also welcomed the Egyptian initiative.
Hatem Al-Sir, a political adviser to Al-Mirghani, said the importance of the Egyptian initiative stems from the historical and fraternal ties between the two peoples, and a “firm belief that the solution to the Sudanese crisis must be purely Sudanese,” and include all national factions.
Hassan Al-Mir, a member of the Egyptian parliament, told Arab News that Egypt has a vision for “resolving the crisis in Sudan, primarily because the stability of this country and the African region is one of the mainstays of Egypt’s national security.”
Cairo had led many efforts to contain the Sudan crisis, he said.
Egypt “respects the will of the Sudanese people, opposes foreign interventions in Sudan’s crisis, emphasizes the protection of institutions, and coordinates with neighboring countries to lessen the humanitarian impact,” Al-Mir said.
Netanyahu: No end to Gaza war until Hamas capabilities destroyed
- Netanyahu’s office said on Saturday any notion that Israel would agree a permanent ceasefire before “the destruction of Hamas’ military and governing capabilities” was “a non-starter“
- A senior Biden administration official, asked about a potential rift in the US and Israeli viewpoints on the future of Hamas, suggested this may be open to interpretation
JERUSALEM: Israel said on Saturday that the Gaza war would not end as long as Hamas retains power, raising questions of timing and interpretation over a truce offer that US President Joe Biden has advanced and the Palestinian militants have cautiously welcomed.
Biden said on Friday that Israel had proposed a deal involving an initial six-week ceasefire with a partial Israeli military withdrawal and the release of some hostages while “a permanent end to hostilities” is negotiated through mediators.
The proposal, Biden said, also “creates a better ‘day after’ in Gaza without Hamas in power.” He did not elaborate on how that might be achieved. The Iranian-backed Islamist group has given no indication it might step aside or disarm voluntarily.
However, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said on Saturday any notion that Israel would agree a permanent ceasefire before “the destruction of Hamas’ military and governing capabilities” was “a non-starter.”
Hamas said on Friday it was ready to engage “positively and in a constructive manner.” But senior official Mahmoud Mardawi said in a Qatari television interview that it had not yet received the details of the proposal.
“No agreement can be reached before the demand for the withdrawal of the occupation army and a ceasefire is met,” he said. Hamas remains committed to Israel’s destruction.
The talks, mediated by Egypt and Qatar with US backing, have stumbled for months over a clash in core positions. Israel has been willing only to suspend the war in exchange for hostages, saying it would then resume the campaign to eliminate the Hamas threat. Hamas wants any deal to entail concrete Israeli moves to end the war, like a full troop withdrawal.
A senior Biden administration official, asked about a potential rift in the US and Israeli viewpoints on the future of Hamas, suggested this may be open to interpretation and would come down to future Egyptian and Qatari sway over the movement.
“I have no doubt that the deal will be characterised by Israel and be characterised by Hamas,” the official told reporters.
“And I think the arrangements and some of the day-after planning, you know, helps ensure that — that Hamas’s military capacity to regenerate in a way that can threaten Israel would be very much foreclosed under this arrangement and, I think the president said in his speech, ensuring that Hamas cannot rearm.”
Iran announces the death of a high-ranking Revolutionary Guard general after a long illness
- Gen. Vajihollah Moradi was one of the commanders of the Guard’s foreign wing
TEHRAN: A high-ranking general in Iran’s Revolutionary Guard has died after an illness, Iran’s state TV reported Saturday.
Gen. Vajihollah Moradi was one of the commanders of the Guard’s foreign wing, TV said. He was also a comrade of Gen. Qassem Soleimani, who was slain in a US drone strike in Baghdad in 2020.
State TV said a funeral ceremony will be held in the northern city of Babolsar on Sunday.
Iran occasionally holds funerals for its soldiers fallen in Syria though officials say Iranian forces are there only as advisers.
Iran is Syrian President Bashar Assad’s main regional supporter in the Arab nation’s lengthy civil war. Hundreds of Iranian forces have been killed in the war in Syria.
Gazans back in war-ravaged Jabalia ‘shocked’ by destruction
- Israeli forces carried out a massive bombardment campaign in Jabalia in recent weeks
- Men, women and children were walking through streets where their houses once stood, now full of grey concrete slabs
JABALIA, Palestinian Territories: Mohammed Al-Najjar, a 33-year-old Gazan, said Saturday he was “shocked” and feeling “lost” as he returned home, only to find much of Jabalia refugee camp in ruins after an Israeli offensive
“All the houses have been reduced to rubble,” Najjar told AFP in Jabalia, in the northern Gaza Strip.
“You are lost, you do not know where exactly your house is in the middle of this massive destruction.”
Israeli forces carried out a massive bombardment campaign in Jabalia in recent weeks, part of a fierce ground offensive in northern Gaza — an area the military had previously said was out of the control of Hamas militants.
“I was shocked by the extent of the destruction in the latest aggression on Jabalia camp,” said Najjar.
In recent days, AFP correspondents have seen scores of Palestinians streaming into the area, trying to find their homes and salvage whatever belongings are left.
Men, women and children were walking through streets where their houses once stood, now full of grey concrete slabs.
Charred furniture, beds and mangled iron doors littered almost every street in the camp, an area once bustling with activity and home to more than 100,000 people, according to UN figures from before the war.
Many families carried their belongings on donkey carts, while others walked with beds and mattresses on their heads.
“We have no other place other than our homes,” said Suad Abu Salah, 47, who has also returned after having fled the area earlier on in the Israel-Hamas war, now nearing its eighth month.
But “Jabalia has been wiped off the map,” she said.
The war was sparked by Hamas’s unprecedented October 7 attack on southern Israel, which resulted in the deaths of 1,189 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures.
Militants also took 252 hostages, 121 of whom remain in Gaza, including 37 the army says are dead.
Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed at least 36,379 people in Gaza, mostly civilians, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry.
Despite the destruction, Najjar said people were “determined” to return to the neighborhoods they had left to avoid the fighting.
Residents were willing to “set up tents and temporary shelters in the middle of the rubble,” he said, even though “there’s fear, fear that the (Israeli) occupation might come back.”
“But we will stay on our land. We have nowhere else.”
On Friday the Israeli military announced it had completed its mission in eastern Jabalia, where it had previously said Hamas militants had regrouped.
On Saturday Jabalia residents said they could still hear constant gunfire and artillery shelling from the east.
Fresh fighting erupted in the north in early May, around the same time Israeli troops took control of the Palestinian side of the Rafah crossing, on Gaza’s southern border with Egypt.
During the latest operation, Israeli forces in Jabalia had retrieved the bodies of seven hostages, and last month the military reported “perhaps the fiercest” fighting there since the start of the war.
Mahmud Assaliyah, 50, said “houses have been torn apart and entire apartment blocks have been completely destroyed in Jabalia.”
“There’s not a single house that has not been targeted by the Israeli occupation army.”
He has returned to find his house, too, had been flattened.
“Cement pillars have fallen, walls have been destroyed, furniture has been scattered, burnt down and torn apart,” Assaliyah said.
Abu Salah said many residents are tired of being displaced and just want to stay put, whatever happens.
“We want to live like other people in the world,” she said.
“We need a solution and an end to this war, so that we can live in peace.”
Former Mossad chief disappointed with ‘inconceivable’ allegations of intimidation of ICC prosecutor
- Tamir Pardo says alleged ‘threats and manipulation’ reminiscent of ‘Cosa Nostra-style blackmail’
- Agency accused of targeting prosecutor in years-long campaign to sway war crimes investigations
LONDON: A former head of Israeli intelligence agency Mossad has expressed his disappointment at the alleged intimidation of an International Criminal Court prosecutor by the organization, something he said was “inconceivable.”
Earlier this week, British newspaper The Guardian published an investigation into what it claimed was a years-long campaign of intimidation by Mossad director Yossi Cohen against former ICC prosecutor Fatou Bensouda between 2016 and 2021 in an attempt to sway war crimes investigations.
In 2021, Bensouda opened a formal investigation into alleged Israeli war crimes in the occupied Palestinian territories, which ended with her successor, Karim Khan, seeking an arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
According to the Guardian investigation, Cohen is alleged to have used “threats and manipulation” against Bensouda to force her to cooperate with Israel’s demands.
Cohen and Bensouda have declined to comment on the investigation.
Tamir Pardo, who served as director of the Mossad between 2011 and 2016, has told the newspaper that he did not believe any Mossad employee “would do things of the type described,” adding that it was reminiscent of “Cosa Nostra-style blackmail.”
Reporters in Israel working for Haaretz and TheMarker had also tried to report on the alleged intimidation in 2022, but were blocked from doing so by senior Israeli security officials, the Guardian reported.
“It doesn’t seem true. It’s inconceivable that something like this happened. It sounds to me like they’re talking about some other country and not about Israel,” Pardo said, adding that the actions alleged in the Guardian’s investigation were “not permissible” and “forbidden” in the Mossad he served.
“There are things that spy agencies do not do, things that they won’t do, and that are forbidden for them to do, and this is one of them.
“I don’t want to think that anyone who works for the organization in which I served for 36 years, let alone a person who headed it, was involved in the event that was described in the media,” he added.
Pardo said he might be “better off” living in denial if the findings are proven to be true.
“Maybe I’m better off that way, otherwise it’s just a horrible disappointment that something like this could happen in my country. I’ve seen some strange things in my life, but I refuse to believe that the organization I served and whose values I believed in could do something like this,” he said.
“I don’t think that Israel or its emissaries should be using blackmail and threats against a prosecutor in the court in The Hague, which the Jewish people were key to establishing after the Holocaust in the Second World War. It doesn’t make sense to me.”
