Migrant deaths are ‘open wound’ for humanity: Pope Francis

Pope Francis offers prayers during the Angelus prayer from his window at the Vatican on August 13, 2023, for the 41 people reported missing from a shipwreck off the Italian island of Lampedusa last week. (Vatican Media/Handout via REUTERS)
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Updated 14 August 2023
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Migrant deaths are ‘open wound’ for humanity: Pope Francis

  • Since January 1, at least 2,060 migrants had lost their lives in the Mediterranean as tens of thousands of migrants have set out this year from northern African shores to try reach Europe, according to the International Organization for Migration

 

VATICAN CITY: The number of migrants dying in the Mediterranean is an “open wound” for humanity, Pope Francis said Sunday after a week marked by a string of deadly shipwrecks.

At his weekly Angelus prayer, the 86-year-old pontiff offered his prayers for the 41 people reported missing on Wednesday by four survivors brought to safety on the Italian island of Lampedusa.

He recalled “with pain and shame” UN figures showing more than 2,000 migrants have lost their lives in the Mediterranean Sea since the start of the year.

“It is an open wound in our humanity,” he told pilgrims gathered in St. Peter’s Square.

“I offer encouragement to the politicians and diplomats who are seeking to heal it, in a spirit of solidarity and brotherhood.”

HIGHLIGHTS

Pope Francis recalls ‘with pain and shame’ UN figures showing more than 2,000 migrants having lost their lives in the Mediterranean Sea since the start of the year.

The pope called for prayers for Ukraine and for the victims of the wildfires in Maui in Hawaii.

He also hailed “the commitment of all those who work to prevent shipwrecks and rescue sailors.”

Francis — who regularly urges better treatment of those who flee their homes for a better life elsewhere — had this week already warned against becoming “indifferent” to the deaths.

A spokesman for the UN migration agency, the International Organization for Migration (IOM), said Saturday that “at least 2,060” migrants had lost their lives in the Mediterranean since January 1.

Of those, more than 1,800 died in the Central Mediterranean, the route from North Africa to Italy and Malta, he said — more than twice as many as in the same period last year.

In the latest incident, two Tunisians including a baby died when their boat sank Saturday shortly after leaving the shores of the North African country, the coast guard said.

On Monday judicial officials reported the deaths of 11 migrants in a shipwreck off Sfax, with dozens more missing.




A picture taken from a surveillance planes of the Sea-Watch charity rescue group shows a boat with shipwreck survivors being transferred to a cargo ship in the central Mediterranean Sea, close to Lampedusa island, Italy, August 8, 2023. (Sea-Watch/Karolina Sobel/Handout via REUTERS)

The eastern Tunisian port city located about 130 kilometers (80 miles) from Lampedusa has emerged as a key migrant launchpad.

According to the four survivors who were rescued by a merchant ship in the Central Mediterranean last week as they drifted in a smugglers’ engineless boat, they had been tossed into the sea when towering waves knocked over their vessel and that 41 fellow passengers didn’t survive.

Separately, a charity vessel carried out 15 rescue operations and the Italian coast guard on Sunday recovered a body off the western coast of Sicily from a shipwreck.

Italian Premier Giorgia Meloni has repeatedly encouraged Tunisia to put an end to the near daily launching of multiple vessels from its ports. But in the last 10 days there has been a spate of boats capsized, shipwrecked or otherwise in distress. Tens of thousands of migrants have set out this year from northern African shores to try reach Europe.

Since Friday, migrants rescued from more than 60 boats stepped ashore on Lampedusa island, including some 400 people early Sunday. Those arrivals swelled to 2,000 the number of asylum-seekers in the island’s temporary migrant residence, which is supposed to house no more than about 450, said Pierluigi De Ascentiis, from the Italian Red Cross, which manages the structure.

With so many boats setting out from Tunisia, migrants were reaching tiny islands they only occasionally land on, including Marettimo, a remote rocky fishing isle in the Egadi Archipelago off western Sicily.

The Italian coast guard on Sunday recovered a man’s body from a shipwreck of a rubber dinghy a day earlier near Marettimo, Italian state TV quoted a Trapani-based port official, Gulgielmo Cassone, as saying. Nine migrants were rescued by the coast guard. State TV said one person was believed missing, and a coast guard helicopter was deployed in the search.

On Pantelleria, an arid island noted for its VIP vacation homes, 250 migrants set foot without need of rescue on Saturday, the Corriere della Sera daily said.

While the large minority of migrants reaching Italian shores in the last few days had set out from Tunisia, a rescue boat operated by the humanitarian group Emergency was sailing on Sunday toward Naples with 76 migrants whose vessel had set out on Thursday from Libya. It capsized in international waters within Malta’s search-and-rescue zone, the organization said. The migrants come from Egypt, Syria, Ethiopia and Eritrea and include seven women and 24 minors, the youngest 7 months old, it said.

Months ago, Meloni’s right-wing government, whose coalition partner is the staunchly anti-migrant League party, sought to limit the time charity boats are at sea on rescue missions. It contends they essentially encourage smugglers to launch vessels in hopes that humanitarian groups will ultimately ensure the passengers’ safe arrival.

Under the crackdown, humanitarian boats are supposed to immediately head to port after each rescue operation and not stay at sea to help others.

But lately, it appears that charity ships in the central Mediterranean Sea are increasingly playing rescue roles, as the number of migrants reaching Italy by sea so far this year — some 95,000, according to Interior Ministry figures — is more than double the number in the same period last year.

The charity ship Ocean Viking, in a recent 48-hour-period, carried out 15 separate rescue missions under the direction of the Italian coast guard, its most ever. Ocean Viking’s operator, the humanitarian organization SOS Mediterranee, said most of the 623 rescued from vessels that set out from Tunisia are from Sudan, Guinea, Burkina Faso, Ivory Coast, Benin and Bangladesh.
 


European leaders meet on response to US Ukraine shift

Updated 6 sec ago
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European leaders meet on response to US Ukraine shift

  • European leaders fear that Trump wants to make peace with Russia in talks that will not even involve Kyiv, let alone the EU
  • Emmanuel Macron has described Trump’s return for a second term in the White House as an ‘electroshock’
PARIS: European leaders met on Monday for emergency talks in Paris called by French President Emmanuel Macron to agree a coordinated response to a shock policy shift on the war in Ukraine by the new US administration of Donald Trump.
With European policymakers leaving the annual Munich Security Forum dazed by Vice President JD Vance’s withering attack on the European Union, key EU leaders, as well as UK Premier Sir Keir Starmer, were in Paris for the summit.
In the most concrete sign yet of the US policy shift, the top diplomats of the United States and Russia were Tuesday due to have the first such face-to-face meeting since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, a clear sign Trump wants to bring President Vladimir Putin in from the cold.
Facing one of their biggest challenges in years, European leaders fear that Trump wants to make peace with Russia in talks that will not even involve Kyiv, let alone the European Union.
Trump sidelined Kyiv and its European backers last week when he called Putin to talk about starting negotiations to end the conflict and said he could meet the Kremlin chief “very soon.”
Other key participants in the summit include NATO chief Mark Rutte, Danish Premier Mette Frederiksen — who has in the last weeks battled to rebuff Trump’s territorial claim to Greenland — and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz.
Macron held telephone talks with Trump just before the summit, the French presidency said.

Macron has described Trump’s return for a second term in the White House as an “electroshock” and there are initial signs some of his counterparts are being stung into action.
Britain’s Starmer, aware of the importance of London showing commitment to European security after Brexit, said Sunday that he was willing to put “our own troops on the ground if necessary” in response to what he called “a once-in-a-generation moment for the collective security of our continent.”
Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk, another key participant, said on Monday he would urge European leaders at the emergency summit to “immediately” boost Europe’s defenses, warning they do not match Russia’s.
“We will not be able to effectively help Ukraine if we do not immediately take practical steps regarding our own defense capabilities,” Tusk told reporters.
Trump’s special envoy to Ukraine, Keith Kellogg, has said Europe would not be directly involved in talks on Ukraine, though it would still have “input.”
French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot said Sunday it would fall to Europe to guarantee any peace deal in Ukraine, adding he expected the United States to “revise their level of commitment to NATO, including in terms of geography.”
The American policy shift “requires that we truly wake up, and even take a leap forward, to take our place for the security of the European continent,” Barrot said.

But the notion of sending European troops to Ukraine — even after a ceasefire — was already causing friction within the European Union.
Spain’s foreign minister, Jose Manuel Albares, however said that, while it was necessary for Europeans to meet and prepare decisions, “nobody is currently planning to send troops to Ukraine, especially because peace is still far off.”
Germany on Monday agreed, with deputy government spokeswoman Christiane Hoffmann telling reporters it was “premature” to talk about sending troops to Ukraine.
Chancellor Olaf Scholz had said late Sunday that negotiations on Ukraine’s future could not be successful without European guarantees “that we will have created and accepted.”
Meanwhile Hungary, whose Prime Minister Viktor Orban is close to both Trump and Putin, said that Monday’s conference was an effort to “prevent” peace.
“Today, in Paris, pro-war, anti-Trump, frustrated European leaders are gathering to prevent a peace agreement in Ukraine,” said Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto.

The Paris talks come as Washington said Secretary of State Marco Rubio, National Security Adviser Mike Waltz and Special Envoy Steve Witkoff would on Tuesday meet with a Russian delegation including Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in Riyadh ahead of a future meeting between Trump and Putin in the Saudi capital.
Rubio had earlier sought to play down expectations of any breakthrough at upcoming talks with Russian officials.
“A process toward peace is not a one-meeting thing,” he told the CBS network.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was to visit Saudi Arabia on Wednesday, one day after the meeting between top US and Russian officials.
Zelensky had announced the trip along with stops the United Arab Emirates and Turkiye last week without giving dates, adding he had no plans to meet Russian or US officials.

France tries five for holding reporters hostage in Syria

Updated 17 February 2025
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France tries five for holding reporters hostage in Syria

  • Didier Francois and Edouard Elias, and then Nicolas Henin and Pierre Torres, were abducted 10 days apart while reporting from northern Syria in June 2013
  • More than a decade later, jailed extremist Mehdi Nemmouche, 39, is among five men accused of their abduction at a trial to last until March 21

PARIS: Five men went on trial in France on Monday charged with holding four French journalists hostage for Daesh in war-torn Syria more than a decade ago.
Daesh emerged in 2013 in the chaos that followed the outbreak of the Syrian civil war, slowly gaining ground before declaring a caliphate in large parts of Syria and neighboring Iraq.
The extremists abducted a number of foreign journalists and aid workers before US-backed forces eventually defeated the group in 2019.
Reporters Didier Francois and Edouard Elias, and then Nicolas Henin and Pierre Torres, were abducted 10 days apart while reporting from northern Syria in June 2013.
The journalists were held by Daesh for 10 months until their release in April 2014.
They were found blindfolded with their hands bound in the no-man’s land straddling the border between Syria and Turkiye.
More than a decade later, jailed extremist Mehdi Nemmouche, 39, is among five men accused of their abduction at a trial to last until March 21.
Nemmouche is already in prison after a Belgian court jailed him for life in 2019 for killing four people at a Jewish museum in May 2014, after returning from Syria.
“I was never the jailer of the Western hostages or any other hostage, and I never met these people in Syria,” Nemmouche told the Paris court, breaking his silence after not speaking throughout the Brussels trial or during the investigation.
All four journalists told investigators they were sure Nemmouche, then called Abu Omar, was their jailer.

Henin, in a magazine article in September 2014, recounted Nemmouche punching him in the face and terrorizing Syrian detainees.
He described him as “a self-centered fantasist for whom jihad was finally an excuse to satisfy his morbid thirst for notoriety. A young man lost and perverse.”
The journalists told investigators Nemmouche was an avid follower of news and a French crime show called “Bring in the accused,” who would quiz the detainees on their general knowledge or imitate famous French comedians.
He would also threaten to slit their throats, and once left a dead body outside their door to scare them.
Nemmouche, whose father is unknown, was brought up in the French foster system and became radicalized in prison before going to Syria, according to investigators.
Also in the dock are Frenchman Abdelmalek Tanem, 35, who has already been sentenced in France for heading to fight in Syria in 2012, and a 41-year-old Syrian called Kais Al Abdallah, accused of facilitating Henin’s abduction.
Both have denied the charges.

Belgian extremist Oussama Atar, a senior Daesh commander, is being tried in absentia because he is presumed to have died in Syria in 2017.
He has already been sentenced to life over attacks in Paris in 2015 claimed by Daesh that killed 130 people, and Brussels bombings by the group that took the lives of 32 others in 2016.
French Daesh member Salim Benghalem, who was allegedly in charge of the hostages, is also on trial though believed to be dead.
Governments have said hundreds of Westerners joined extremist groups in Syria.
Two US journalists, James Foley and Stephen Sotloff — with whom all four French journalists said they were kept for a period — were videotaped being beheaded by a militant who spoke on camera with a British accent.
El Shafee Elsheikh, an extremist from London, was found guilty in 2022 of hostage-taking and conspiracy to murder US citizens — Foley and Sotloff, as well as aid workers Peter Kassig and Kayla Mueller — and supporting a “terrorist” organization.


Philippines, UAE team up to restore the world’s most polluting river in Manila

Updated 17 February 2025
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Philippines, UAE team up to restore the world’s most polluting river in Manila

  • About 63,000 tonnes of plastic waste flows through the Pasig River annually, study shows
  • UAE’s Clean Rivers also pledged $20m to fund cleanup efforts, prevent solid waste pollution

Manila: The Philippines and the UAE have teamed up to restore the Pasig waterway, the world’s most polluting river, the Department of Foreign Affairs said on Monday.

The Philippine Department of Environment and Natural Resources signed an agreement with the UAE-based nonprofit Clean Rivers Foundation on the sidelines of the World Governments Summit in Dubai last week in a ceremony witnessed by First Lady Louise Araneta-Marcos.

“The agreement will provide the framework for projects that support the improvement of the Pasig River and prevent waste from leaking into it, which will also promote the preservation of the river ecosystem, enhancing economic opportunities and advancing tourism activities,” the DFA said in a statement.

The Pasig River, which runs through the heart of the Philippine capital, was ranked as the most polluting river out of over 1,600 others around the world in a 2021 study published in the Science Advances journal.

The Philippines is also the largest contributor of plastic waste that ends up in the world’s oceans, emitting more than 356,000 tonnes annually — about 63,000 of which came from the Pasig River.

The agreement also “expands the partnership between the Philippines and the UAE to areas that will prioritize the preservation and enhancement of the environment toward securing a sustainable future,” the DFA added.

As part of the partnership, Clean Rivers had announced its commitment of up to $20 million for Philippine programs aimed at rehabilitating the Pasig River and supporting initiatives that prevent waste leakage.

“We look forward to working closely with the Philippines Department of Environment and Natural Resources, and local organizations to turn the tide on river pollution,” Clean Rivers said in a statement.

The fund pledge from the UAE will also help “support sustainable solutions for communities” living along the Pasig River, as it will restore its ecological, commercial and residential value, DENR said in a statement

“With plans for green infrastructure to trap waste and projects to stop pollution at its source, the partnership marks a major step toward a cleaner, healthier Pasig River,” DENR said.

For Filipino environmental NGO BAN Toxics, the new cooperation with the UAE is a welcome first step in rehabilitating the waterway.

“We’re hopeful that it could do something good for the rehabilitation of the Pasig River, which we know has been, historically, a victim of environmental degradation,” Jashaf Shamir Lorenzo, BAN Toxics deputy executive director, told Arab News.

Though efforts to prevent waste leakage are helpful, Lorenzo said that such projects would be more effective if they tackled the root of the pollution issue.

“The thing with waste management is it should start with waste reduction,” he said. “We could reduce the waste in the first place, not just waste leakage, but the production of these products and how we could replace them with more sustainable alternatives, how we could prolong the lives of these products.”


UK Special Forces vetoed asylum applications of Afghan ex-commando allies

Updated 17 February 2025
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UK Special Forces vetoed asylum applications of Afghan ex-commando allies

  • Over 2,000 Afghan personnel had claims rejected following fall of country to Taliban in 2021
  • Afghan commandos could be compelled to testify at war crimes inquiry if resettled in Britain

LONDON: More than 2,000 resettlement applications by former Afghan Armed Forces commandos were rejected after UK Special Forces personnel vetoed their claims, preventing them from testifying to an inquiry into alleged war crimes, the BBC reported on Monday.

The UK Ministry of Defense revealed in a court case brought by a former Afghan soldier that officers denied applications from thousands of men who had fought the Taliban alongside the British in Afghanistan, having previously denied that a policy of doing so existed.

The MoD also refused to say, when asked by the BBC, if any applications for Triples Afghan soldiers — so-called because of the three-number identifications their units were assigned — had been supported by UK Special Forces senior figures.

Afghan Triples units were trained and funded by the UK. They were deemed at risk of reprisals following the fall of Afghanistan to the Taliban in 2021, and allowed to apply for resettlement in the UK.

However, controversy has surrounded the failure to support applications by UK Special Forces officers, as an inquiry is ongoing into allegations of war crimes committed by Special Forces soldiers in Afghanistan, where Triples commandos were present.

If resettled in the UK, the Triples could be compelled by the inquiry to give evidence. Many remain in hiding in Afghanistan.

One former Triples officer told the BBC: “Although (some asylum application) decisions have been overturned, it’s too late for some people.

“The delays have caused a lot of problems. People have been captured by the Taliban or lost their lives.”

The officer said Afghan commandos felt “betrayed” by their former “brothers” in the Special Forces, adding: “If Special Forces made these rejections they should say why. They should have to answer.”

The MoD denied that the Special Forces had the power to veto asylum applications, but former Defense Minister Andrew Murrison later admitted that they did after a BBC investigation.

Mike Martin MP, a former British Army officer who served in Afghanistan, told the BBC: “There is the appearance that UK Special Forces blocked the Afghan special forces applications because they were witnesses to the alleged UK war crimes currently being investigated in the Afghan inquiry.”

He added: “If the MoD is unable to offer any explanation, then the matter should be included in the inquiry.”

Former Conservative MP Johnny Mercer, who also served in Afghanistan and was an armed forces minister while in government, said he had heard “horrific” allegations made by Triples soldiers against UK Special Forces members.

It is “very clear to me that there is a pool of evidence that exists within the Afghan (special forces) community that are now in the UK that should contribute to this inquiry,” he added.

The ministry previously told the BBC: “There has been no evidence to suggest that any part of the MoD has sought to prevent former members of the Afghan specialist units from giving evidence to the inquiry.”


Hungary says European leaders aim to ‘prevent’ Ukraine truce

Updated 17 February 2025
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Hungary says European leaders aim to ‘prevent’ Ukraine truce

  • Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has repeatedly called for peace talks
  • He has also refused to send military aid to Ukraine since Russia’s offensive in 2022

BUDAPEST: Hungary’s foreign minister said European leaders’ meeting in Paris on Monday to discuss Washington’s shock policy shift on the Ukraine war was an effort to “prevent” peace.
The summit comes after US President Donald Trump sidelined Kyiv and its European backers last week when he called his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin to talk about starting negotiations to end the conflict.
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban – one of the closest EU partners of Trump and Moscow – has repeatedly called for peace talks and refused to send military aid to Ukraine since Russia’s invasion in 2022.
“Today, in Paris, pro-war, anti-Trump, frustrated European leaders are gathering to prevent a peace agreement in Ukraine,” Peter Szijjarto told a press briefing which was livestreamed on his Facebook page.
“Unlike them, we support Donald Trump’s ambitions, unlike them, we support the US-Russian negotiations, unlike them, we want peace in Ukraine,” he added.
Leaders from the UK, Germany, Italy, Poland, Spain, the Netherlands and Denmark are expected at the Paris meeting, which falls ahead of the third anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on February 24.
Antonio Costa, who heads the European Council representing the European Union’s 27 nations, EU chief Ursula von der Leyen, and NATO secretary general Mark Rutte will also be present.
The French presidency said the meeting would address “the situation in Ukraine” and “security in Europe.”
Meanwhile, Slovenia’s pro-EU president also criticized the Paris meeting for not including all 27 of the bloc’s leaders.
“On a symbolic level, the organizers of the Paris summit show to the world that even within the EU not all states are treated equally,” Slovenian President Natasa Pirc Musar said in a statement.