PESHAWAR: At least 15 people have been killed in clashes between two tribes in northwestern Pakistan, a local official said Tuesday, as a deadly feud over land is reignited.
With heavy weapons including mortar shells, the violence hit Kurram district near the border with Afghanistan where the same tribes fought in July.
“The conflict, initially over land, involves two tribes — one Sunni and the other Shia — which has turned the dispute into a sectarian clash,” a senior administrative official stationed in Kurram told AFP on condition of anonymity.
He said 15 people had been killed since Saturday.
The Associated Press of Pakistan, the official news agency, reported around twenty other people had been wounded.
The Kurram district, formerly a semi-autonomous area, has a history of bloody clashes between tribes belonging to the Sunni and Shiite sects of Islam that have claimed hundreds of lives over the years.
The last clashes in July killed 35 people and ended only after a jirga (tribal council) called a ceasefire, with officials attempting to broker a new truce.
Tribal and family feuds are common in Pakistan.
However, they can be particularly protracted and violent in the mountainous northwestern region of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, where communities abide by traditional tribal honor codes.
In Pakistan, a predominantly Sunni Muslim country, the Shiite community says they have long suffered discrimination and violence.
15 killed in Pakistan sectarian tribal clashes
https://arab.news/2v3vm
15 killed in Pakistan sectarian tribal clashes
Greek coast guard search for 15 after migrant boat found adrift
- The two survivors reported that the vessel had become unstable due to bad weather and there was no means of getting shelter, food or water
ATHENS: Greek coast guard were on Monday searching for 15 people who fell into the water from a migrant boat that was found drifting off the coast of Crete with 17 bodies on board.
The 17 fatalities, all of them men, were discovered on Saturday on the craft, which was taking on water and partially deflated, some 26 nautical miles (48 kilometers) southwest of the island.
Post-mortem examinations were being carried out to determine how they died but Greek public television channel ERT suggested they may have suffered from hypothermia or dehydration.
A Greek coast guard spokeswoman told AFP that two survivors reported that “15 people fell in the water” after the motor cut out on Thursday, then the vessel drifted for two days.
At the time, Crete and much of the rest of Greece was battered by heavy rain and storms.
The two survivors reported that the vessel had become unstable due to bad weather and there was no means of getting shelter, food or water.
The vessel had 34 people on board and had left the Libyan port of Tobruk on Wednesday, the Greek port authorities said. Most of those who died came from Sudan and Egypt.
It was initially spotted by a Turkish-flagged cargo ship on Saturday, triggering a search that included ships and aircraft from the Greek coast guard and the European Union border agency Frontex.
Migrants have been trying to reach Crete from Libya for the last year, as a way of entering the European Union. But the Mediterranean crossing is perilous.
In Brussels, the EU’s 27 members on Monday backed a significant tightening of immigration policy, including the concept of returning failed asylum-seekers to “return hubs” outside the bloc.
The UN refugee agency said more than 16,770 asylum seekers in the EU have arrived on Crete since the start of the year — more than any other island in the Aegean Sea.
Greece’s conservative government has also toughened its migration policy, suspending asylum claims for three months, particularly those coming to Crete from Libya.
