Region

CAIRO — Haggard and dishevelled from the stress of making ends meet, day labourers line up in Cairo for food parcels after losing their jobs to the sharp downturn caused by the coronavirus.

Sayed Shaaban, 42, who used to work in a cafe, said for him the pandemic is not just a health scare but a crushing blow to his already precarious livelihood.

Wearing a mask and gloves, he queued outside a charity centre affiliated with the Egyptian Food Bank (EFB) in Salam City, a poor neighbourhood of eastern Cairo.

"You see how I have only one functioning arm -- I used to serve drinks and get paid," he told AFP.

"But now there's not even one piastre coming in."

EFB, a large Cairo-based charity, has been at the forefront of a public relief effort in the most populous Arab country.

One third of Egypt's population of more than 100 million lives in poverty, surviving on about $1.50 or less a day.

For many who were already struggling, meagre incomes have vanished since a curfew was imposed on March 24 to stem the spread of the virus.

Egypt has so far recorded 94 deaths out of 1,450 confirmed cases of the COVID-19 respiratory disease.

Shaaban, a father of two young children from Salam City, has been housebound since his local "baladi" cafe was shuttered.

"We have no social insurance to fall back on since the cafe has been closed," he said.

"I wouldn't have come here if I wasn't in need."

Mohamed Said, 36, a carpenter and father of three queueing behind Shaaban, said that "since this crisis started we've been sitting at home and there's no money coming in."

"We don't know how to feed our kids .... and if, God forbid, something happens to any of them, I won't be able to foot a hospital bill."

'Emergency situation'

Egypt's official unemployment rate is around 10 percent, and more than 5 million people work as day labourers in the informal economy, the government estimates, often without any form of social protection.

EFB Director Mohsen Sarhan said his charity is working to deliver 10,000 food parcels a day, containing staples such as rice, pasta, oil, sugar and canned beef -- far less than what is needed by the hundreds of thousands of struggling families.

"We felt the economy slowing down with the coronavirus pandemic, so on March 19 we launched an initiative aimed at aiding a large cross-section of society who would be adversely affected," he said.

Millions of pounds in donations have poured in over the past month, but the demand to alleviate the suffering of the working poor is at an all-time high.

EFB is committed to shipping out an initial lot of 500,000 food cartons throughout Egypt's 27 governorates with around 5,000 charities distributing the parcels.

"We are in an emergency situation," Sarhan said. "We need to feed hundreds of thousands of people in a period of weeks ... time is very critical here."

'Life has stopped'

President Abdel Fattah Sisi on Monday issued a directive to provide day labourers 500 pounds (just over $30) per month for three months to ease their financial hardship.

But experts say this will only partially cushion the blow.

"The pandemic is certainly going to mean a massive increase in the numbers of working poor in countries such as Egypt," said Adam Hanieh, who researches labour issues in the Arab world at London's School of Oriental and African Studies.

The virus and its economic impact could spawn "a range of unpredictable and unexpected consequences," he said, pointing to "significant disruptions in food supplies" and "enormous pressures on the country's healthcare system".

As COVID-19 cases mount, carpenter Said expressed his deepening sense of helplessness.

"The situation has made me want to up and leave everything -- but I can't just leave my family", he said.

"We're not begging, but life has well and truly stopped."

 Farid Farid

TRIPOL — Mahmud Jibril, the former head of the Libyan rebel government that overthrew dictator Muammar Qadhafi in 2011, died Sunday of the coronavirus, his party said.

Jibril, 68, died in Cairo where he had been hospitalised for two weeks, said Khaled al-Mrimi, secretary of the Alliance of National Forces Party founded by Jibril in 2012.

He had been admitted to the Ganzouri Specialised Hospital in Cairo on March 21 after suffering from cardiac arrest and three days later tested positive for coronavirus, hospital director Hisham Wagdy said.

"He started... recovering the day before yesterday but then he began deteriorating again", Wagdy told AFP in Cairo, confirming that Jibril died at 2:00 pm.

Jibril headed the rebel National Transitional Council (NTC), the interim government during the NATO-backed rebellion that toppled and killed Kadhafi.

He had been an economic adviser to the Qadhafi regime in its final years, before joining the revolution in 2011 and briefly serving as premier.

Jibril resigned three days after Kadhafi was captured and killed when NTC fighters overran his hometown Sirte on October 20, 2011.

In the early days of the Libyan uprising, Jibril made several trips abroad to rally European and US support for the rebels against Kadhafi.

In 2012, after the veteran leader was ousted and killed, Jibril stood in the country's first ever democratic elections and his party won the vote but failed to clinch a majority in parliament which chose an independent candidate to become prime minister.

Amid the chaos and violence that erupted in the following years, Jibril left Libya to live abroad.

Libya, now divided between a UN-recognised government based in Tripoli and a rival administration in the country's east, announced its first death from coronavirus earlier this week.

Health authorities said an 85-year-old woman was confirmed to have had COVID-19 on examination after her death, without giving further details.

The UN-recognised Government of National Accord which controls the west of the country has officially recorded 10 cases.

No cases have been declared in the south and east, which are largely under the control of the rival administration supported by military strongman Khalifa Haftar who has been battling to seize Tripoli.

Wagdy, the hospital director in Cairo, said that Jibril was in and out of consciousness during his time in the hospital's intensive care unit, where he had been quarantined since his admission.

Mrimi said that Jibril had appeared in stable conditions in recent days "and was even getting ready to leave the hospital" before his condition deteriorated again.

ALGIERS — An Algerian court on Monday sentenced another leading figure in the country's anti-regime protest movement to one year in jail, keeping up a crackdown on activists despite the coronavirus crisis, a support group said.

Abdelouahab Fersaoui, who heads the civic group Youth Action Rally (RAJ), was arrested in October during a demonstration in support of detainees and accused of an "attack on the integrity of the national territory".

The prosecutor had asked for two years in prison for the 39-year-old academic during a trial held behind closed doors because of the coronavirus outbreak, which has cost more 150 lives in Algeria.

Fersaoui denied the charges, which he said were based on his Facebook posts that had contained no incitement to violence.

Amnesty International said "condemning an activist to a year in prison for having expressed his opinion peacefully on Facebook in the midst of a health crisis is unacceptable and scandalous".

Last week, Algeria's President Abdelmadjid Tebboune pardoned more than 5,000 prisoners but the measure did not apply to the scores detained as part of the protest movement, whose weekly street rallies have been suspended due to the coronavirus pandemic.

The CNLD prisoners' support group, which reported Fersaoui's sentencing, wrote on Facebook that judicial harassment in Algeria "continues against activists and detainees during this period of confinement of citizens".

Said Salhi, vice president of the Algerian League for the Defence of Human Rights, said he was "stunned" by the ruling against Fersaoui who had been hoping to be freed.

"This conviction confirms our concern about the risk of escalating repression," Salhi told AFP.

According to the CNLD, 44 people are detained in Algerian prisons for their links to the "Hirak" protest movement that has rocked Algeria for more than a year.

On March 24, another leading protest figure, Karim Tabbou, was sentenced by an appeals court to a year in prison.

He is due to appear in court again on April 27 in another case for "an attack on the morale of the army", his lawyer said Monday.

Vast demonstrations broke out in Algeria in February last year after then-president Abdelaziz Bouteflika announced a bid for a fifth term after 20 years in power.

He stepped down in April after losing the support of the army, but protesters continued to hold mass rallies demanding a sweeping overhaul of the ruling system.

WASHINGTON — US President Donald Trump and his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan underlined on Tuesday the need for ceasefires in Syria and Libya during the coronavirus pandemic, the White House said.

The two spoke by phone on efforts to "defeat the virus and bolster the global economy", the White House said in a statement.

And they "agreed it is more important now than ever for countries in conflict, particularly Syria and Libya, to adhere to ceasefires and work toward resolution".

Syria's government has so far reported only a handful of coronavirus cases, but health experts warn that the country, torn apart by years of civil war, is especially vulnerable to the rapidly spreading, sometimes fatal virus.

The violence-plagued northwest, where around a million people have been displaced by conflict since December alone, is particularly at risk.

Libya has been in chaos since the 2011 overthrow of longtime dictator Moamer Kadhafi and is divided between the Tripoli-based Government of National Unity  and forces loyal to eastern-based military strongman Khalifa Haftar.

The country's healthcare system is badly deteriorated, although the two rival powers have both instituted social distancing measures.

CAIRO — Egypt's famed Great Pyramid was emblazoned on Monday evening with messages of unity and solidarity with those battling the novel coronavirus the world over.

"Stay safe", "Stay at home" and "Thank you to those keeping us safe" , flashed in blue and green lights across the towering structure at the Giza plateau, southwest of the capital Cairo.

Egypt has so far registered 656 COVID-19 cases, including 41 deaths. Of the total infected, 150 reportedly recovered.

"The tourism sector is one of the most affected industry but our priority is health," said tourism and antiquities minister Khaled Al  Anani, speaking at the site.

Senior antiquities ministry official Mostafa Al Waziri thanked "all the medical staff who help to keep us safe."

Egypt has carried out sweeping disinfection operations at archaeological sites, museums and other sites across the country.

In tandem, strict social distancing measures were imposed to reduce the risk of contagion among the country's 100 million inhabitants.

Tourist and religious sites are shuttered, schools are closed and air traffic halted.

Authorities have also declared a night-time curfew and threatened penalties including fines and even prison.

On Monday, the interior ministry said hundreds were arrested for violating curfew orders. It was not immediately clear if they were later released.

The World Health Organisation has commended Egypt's response to the pandemic as "strong and adapted to the situation".

But it called on the Arab world's most populous country to boost hospital resources to better prepare for potential wider transmission.

The novel coronavirus was declared a pandemic on March 11. It originated in the Chinese city of Wuhan and has so far spread in 183 countries.

Over 727,000 people have been infected and more than 34,000 have died worldwide, according to a tally compiled by AFP.

ANKARA — More than 100 people have died from the novel coronavirus in Turkey, Health Minister Fahrettin Koca announced on Saturday, as 1,704 new cases were recorded.

Koca shared the latest figures on Twitter, which showed 16 more people had died in the last 24 hours, pushing the total death toll to 108.

With the new cases of COVID-19, Turkey has officially recorded 7,402 people with the virus.

Turkish officials have to date not provided details on where the cases have been recorded in the country. But they say 70 people have recovered while 445 individuals remain in intensive care.

More than 55,000 tests have been carried out in the 83-million strong country, according to the latest figures from the health ministry.

The Turkish government has stepped up measures to try to prevent the spread of the virus including cancelling international flights.

The interior ministry said that from 03:00 GMT on Sunday, passengers wishing to travel by plane would need a document to prove they had been granted permission to do so.

Those documents will be issued by an official body that will include police and airport officials.

Residents will also need permission from the governor's office where they live to travel to another city by bus.

Turkish Airlines CEO Bilal Eksi earlier tweeted that from Sunday 00:01am (21:01 GMT) there would only be domestic flights to 14 cities including Ankara, Istanbul, and Izmir in the west.

RIYADH — Saudi air defences intercepted Yemeni rebel missiles over Riyadh and a city on the Yemen border, leaving two civilians wounded in the curfew-locked capital amid efforts to combat coronavirus, state media said on Sunday.

Multiple explosions shook Riyadh late Saturday in the first major assault on Saudi Arabia since the Houthi rebels offered last September to halt attacks on the kingdom after devastating twin strikes on Saudi oil installations.

The Iran-aligned insurgents claimed responsibility around 15 hours after the attacks, with a rebel spokesman calling it "the largest operation of its kind" as the Riyadh-led military intervention in Yemen enters its sixth year.

"Two ballistic missiles were launched towards the cities of Riyadh and Jizan," the official Saudi Press Agency reported, citing the Saudi-led coalition that is fighting the rebels in Yemen.

Their interception sent shrapnel raining on residential neighbourhoods in the cities, leaving two civilians injured in Riyadh, a civil defence spokesman said in a separate statement released by SPA.

At least three blasts rocked the capital, which is under a 15-hour-per-day coronavirus curfew, just before midnight, said AFP reporters. Jizan, like many other Saudi cities, faces a shorter dusk-to-dawn curfew.

The Houthi spokesman said the rebels struck "sensitive targets" in Riyadh with long-range Zolfaghar missiles and Sammad-3 drones. The rebels also claimed to have hit "economic and military targets" in the border regions of Jizan, Najran and Assir.

The assault comes despite a show of support on Thursday by all of Yemen's warring parties for a United Nations call for a ceasefire to protect civilians from the coronavirus pandemic.

Saudi Arabia, the Yemeni government and the Houthi rebels all welcomed an appeal from UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres for an "immediate global ceasefire" to help avert disaster for vulnerable people in conflict zones.

The call coincided with the fifth anniversary of Saudi Arabia's military intervention in Yemen's civil war, which was launched to shore up the internationally recognised government against the Houthis.

Escalating conflict

Yemen's government condemned the attack, which it said undermined efforts to scale down the conflict amid the coronavirus outbreak.

Information Minister Moammer Al Eryani said in a tweet that the strikes also confirmed the "continued flow of Iranian weapons" to the Houthi militias.

"This militia lives only on wars and doesn't understand peace language," he said.

Yemen's broken healthcare system has so far recorded no case of the COVID-19 illness, but aid groups have warned that when it does hit, the impact will be catastrophic. The country is already gripped by what the UN calls the world's worst humanitarian crisis.

Saudi Arabia is also scrambling to limit the spread of the disease at home. The kingdom's health ministry has reported 1,203 coronavirus infections and four deaths from the illness so far.

Fighting has recently escalated again between the Houthis and Riyadh-backed Yemeni troops around the strategic northern districts of Al Jouf and Marib, ending a months-long lull.

"I am gravely dismayed and disappointed by these actions at a time when the Yemeni public's demands for peace are unanimous and louder than ever before," UN Special Envoy for Yemen Martin Griffiths said on Sunday.

"Yemen needs its leaders to focus every minute of their time on averting and mitigating the potentially disastrous consequences of a COVID-19 outbreak."

The warring sides had earlier shown an interest in de-escalation, with a Saudi official saying in November that Riyadh had an "open channel" with the rebels with the goal of ending the war.

The Houthis also offered to halt all missile and drone attacks on Saudi Arabia after strikes on oil installations last September, which were claimed by the rebels but widely blamed on Iran, despite its denials.

But those efforts seem to have unravelled. Observers say the rebels may have used the lull to bolster their military capabilities.

TEHRAN — President Hassan Rouhani warned on Sunday that "the new way of life" in Iran was likely to be prolonged, as its declared death toll from the novel coronavirus rose to 2,640.

The Islamic republic is one of the countries worst-hit by the virus, which first originated in China.

Iran announced its first infection cases on February 19, but a senior health official has acknowledged that the virus was likely to have already reached Iran in January.

At his daily news briefing, health ministry spokesman Kianoush Jahanpour said 123 more people in Iran had died from the virus in the past 24 hours.

He reported 2,901 new cases of COVID-19 infection, bringing the overall number of officially confirmed cases to 38,309.

According to the official, 12,391 of those hospitalised have recovered and 3,467 are in "critical" condition.

"We must prepare to live with this virus until a treatment or vaccine is discovered, which has not yet happened to date," President Hassan Rouhani said in a Cabinet meeting.

"The new way of life we have adopted" is to everyone's benefit, he said, adding that "these changes will likely have to stay in place for some time".

After weeks of refraining from imposing lockdown or quarantine measures, Tehran decided on Wednesday to ban all intercity travel until at least April 8.

Without an official lockdown in place, the government has repeatedly urged Iranians to stay home "as much as possible".

Schools and universities in some provinces were closed in late February and the measure was later extended to the whole country.

After Rouhani's warning, the reopening of schools following this year's Persian New Year holidays of March 19 to April 3 appears unlikely.

On a positive note, Rouhani said he had been told by top health experts and doctors that "in some provinces we have passed the peak [of the epidemic] and are on a downward trajectory".

Several Iranian government officials and notable figures have been infected by the new coronavirus, some of whom have died.

The most recent case of infection was Mohammad-Reza Khatami, brother of former president Mohammad Khatami and an ex-deputy speaker of parliament.

He is currently hospitalised, according to state news agency IRNA.

Iraj Harirchi, a deputy health minister who tested positive for the virus in late February, has returned to public life and appeared on state television to emphasise safety precautions.

PARIS — The long war in Yemen has had a "devastating impact" on the mental health of children, with more than half saying they feel sad and depressed, Save the Children said.

The government — backed by a Saudi-led military coalition -- has been battling the Iran-aligned Houthi rebels for more than five years in a conflict that has plunged the country into what the United Nations says is the world's worst humanitarian crisis.

"More than half the children surveyed said they struggle with feelings of sadness and depression, with more than one in ten saying they feel that way constantly," the charity group said in a report.

"Around one in five children said they are always afraid and always grieving."

The group said the survey was the largest of its kind among children and parents since the war broke out.

Save the Children interviewed 629 children between the ages of 13 and 17 and 627 parents and other caregivers in three Yemeni regions.

The study comes at a time when Yemen, which has long been the most impoverished country in the Arabian Peninsula, faces the looming threat of the novel coronavirus.

While it has not recorded any COVID-19 cases to date, the possibility of an outbreak threatens the already fragile healthcare system.

Save the Children said the conflict has forced two million children from their homes and at least two million out of their schools.

More than 7,522 youngsters have been killed or maimed over the past five years, the report said, adding some 2.1 million children under five are acutely malnourished.

"The children we spoke to are terrified," said the organisation's CEO Inger Ashing.

"This is what five years of war does to the mental wellbeing of children."

"With COVID-19 now a worldwide epidemic, the potentially devastating threat of a coronavirus outbreak in Yemen makes urgent action to pressure parties to end the war more important than ever."