Region

TRIPOLI — Rescue workers said on Friday they had plucked the bodies of 62 migrants from waters off the Libyan coast a day after one of the deadliest shipwrecks in the Mediterranean this year.

About 145 migrants were rescued by the Libyan coastguard on Thursday after their overloaded boat went down east of the capital near the port city of Khoms.

Aid agencies initially feared that scores of migrants had drowned, with the number of missing estimated at more than 110 by the International Organisation for Migration (OIM), and fishermen reported the waters were full of floating bodies.

“Our Red Crescent teams have pulled 62 migrants” from the water since Thursday evening, the head of Libya's Red Crescent rescue unit Abdelmoneim Abu Sbeih said on Friday.

“The bodies are still floating onto the shore continuously, it's not possible to give a total number,” he added.

Survivors reported there were some 400 people aboard when it went down, according to global charity Doctors Without Borders (MSF).

One of the fishermen who was the first on the scene to save the survivors recounted finding “bodies floating on the surface of the water where the boat went down”. 

The head of the UN refugee agency Filippo Grandi called the wreck “the worst Mediterranean tragedy of this year”.

Libyan navy spokesman General Ayoub Kacem said most of the rescued migrants were from Eritrea, although Palestinians and Sudanese were also among the group waiting to be taken on to reception centres.

A member of the Libyan coast guard said the outfit did not “have the means” to launch a high seas search and would “have to wait for the sea to return the bodies so we can pick them up”.

Local authorities were gathering and storing bodies of the victims but were facing numerous problems and struggling to find burial places for them, according to municipal source in Khoms. 

 ‘Traumatised’

UN chief Antonio Guterres said he was “horrified” by the latest tragedy at sea.

“We need safe, legal routes for migrants and refugees. Every migrant searching for a better life deserves safety and dignity,” he Tweeted.

The migrants had been apparently headed out to sea on three boats lashed together, MSF mission chief Julien Raickman told AFP by telephone on Thursday.

One of the survivors, Abdallah Osman, recounted how their boat started taking on water about 90 minutes after setting out to sea hoping to reach Europe. “The Egyptian captain decided to turn back,” he said.

Osman, a 28-year-old Eritrean, said a passing ship saw that their boat was in distress but took no action.

MSF nurse Anne-Cecilia Kjaer met with survivors, including some who had “swallowed a lot of sea water and had respiratory” problems.

“Many children could not swim, and even those who knew how to succumbed to exhaustion,” she said.

Kjaer said the migrants were already “traumatized” from dangerous journeys across deserts where they were “captured by traffickers, subjected to violence and torture, and [then] saw their loved ones die at sea”. 

The capsize came only a few weeks after some 68 migrants died when an Italy-bound boat sank off Tunisia.

Before the latest shipwreck, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and the OIM said 426 migrants had perished in the Mediterranean this year.

Amnesty International lambasted the European Union over the latest deaths.

“This high number represents a new low for European leaders. They have done everything they can to pull up the drawbridge to Europe,” it said, “yet people are still risking their lives to come to Europe”.

Libya, which has been wracked by chaos since the 2011 uprising that killed president Muammar Qadhafi, has long been a major transit route for migrants, especially from sub-Saharan Africa, desperate to reach Europe.

LONDON, United Kingdom — Britain on Thursday ordered its navy to escort UK-flagged ships through the Strait of Hormuz after Iranian soldiers seized a tanker in the flashpoint entrance to the Gulf.

"The Royal Navy has been tasked to accompany British-flagged ships through the Strait of Hormuz, either individually or in groups, should sufficient notice be given of their passage," the defence ministry said in a statement to AFP.

The week-long standoff over the British-flagged Stena Impero and its 23-member crew has inflamed tensions between the Islamic republic and the United Kingdom.

Britain responded on Monday by proposing a European-led mission that could secure the passage of vessels through the world's busiest oil shipping lane. 

But France said Thursday it was not willing to send extra military assets to the Gulf, but would share information and coordinate its currently deployed assets.

Iran had earlier warned Britain that it intended to retaliate for UK marines’ involvement of the seizure of its own supertanker near Gibraltar on July 4.

Britain currently has the HMS Montrose warship in the Gulf and a handful of smaller naval vessels.

The Montrose had tried to rush in to rescue the Stena but arrived too late to the scene.

Britain has already raised its security level in the region to the highest level and advised all boats in Iranian waters not to enter the strait.

Its guidance before Thursday was for ships to notify the navy and receive instructions on “the safest way to transit” into the Gulf.

“It is not possible for the Royal Navy to provide escorts for every single ship,” now-former foreign secretary Jeremy Hunt told parliament on Monday.

The UK department of transport had earlier advised British-registered ships not to sail through the area.

Hunt told parliament that two to three UK-flagged ships pass through the strait daily.

He added that the Montrose had escorted 30 merchant vessels through the strait in 17 separate transits as of Monday.

The 33-kilometre wide passageway provides the eastern entrance and exit point into the Gulf and runs between the United Arab Emirates and Iran.

KHARTOUM — Sudanese protest leaders and their rebel partners have ended their differences over a power-sharing deal signed with the country's military rulers, vowing to work jointly for peace, a leading protest group said Thursday.

On July 17, the umbrella protest movement signed a power-sharing accord with Sudan's ruling generals that provides for a transitional civilian administration following the ouster of longtime dictator Omar Al Bashir.

But three armed groups who are members of the protest movement had objected to the deal, saying it failed to address conflicts in Darfur, South Kordofan and Blue Nile.

A group of protest leaders then flew to Addis Ababa for talks with the rebels, and after days of intense negotiations, they reached an agreement that was announced on Thursday.

“This agreement has discussed the fundamental roots of war... and aims to reach a comprehensive peace accord with all armed groups,” said the Sudanese Professionals Association, which spearheaded the campaign against Bashir.

“The agreement paves the way for establishing comprehensive peace urgently once the transitional process for a civilian government begins,” it said on its Facebook page.

The SPA said the “Addis Ababa Declaration” aims to “speed up the forming of the transitional civilian government”.

It said the three armed groups in the Sudan Revolutionary Front have “reconciled with the Alliance for Freedom and Change on the transitional government and connected peace-related issues with the process of transition”.

The rebel groups also confirmed that their differences with the protest leaders had been resolved.

“I think with this agreement we will be united, we will be stronger,” rebel delegate Nuraddayim Taha told AFP in Addis Ababa.

“This is the first time that such an agreement is linked to issues of democracy and peace. For us, this is the first time in history that an agreement will address the root causes of the conflicts in Sudan.” 

The rebel groups had spent years fighting government forces in Darfur, Blue Nile and South Kordofan.

Tens of thousands of people have been killed in the three conflicts and millions displaced, with hundreds of thousands still living in sprawling camps.

The protest leaders and generals are still to sign a “Constitutional Declaration” dealing with outstanding issues — including justice for demonstrators killed during months of protests.

The rebel groups had demanded that the document call on the new government to make peace negotiations a top priority.

Once a peace deal is finalised, sources said the rebel groups want their representatives to be part of the transitional government.

It is still unclear whether this demand had been addressed in the Addis Ababa agreement.

The rebels had also called for the extradition from Sudan of people accused of crimes by the Hague-based International Criminal Court, including Bashir.

TUNIS — Tunisian President Beji Caid Essebsi, the country's first leader elected in nationwide polls, died at the age of 92 on Thursday, triggering political uncertainty ahead of planned elections. 

The veteran politician, the oldest head of state after Britain's Queen Elizabeth II, came to power in 2014, three years after the Arab Spring uprising toppled longtime despot Zine El Abidine Ben Ali and sparked revolts in several Arab nations.

His death ushers in a period of political transition in the North African nation, hailed as a rare Arab Spring success story.

Essebsi, who had already ruled out running again for office, was hospitalised with a severe illness in late June and had returned to intensive care on Thursday. Media reports said he would be buried on Saturday.

President Emmanuel Macron of former colonial power France hailed his late counterpart as “a friend” of France and “a courageous leader”.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel called Essebsi “a courageous actor on the road to democracy” and Italian premier Giuseppe Conte also sent his condolences for the passing of a “statesman of great... humanity”. 

Tunisia’s parliament announced its speaker Mohamed Ennaceur would take the reins as interim president, and within hours he was sworn in as the new leader. 

Ennaceur, who called on Tunisians to show “solidarity”, now has 90 days to organise a presidential election, electoral commission head Nabil Baffoun told AFP.

That means the vote, previously set for November 17, must be held by October 23.

“The state will continue to function,” Ennaceur said on state television. The 85-year-old also recently had a bout of ill-health, raising concerns about his ability to hold office.

Extremist attacks 

The birthplace of the Arab Spring revolts, Tunisia is the only country affected by the uprisings to have pushed through democratic reforms — despite political unrest, a sluggish economy and extremist attacks.

Extremists have staged repeated deadly attacks since the overthrow of Ben Ali, raising fears for the country’s fragile democracy and throttling its tourism industry.

In March 2015, gunmen killed 21 tourists and a policeman at the National Bardo Museum in Tunis.

In June that year, 30 Britons were among 38 foreign holidaymakers killed in a gun and grenade attack on a beach resort near the Tunisian city of Sousse.

In November 2015, a suicide bombing against a bus in the capital carrying presidential guards killed 12. All three attacks were claimed by the Daesh group, and prompted a state of emergency that remains in place.

A veteran politician, Essebsi had served as an adviser to Habib Bourguiba, the father of Tunisia’s independence from France, holding a number of key jobs under him and later under Ben Ali.

Over the years, Essebsi was director general of the national police and interior minister. He later held the defence portfolio before becoming ambassador to France as well as Germany.

Essebsi is the founder and chairman of the secularist Nidaa Tounes (Call of Tunis) party.

Nidaa Tounes won the polls in 2014 and formed a coalition with the Islamist-inspired Ennahdha, which lasted four years before the two parties split.

But Essebsi’s party has struggled to overcome bitter internal divisions between Prime Minister Youssef Chahed and Essebsi’s son, Hafedh, leading to the premier being sidelined from Nidaa Tounes and forming his own rival party, Tahia Tounes.

Morocco’s king Mohammed VI sent his condolences for the loss of a leader who had “devoted himself to building a modern state”.

Essebsi’s death comes amid a debate over who will be able to run in the next presidential elections.

Essebsi neither rejected nor enacted an amended electoral code passed by parliament in June that would bar the way for several strong candidates including media magnate Nabil Karoui.

Karoui, who has formed a political party, was charged with money laundering this month after he stated his intention to run for office. 

TUNIS — Tunisia witnessed the first of the Arab Spring uprisings that rocked the Middle East in 2011, forcing out several long-time leaders.

Here is a recap of key developments in the North African country since.

President flees 

Demonstrations erupt in December 2010 after the self-immolation of a fruit seller protesting police harassment and unemployment.

After weeks of unrest, dictator Zine Al Abidine Ben Ali quits in January 2011, ending 23 years in power. 

The first leader to be toppled by the Arab Spring, he flees to Saudi Arabia.

Victory for Islamists 

In October 2011, Tunisia's first free election sees Islamist group Ennahdha, legalised in March, win 89 of 217 seats in a new constituent assembly. 

The assembly elects former opposition leader Moncef Marzouki as president in December. Hamadi Jebali, Ennahdha's number two, is charged with forming a government.

Attacks, unrest 

In April 2012, police clash with thousands of jobless protesters in the southwestern mining belt.

More violent demonstrations follow in June and August, and Islamists stage attacks.

In late November riots break out in Siliana, southwest of Tunis, injuring 300.

Strikes and demonstrations affect industry, public services, transport and business, with unrest mostly in the economically marginalised interior.

In February 2013, prominent anti-Islamist opposition leader Chokri Belaid is assassinated in Tunis. 

In July, leftist opposition leader Mohamed Brahmi is also shot dead. Daesh terrorists claim both killings.

Democratic transition 

In January 2014 a new constitution is adopted, a year later than planned. A government of technocrats is formed and Islamists withdraw from power.

In October the secular Nidaa Tounes Party led by Beji Caid Essebsi comes top in parliamentary polls and forms a coalition with Ennahdha.

Two months later, Essebsi wins Tunisia's first free presidential election.

Carnage 

In 2015 the country suffers three attacks claimed by Daesh group militants based in neighbouring Libya.

The attacks leave 72 dead, mostly foreign tourists and security personnel, including at the Bardo Museum in Tunis and a Mediterranean coastal resort.

In March 2016, terrorists attack security installations in the town of Ben Guerdane on the Libyan border, leaving scores dead. Authorities say it was a thwarted effort to establish an Islamic emirate in the country.

Although security has improved, a state of emergency established in 2015 has been repeatedly extended.

Fresh protests 

In January 2016, a new wave of protests against poverty and unemployment erupts after the death of a young unemployed man in a demonstration. Authorities impose a curfew.

In May 2017, a sit-in at the El Kamour oil and gas plant descends into clashes with security forces.

In January 2018, new protests erupt after an austerity budget takes effect.

Political instability 

Essebsi in September announces the end of his party's alliance with Ennahdha, which had been part of a unity government since 2016.

In November the prime minister, Youssef Chahed, announces a government reshuffle but faces criticism from the president.

In January 2019 tensions mount when Essebsi accuses Chahed being in a secret pact with Ennahdha ahead of elections due later in the year.

In June 2019, Chahed is elected head of a new political party, Tahya Tounes.

On July 25, the ailing Essebsi dies in hospital at the age of 92 and parliamentary speaker Mohamed Ennaceur is announced as interim president for up to 90 days.

AL HOL CAMP, Syria — Maha Al Nasser queues in front of a crowded clinic in Syria's Al Hol camp, her frail daughter squirming in her arms under the stifling desert heat.

“My daughter has suffered from convulsions and malnutrition,” said 30-year-old Nasser, her face covered in a black veil.

“When she convulses, she loses consciousness and foam comes out of her mouth,”she told AFP at the Kurdish-run camp in northeast Syria.

Nasser and her daughter Fatima are among tens of thousands of people who were trucked into Al Hol earlier this year from the eastern Syria village of Baghouz.

Kurdish-led forces expelled the last Daesh  group fighters from the riverside hamlet in March, after streams of people poured out of the militants embattled holdout.

Months later, they are among the 70,000 people — mostly women and children — packed into the camp, where residents depend on aid and complain of endless illness, dirty water and boiling hot tents.

Fatima — now 14 months old — started showing signs of high fever months ago, but medication was not immediately available and her condition worsened, her mother said.

Despite two visits to a hospital outside the camp, her health has still not improved, Nasser added.

“The medical situation is bad,” said the mother of six, whose husband is detained with other suspected terrorists in Kurdish-run jails.

“Children constantly have diarrhoea. Disease is rampant in this cursed camp,” she said.

In the courtyard of a medical centre run by the Kurdish Red Crescent, women dressed from head to toe in black clutch children, some wailing non-stop.

 ‘A dustbowl inferno’ 

Once in a while, a member of the Kurdish security forces brings in a foreign woman from another section of the camp under tighter security.

The clinic's head Ramadan Youssef Al Daher said heat, poor sanitation and water shortages are contributing to the spread of diseases in Al Hol. 

He said his clinic sees around 50 children every day, many with cases of diarrhoea and malnutrition. 

“Twenty children died this month, some during childbirth, others because of malnutrition,” he told AFP.

At least 240 children have died en route or shortly after arriving in Al Hol, the United Nations says, since people started fleeing Baghouz late last year.

Most of Al Hol's residents are Syrian or Iraqi.

And more than two-thirds are children, according to the UN Children's Fund.

Foreign women and children are housed in a separate annexe, and most have little hope of returning home as Western countries have been largely reluctant to take them back.

Human Rights Watch on Tuesday described the camp as a “dustbowl inferno”.

It said it saw “overflowing latrines, sewage trickling into tattered tents, and residents drinking wash water from tanks containing worms”.

It described “young children with skin rashes, emaciated limbs and swollen bellies” sifting “through mounds of stinking garbage under a scorching sun”. The rights group warned that many children in the camp “are dying from acute diarrhoea and flu-like infections”.

The UN humanitarian coordination office OCHA has also reported a “sharp increase” in acute diarrhoea and a “slight increase” in acute malnutrition there this month.

‘Let us out’ 

The Kurdish authorities have repeatedly appealed to the international community for support to manage Al Hol and other camps housing displaced civilians and suspected Daesh family members.

They have also asked for help to prosecute suspected Daesh fighters held in Kurdish-run jails.

Between endless rows of white tents in Al Hol, children fill jerry cans with water from a tank provided by the Kurdish authorities.

Umm Talha, another camp resident, complained of slow healthcare and water she said was sometimes green or yellow.

“It's salty, and we don't know where it comes from,”she said.

Umm Osama, from Syria's northern province of Aleppo, said she was fed up with eating just rice and bulghur wheat.

‘They don't give us anything. They just want to humiliate us,”she said.

In April, the Kurds announced they had struck a deal with Baghdad to repatriate 31,000 Iraqis — but no transfers have, yet, gone ahead.

Umm Huzeifa, a 34-year-old Iraqi, said the time had come to leave.

“They've imprisoned us,” she said.

“Let them open up the door, let us out!”