Lockdown at labor camp in Qatar described as coronavirus prison

Migrant workers in Qatar have described being trapped in a coronavirus prison at the country’s largest labor camp. (File/Shutterstock)
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Updated 20 March 2020
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Lockdown at labor camp in Qatar described as coronavirus prison

  • The area is guarded by police, and workers who live there, many of whom had been working on Fifa World Cup 2022 infrastructure projects, cannot leave
  • Some workers have been told to go on unpaid leave until further notice, with only food and accommodation covered

LONDON: Migrant workers in Qatar have described being trapped in a coronavirus prison at the country’s largest labor camp.
The camp was locked down after hundreds of construction workers became sick with Covid-19.
Thousands of workers are trapped in filthy, over-crowded camps within the “Industrial Area” in Doha where the virus can spread rapidly, The Guardian reported.
The area is guarded by police, and workers who live there, many of whom had been working on Fifa World Cup 2022 infrastructure projects, cannot leave.
Qatari authorities on Tuesday announced the closure of several square kilometers of the Industrial Area.
Workers are fearful and there is an atmosphere of uncertainty.
Some workers have been told to go on unpaid leave until further notice, with only food and accommodation covered, sources at the camp told The Guardian.
“The situation is getting worse each day. Workers from camp 1 to camp 32 are in lockdown. My friends who live there are in extreme panic,” a Bangladeshi worker told The Guardian.
“We are not allowed to walk in groups or eat in a tea shop. But you can still buy food and take it home. I’m worried about my family back home. There won’t be anyone to take care of them if anything happens to me,” a Nepali worker said. He added that no one is allowed to leave the area.
On Mar. 11, authorities said 238 people under quarantine in a residential compound had tested positive for coronavirus. Subsequent announcements have linked most reported cases to migrant workers without mentioning nationalities.
Terrified workers are doing everything they can to prevent the spread of the disease. “We are doing everything to keep ourselves safe. The camp was a little dirty, so we cleaned everything, changed the bed sheets, and used spray to kill the germs,” a worker told The Guardian.
Although the country is on lockdown and has shut down almost all public spaces in the face of the outbreak, some construction workers who have not tested positive for Covid-19 say they are being forced to work after having just their temperatures checked before they begin.

Amnesty International said migrant workers trapped in camps such as those in Qatar are at particular risk of exposure to the virus.

“The Qatari government must ensure that human rights remain central to all attempts at prevention and containment of the COVID-19 virus, and also that all people have access to health care, including preventive care and treatment for everyone affected, without discrimination,” said Steve Cockburn, Amnesty International’s Deputy Director of Global Issues.

Doha’s Industrial Area is made up of warehouses, factories and workers’ accommodation. It is home to hundreds of thousands of men who live in cramped and dirty conditions. Kitchens and toilets are communal, making it very easy for virus to be transmitted.
Expats make up the majority of the population in Qatar, and the government on Thursday said there were 460 cases in the country — the highest number among the six Gulf Arab states that have reported a total of more than 1,300 coronavirus cases.


Jordanian man returns home after 38 years in Syria’s prisons

Updated 31 sec ago
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Jordanian man returns home after 38 years in Syria’s prisons

AMMAN: A Jordanian man has returned to his home country after spending 38 years in Syrian jails, an official said on Tuesday, after the fall of president Bashar Assad ended an agonizing wait for his family.
The man, named as Osama Bashir Hassan Al-Bataynah, was found in Syria “unconscious and suffering from memory loss,” Jordanian Foreign Ministry Soufian Al-Kodat told AFP.
Kodat said the man’s relatives reported his disappearance in 1986, when he was just 18, and that he had been in jail ever since.
“He was transferred from Damascus to the Jaber border crossing (with Jordan) where he was handed over to border guards,” added Kodat, saying the man had been reunited with his family on Tuesday morning.
The rebels who swept Assad from power on Sunday also opened the prisons and released thousands of detainees.
Civil society groups had long accused Assad of presiding over a brutal regime of arbitrary arrests, torture and murder in prisons.
Many foreigners were being held, including Suheil Hamawi from Lebanon who returned to his country on Monday after being locked up for 33 years.
The Arab Organization for Human Rights in Jordan said Tuesday there were still 236 Jordanians detained in Syria.
Amnesty International has documented thousands of killings at Saydnaya prison, whose name has become synonymous with the worst atrocities of Assad’s rule, and dubbed it a “human slaughterhouse.”
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights estimated in 2022 that more than 100,000 people had died in the jails since the start of an uprising in 2011 that led to the civil war.

Asma Assad: From ‘rose in the desert’ to international pariah

Updated 45 min 17 sec ago
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Asma Assad: From ‘rose in the desert’ to international pariah

  • Vogue published gushing profile of Syria’s ex-first lady weeks before Arab Spring
  • She and her husband now in exile in Moscow after fall of regime in Damascus

LONDON: The transformation of Asma Assad from a vaunted English “rose in the desert” to international pariah is the subject of fresh media scrutiny after the fall of the Assad regime in Syria.

A gushing March 2011 Vogue profile of former President Bashar Assad’s wife, published weeks before the Arab Spring and later deleted, highlights the destruction of her reputation, the Daily Mail reported.

The “Power Issue” profile described the London-born computer science graduate as “on a mission to create a beacon of culture and secularism” in the Middle East.

“The first impression of Asma Assad is movement: A determined swath cut through space with a flash of red soles,” it said.

The “thin, long-limbed beauty with a trained analytic mind who dresses with cunning understatement” reportedly wanted Syria’s youth to spearhead modernization by becoming “active citizens.”

But soon after the profile was published, she and her husband became the public face of a brutal crackdown on popular protests that culminated in Syria’s 13-year civil war, leading to more than 600,000 deaths and the displacement of millions.

Asma Assad turned to London law firm Carter Ruck as the civil war broke out. Newspapers who covered the family’s affairs received threatening letters, but nothing could prevent her and her husband from becoming international pariahs after regime forces carried out a series of chemical weapons attacks against civilians.

Vogue removed the “rose in the desert” profile as a WikiLeaks email hack revealed that she had spent $318,000 on luxury furniture during the first year of the civil war. US estimates put the Assad family’s wealth at $2 billion.

Asma Assad was placed under US sanctions in 2020 and described as one of Syria’s “most notorious war profiteers.”

The former first lady owns at least 18 luxury apartments in Moscow’s skyscraper district, where she is set to begin a new life in exile with her husband.


Hezbollah must focus on Lebanon not wider region, senior politician Bassil says

Updated 10 December 2024
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Hezbollah must focus on Lebanon not wider region, senior politician Bassil says

  • Parliament meets on Jan. 9 to decide on president
  • Hezbollah weakened after war with Israel

PARIS: Iran-backed Hezbollah needs to focus on domestic issues in Lebanon and not the wider region, senior Lebanese Maronite politician Gebran Bassil said on Tuesday, adding that he was against the head of the army running for the presidency.
A year of fighting between Hezbollah and Israel, which culminated in a tentative ceasefire brokered by the United States and France in November, saw more than 4,000 killed, thousands displaced and the powerful Shiite group considerably weakened militarily with many of its leaders dead.
“It’s a process whereby Hezbollah accepts that they are part of the Lebanese state and are not parallel to the state,” Bassil, a Maronite Christian, who is one of Lebanon’s most influential politicians, told Reuters in an interview in Paris.
“We don’t want their end. We want them to be partners in the Lebanese nation, equal to us in abiding by the rules and preserving the sovereignty of Lebanon. We agree with them on defending Lebanon and supporting the Palestinian cause, but politically and diplomatically, not militarily.”
Bassil, who said the group should distance itself from the Iran-aligned “Axis of Resistance,” is head of the Free Patriotic Movement (FPM), a Christian party founded by former President Michel Aoun, his father-in-law, that has been aligned with Hezbollah.
He was sanctioned by the United States in 2020 for alleged corruption and material support to Hezbollah. He denies the accusations.
He was in Paris meeting French officials. He declined to say whether he met Donald Trump’s regional envoy and fellow Maronite Massad Boulos, who accompanied the US president-elect to France last weekend.
Since the truce, Paris has increased efforts to discuss with the myriad key actors in Lebanon over how to break a political impasse after two years without a president or permanent government.
The presidential post is reserved for Christians, but part of the standoff reflects rivalries among the community as well as crucial political and religious balances in the country.
Authorities finally announced that the parliament would meet on Jan. 9 to elect a new president.
Bassil, who has enough lawmakers to block a Maronite candidate, said he was against the candidacy of Joseph Aoun, the head of the army, who diplomats say both the United States and France consider as a serious candidate.
He said Aoun’s appointment would be against the constitution and that he did not have consensus among all the Lebanese factions.
“We are against him because we don’t see him as being fit for the presidency,” Bassil said. “We need candidates who can bring the Lebanese together,” he said declining to name one.


South Sudan president fires army and police chiefs, central bank governor

Updated 10 December 2024
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South Sudan president fires army and police chiefs, central bank governor

  • Security sources with knowledge of the goings-on in the military said the changes could have stemmed from disquiet within the army ranks

NAIROBI: South Sudan's President Salva Kiir has fired the head of the country's military, the police chief and the central bank governor, an announcement made on the state-owned broadcaster SSBC said.
Kiir's announcement late on Monday gave no reasons for the dismissals. It said Kiir had appointed Paul Nang Majok as the army's chief of defence forces, replacing General Santino Wol.
Security sources with knowledge of the goings-on in the military said the changes could have stemmed from disquiet within the army ranks, adding that some soldiers had not been paid wages for about a year.
Army spokesperson Major General Lul Ruai Koang did not immediately respond when contacted for comment.
Michael Makuei, the information minister and government spokesperson, did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the reasons for the changes.
In late November, an attempt to arrest the former head of the intelligence service led to an eruption of heavy gunfire in the capital Juba.
In early October, Kiir had dismissed Akol Koor Kuc, who had led the National Security Service since the country's independence from Sudan in 2011, and appointed a close ally to replace him.
In the latest shake-up, Kiir also replaced James Alic Garang as the central bank governor, returning Johnny Ohisa Damian to the post after firing him in October 2023.
He named Abraham Peter Manyuat as the new Inspector General of Police, replacing Atem Marol Biar.
Abrupt changes to government leadership, especially in the finance ministry and the central bank, have been frequent in recent years and in 2020 alone the central bank governor was replaced twice.
South Sudan's economy has been depressed since a civil war that erupted in 2013, forcing about a quarter of its population to flee to neighbouring countries.
South Sudan has been formally at peace since a 2018 deal ended the five-year conflict responsible for hundreds of thousands of deaths, but violence between rival communities flares frequently.
It postponed a long-delayed national election until December 2026, reflecting the challenges facing the country's fragile peace process.


Air strike on North Darfur market kills more than 100: Sudan lawyers’ group

Updated 10 December 2024
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Air strike on North Darfur market kills more than 100: Sudan lawyers’ group

  • The air strike hit the town of Kabkabiya, about 180 kilometers west of state capital El-Fasher, which has been under RSF siege since May

Port Sudan: A Sudanese military air strike on a market in a town in North Darfur killed more than 100 people and wounded hundreds on Monday, a pro-democracy lawyers’ group said Tuesday.
“The air strike took place on the town’s weekly market day, where residents from various nearby villages had gathered to shop, resulting in the death of more than 100 people and injury of hundreds, including women and children,” said the Emergency Lawyers, who have been documenting human rights abuses during the 20-month war between Sudan’s army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces.
The air strike hit the town of Kabkabiya, about 180 kilometers west of state capital El-Fasher, which has been under RSF siege since May.
The lawyers said they “condemn in the strongest terms the horrendous massacres committed by army air strikes” in Kabkabiya.
In a separate incident, a drone that had crashed in central Sudan’s North Kordofan on November 26 exploded on Monday evening, killing six people, including children, and leaving three others seriously injured, the lawyers said.
In Nyala, the capital of South Darfur, a series of “indiscriminate airstrikes” also targeted three neighborhoods with barrel bombs, they added.
The attacks are part of “an ongoing escalation campaign, contradicting claims that the air strikes target only military objectives as the raids are deliberately concentrated on densely populated residential areas,” the lawyers said in a statement.
Both the army and the RSF have been accused of targeting civilians and deliberately bombing residential areas.
Tens of thousands have been killed in the war and over 11 million displaced, creating what the United Nations describes as the world’s largest displacement crisis.