TRIPOLI: A woman who gave birth at sea was among 93 migrants rescued off Libyan shores as they tried to reach Europe, but six others died along the way, the UN’s migration agency said Saturday.
The survivors were brought back overnight to the port city of Khoms, 120 kilometers (75 miles) west of the capital Tripoli, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) said on Twitter.
“Among them was a woman who gave birth on the rubber dinghy” that had undertaken the perilous Mediterranean crossing, it said.
“Migrants reported to IOM staff that 6 people have died along the journey,” it added.
Libya was thrown into chaos after the overthrow and killing of veteran dictator Muammar Qaddafi in a NATO-backed uprising in 2011.
Traffickers have exploited the unrest to turn the North African country into a key route for illicit migration toward Europe.
The situation of refugees and asylum seekers in Libya worsened after eastern Libya-based military strongman Khalifa Haftar launched an assault on Tripoli in 2019 and the onset of the novel coronavirus pandemic.
Human rights groups have repeatedly criticized the systematic return of migrants intercepted in the Mediterranean to Libya, where they are held in crowded detention centers.
The IOM said those rescued overnight were released after disembarking in Khoms.
The latest operation came just days after French charity boat Ocean Viking, picked up dozens of migrants, including 31 Pakistanis, off the Italian island of Lampedusa after they had drifted from Libya.
Nicholas Romaniuk, who coordinated the mission aboard that vessel, said rescue ships are often out-run by the Libyan coast guard who beat them to intercept migrants and return them to Libya.
Such was the case, he said, with the overnight rescue operation, deploring the lack of coordination.
“We were about an hour and a half from being nearby” when the Libyan coast guard intervened, said Romaniuk.
“There is no coordination, no information sharing for life saving operations. We’re talking about people who were reported to be dying, a newborn baby on board,” he added.
“The fact that, even in this situation, they won’t share information, it’s an absolute disgrace.”
The Ocean Viking, he said, was some 153 nautical miles away from the stricken boat when it received a distress signal.
More than 100,000 migrants tried to cross the Mediterranean last year with more than 1,200 dying in the attempt, according to the IOM.
Six migrants dead, dozens rescued off Libya coast: UN
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Six migrants dead, dozens rescued off Libya coast: UN
- The survivors were brought back overnight to the port city of Khoms, 120 kilometers (75 miles) west of the capital Tripoli
- Traffickers have exploited the unrest to turn the North African country into a key route for illicit migration toward Europe
Hamas military arm releases new video of Israeli hostage in Gaza
JERUSALEM: The military arm of the Palestinian militant group Hamas released a video Saturday of a man identifying himself as an Israeli hostage held in Gaza since the October 7, 2023 attack on Israel.
In the video, whose date cannot be verified, a man addresses US President-elect Donald Trump in English and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Hebrew.
The military arm of the Palestinian militant group Hamas released a video Saturday of a man identifying himself as an Israeli hostage held in Gaza since the October 7, 2023 attack on Israel. (AFP/File)
Gaza rescuers say 3 aid workers killed in Israel strike
- The agency said the aid workers killed were Palestinian employees of World Central Kitchen
- The US aid group did not immediately respond to AFP requests for comment
GAZA: Gaza’s civil defense agency said three aid workers were killed in an Israeli air strike in the Hamas-run territory on Saturday but the Israeli army said it killed a “terrorist.”
The agency said the aid workers killed were Palestinian employees of World Central Kitchen. The US aid group did not immediately respond to AFP requests for comment.
The Israeli army said it had “struck a vehicle with a terrorist that took part in the murderous October 7 massacre,” referring to militant group Hamas’s unprecedented attack on Israel last year.
“The claim that the terrorist was simultaneously a WCK worker is being examined,” it added in a statement.
Civil defense agency spokesman Mahmud Bassal said the bodies of “at least five dead were transported (to hospital), including (those of) the three employees of World Central Kitchen.”
“All three men worked for WCK and they were hit while driving in a WCK jeep in Khan Yunis,” Bassal said, adding that the vehicle had been “marked with its logo clearly visible.”
The Israeli army insisted its strike in the main southern city hit “a civilian unmarked vehicle and its movement on the route was not coordinated for transporting of aid.”
In April, an Israeli air strike killed seven WCK staff — an Australian, three Britons, a North American, a Palestinian and a Pole.
Israel said it had been targeting a “Hamas gunman” in that strike but the military admitted a series of “grave mistakes” and violations of its own rules of engagement.
The October 2023 attack resulted in the deaths of 1,207 people, most of them civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.
Israel’s retaliatory military offensive has killed 44,382 people in Gaza, according to figures from the territory’s health ministry which the United Nations considers reliable.
Several wounded in two Israeli strikes in south Lebanon, health ministry says
- Later on Saturday, another person was injured in a separate Israeli strike on Al Bisariya
- The Israeli military said it had attacked a Hezbollah facility
CAIRO: An Israeli strike on a car wounded three people, including a seven-year-old child, on Saturday in the south Lebanon village of Majdal Zoun, the Lebanese Health Ministry said in a statement.
Later on Saturday, another person was injured in a separate Israeli strike on Al Bisariya, which lies near the southern Lebanese city of Sidon, the ministry said.
The Israeli military said it had attacked a Hezbollah facility in Sidon that housed rocket launchers for the armed group.
It added that it had also hit a vehicle in southern Lebanon loaded with rocket-propelled grenades, ammunition and military equipment as part of its actions against ceasefire violations.
A truce came into effect on Wednesday, but both sides have accused each other of breaching a ceasefire that aims to halt over a year of fighting.
West faces ‘reckoning’ over Middle East radicalization: UK spy chief
- MI6 head Richard Moore cites ‘terrible loss of innocent life’
- ‘In 37 years in the intelligence profession, I’ve never seen the world in a more dangerous state’
LONDON: The West has “yet to have a full reckoning with the radicalizing impact of the fighting, the terrible loss of innocent life in the Middle East and the horrors of Oct. 7,” the head of Britain’s foreign intelligence service MI6 has warned.
Richard Moore made the comments in a speech delivered to the British Embassy in Paris, and was joined by his French counterpart Nicolas Lerner.
Moore said: “In 37 years in the intelligence profession, I’ve never seen the world in a more dangerous state. And the impact on Europe, our shared European home, could hardly be more serious.”
Daesh is expanding its reach and staging deadly attacks in Iran and Russia despite suffering significant territorial setbacks, he added, warning that “the menace of terrorism has not gone away.”
In October last year, Ken McCallum, the head of Britain’s domestic intelligence service MI5, said his agency was monitoring for increased terror risks in the UK due to the Gaza war. More than 40,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza in over a year of fighting.
In Lebanon, a 60-day truce agreed this week between Hezbollah and Israel brought an end to a conflict that has killed thousands of Lebanese civilians.
Israel military strikes kill 32 Palestinians in Gaza, medics say
- Among the 32 killed, at least seven died in an Israeli strike on a house in central Gaza City
The Israeli military said it killed a Palestinian it accused of involvement in Hamas’ October 7 attack on Israel in a vehicle strike in Gaza, and is investigating claims that the individual was an employee of aid group World Central Kitchen.
At least 32 Palestinians were killed in Israeli military strikes across Gaza overnight and into Saturday, with most casualties reported in northern areas, medics told Reuters.
Later on Saturday medics said seven people were killed when an Israeli air strike targeted a vehicle near a gathering of Palestinians receiving aid in the southern area of Khan Younis south of the enclave.
According to residents and a Hamas source, the vehicle targeted near a crowd receiving flour belonged to security personnel responsible for overseeing the delivery of aid shipments into Gaza.
Among the 32 killed, at least seven died in an Israeli strike on a house in central Gaza City, according to a statement from the Gaza Civil Defense and the official Palestinian news agency WAFA early on Saturday.
The Gaza Civil Defense also reported that one of its officers was killed in attacks in northern Gaza’s Jabalia, bringing the total number of civil defense workers killed since October 7, 2023, to 88.
Earlier on Saturday, WAFA reported that three employees of the World Central Kitchen, a US-based, non-governmental humanitarian agency, were killed when a civilian vehicle was targeted in Khan Younis, southern Gaza.
The World Central Kitchen has not yet commented on the incident.
