In Yemen’s north, Houthis face virus with outright denial

The funeral of Yahya Al-Shami, assistant supreme commander of the Houthi forces, who died due to COVID-19. Yemen’s internationally recognized government reported around 7,200 confirmed cases, including 1,391 deaths in areas under its control. (File/AFP)
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Updated 13 August 2021
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In Yemen’s north, Houthis face virus with outright denial

  • Doctors are forced to falsify the cause of death on official papers, vaccines are seen with fear
  • The Houthi rebels have imposed an information blackout on confirmed cases and deaths from COVID-19

CAIRO: For three days last month, Nasser joined hundreds of others jammed into emergency rooms in Yemen’s capital, Sanaa, searching for a hospital bed for his mother, who was struggling to breathe. By the time one became available, his mother was dead.

But her death certainly won’t figure in the country’s coronavirus numbers. Officially, there have been only four virus cases and one death in Yemen’s north, according to the Houthi rebel authorities who control the capital and surrounding provinces.

It’s not just a struggling health care system that’s to blame for the unaccounted for deaths. In interviews with The Associated Press, more than a dozen doctors, aid workers, Sanaa residents and relatives of those believed to have died from the virus said the Houthi authorities are approaching the pandemic with such outright denial that it threatens to further endanger the already vulnerable population.

They say doctors are forced to falsify the cause of death on official papers, vaccines are seen with fear, and there are no limits or guidelines on public gatherings, much less funerals.

Nasser’s mother, like many others, was buried without any precautions against the virus and the funeral was attended by hundreds. A few days later, an aunt, in her 40s, died, and two other relatives got sick and were hospitalized for over a week.

“Certainly, my aunt died from corona,” said Nasser, who asked to be identified only by his first name for fear of reprisal by the Houthi authorities. “But no one tells us the truth.”

The deaths came as Sanaa and other areas of northern Yemen have been experiencing a third deadly coronavirus surge, according to doctors and residents. But it’s difficult to know how many have been sickened or died, beyond anecdotes from residents. The Houthi rebels have imposed an information blackout on confirmed cases and deaths from COVID-19. Testing remains sparse, or hushed.

Yemen, the Arab world’s poorest country, has already been devastated by six years of civil war. The fighting pits the Iranian-backed Houthi rebels against the internationally recognized government, which is aided by a Saudi-led coalition.

The war has killed more than 130,000 people, displaced millions and created the world’s worst humanitarian disaster. Aerial bombings and intense ground fighting have destroyed the country’s infrastructure, leaving half the country’s health facilities dysfunctional. About 18 percent of Yemen’s 333 districts have no doctors at all. Water and sanitation systems have collapsed. Many families can barely afford one meal a day.

Amid the fighting came the COVID-19 pandemic, adding to the war’s deadly toll.

“There was a big wave of COVID-19 and they (the Houthis) knew that very well,” said a UN health official in Yemen, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of undermining negotiations with the rebels on vaccinations and other issues. “Isolation centers were full; the numbers were doubled three or four times.”

Since the beginning of the pandemic, the Houthis have not treated it with seriousness and action, said Afrah Nasser, Yemen researcher at Human Rights Watch. They even have hindered international efforts to help fight it in their areas, she said.

“Each party in Yemen has its own strategy, but the Houthi one is destructive,” she said. “It’s a recipe for disaster.”

Dr. Adham Ismail, the World Health Organization representative in Yemen, said it was “a big achievement” to get any coronavirus vaccine at all into Houthi-controlled territories. Initially, authorities banned the shots, and then agreed to allow in only 1,000 doses. They have not held any campaigns encouraging people to get vaccinated.

The Houthis’ opposition to vaccines forced doctors and other residents to seek their shots in Yemeni government-held areas. Many, including aid workers working in Houthi-held areas, registered online and traveled secretly to cities like Aden, Lahj and Taiz for vaccination.

Yemen received its first 360,000-dose shipment of the AstraZeneca vaccine from the United Nations-backed COVAX initiative in March. The shipment was the first batch of 1.9 million doses that Yemen is to receive through the end of the year. A vaccination campaign was launched in government-held areas in April.

Yemen’s internationally recognized government has reported around 7,200 confirmed cases, including 1,391 deaths in areas under its control. The actual numbers, however, are believed much higher mainly because of limited testing.

A spokesman for the rebels did not answer calls seeking comment. But last year, Youssef Al-Hadhari, a spokesman for the Houthi health ministry, told the AP: “We don’t publish the numbers to the society because such publicity has a heavy and terrifying toll on people’s psychological health.”

Meanwhile, the Houthis continue holding public events, including recruitment gatherings and funerals attended by thousands for senior military officials killed in battle, as virus cases spike. All are held with no precautionary measures against the virus.

Over a dozen doctors, aid workers and residents said cases in the north are rising rapidly, with more frequent funerals, apparently of virus victims, though doctors said they’ve been warned not to confirm the causes of the deaths.

All spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation from the rebels.

Doctors and other health care workers said the 24 isolation centers in the north have been full since mid-July. One health care worker in the Palestine hospital said dozens of patients have come every day with coronavirus-like symptoms, most in their 30s and 40s. He said many are being told to isolate at home for lack of other options.

In Sanaa cemeteries, grave diggers have found it difficult to find space for new burial plots. At one cemetery in Jarraf, one digger estimated that over 30 people were buried every day in the past two months, many of them women and elderly.

In the northern province of Ibb, two health care workers at the Jibla hospital said the facility receives nearly 50 people with Covid-19-like symptoms every day. The hospital lacks testing capacities, so doctors usually depend on other means to diagnose.

When patients die at the Jibla hospital, doctors don’t tell relatives they are suspected to have been infected by the virus, for fear of being targeted afterwards. The Houthis have appointed security supervisors at hospitals to control the flow of information between medical staff and patients’ families, according to health care workers.

Earlier this year, two senior Houthi officials died, apparently among the country’s most high-profile virus victims. Yahia Al-Shami, spent over a month in an isolation center in Sanaa before he succumbed to the virus in April and Zakaria Al-Shami, transportation minister in the Houthi-run government, also caught the coronavirus and died in March, according to doctors who treated them.

The Houthi rebel authorities announced both of their deaths — but there was no mention of the cause.


Israel says it’s moving toward Lebanon ceasefire

Updated 25 November 2024
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Israel says it’s moving toward Lebanon ceasefire

  • Axios said Israel and Lebanon had agreed to the terms of a deal
  • Israel’s security cabinet was expected to approve deal on Tuesday

JERUSALEM/BEIRUT: Israel is moving toward a ceasefire in the war with Hezbollah but there are still issues to address, its government said on Monday, while two senior Lebanese officials voiced guarded optimism of a deal soon even as Israeli strikes pounded Lebanon.
Axios, citing an unnamed senior US official, said Israel and Lebanon had agreed to the terms of a deal, and that Israel’s security cabinet was expected to approve the deal on Tuesday.
Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations, Danny Danon, said of a ceasefire: “We haven’t finalized it yet, but we are moving forward.” Asked for comment, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said it had nothing to say about the report.
Hostilities have intensified in parallel with the diplomatic flurry: Over the weekend, Israel carried out powerful airstrikes, one of which killed at least 29 people in central Beirut — while the Iran-backed Hezbollah unleashed one of its biggest rocket salvoes yet on Sunday, firing 250 missiles.
In Beirut, Israeli airstrikes levelled more of the Hezbollah-controlled southern suburbs on Monday, sending clouds of debris billowing over the Lebanese capital.
Efforts to clinch a truce appeared to advance last week when US mediator Amos Hochstein declared significant progress after talks in Beirut before holding meetings in Israel and then returning to Washington.
“We are moving in the direction toward a deal, but there are still some issues to address,” Israeli government spokesperson David Mencer said, without elaborating.
Michael Herzog, the Israeli ambassador in Washington, told Israel’s GLZ radio an agreement was close and “it could happen within days ... We just need to close the last corners,” according to a post on X by GLZ senior anchorman Efi Triger.
In Beirut, Deputy Parliament Speaker Elias Bou Saab said a decisive moment was approaching and expressed cautious optimism. “The balance is slightly tilted toward there being (an agreement), but by a very small degree, because a person like Netanyahu cannot be trusted,” he said in a news conference.
A second senior Lebanese official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Beirut had not received any new Israeli demands from US mediators, who were describing the atmosphere as positive and saying “things are in progress.”
The official told Reuters a ceasefire could be clinched this week.
The conflict between Israel and Hezbollah spiralled into full-scale war in September when Israel went on the offensive, pounding wide areas of Lebanon with airstrikes and sending troops into the south.
Israel has dealt major blows to Hezbollah, killing its leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah and other top commanders and inflicting massive destruction in areas of Lebanon where the group holds sway.
Diplomacy has focused on restoring a ceasefire based on UN Security Council Resolution 1701, which ended a 2006 Hezbollah-Israel war. It requires Hezbollah to pull its fighters back around 30 km (19 miles) from the Israeli border.

ENFORCEMENT
Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said the test for any agreement would be in the enforcement of two main points.
“The first is preventing Hezbollah from moving southward beyond the Litani (River), and the second, preventing Hezbollah from rebuilding its force and rearming in all of Lebanon,” Saar said in broadcast remarks to the Israeli parliament.
Far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir said Israel must press on with the war until “absolute victory.” Addressing Netanyahu on X, he said “it is not too late to stop this agreement!“
But Agriculture Minister Avi Dichter said Israel should reach an agreement in Lebanon. “If we say ‘no’ to Hezbollah being south of the Litani, we mean it,” he told journalists.
Hezbollah leader Sheikh Naim Qassem said last week that the group had reviewed and given feedback on the US ceasefire proposal, and any truce was now in Israel’s hands.
Branded a terrorist group by the United States, the heavily armed, Shiite Muslim Hezbollah has endorsed Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri of the Shiite Amal movement to negotiate.
Israel says its aim is to secure the return home of tens of thousands of people evacuated from its north due to rocket attacks by Hezbollah, which opened fire in support of Hamas at the start of the Gaza war in October 2023.
Israel’s offensive has forced more than 1 million people from their homes in Lebanon.
Diplomacy has focused on restoring a ceasefire based on UN Security Council Resolution 1701, which ended a 2006 Hezbollah-Israel war. It requires Hezbollah to pull its fighters back around 30 km (19 miles) from the Israeli border, and the regular Lebanese army to deploy into the frontier region.

 

 


Egypt says 17 missing after Red Sea tourist boat capsizes

Updated 25 November 2024
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Egypt says 17 missing after Red Sea tourist boat capsizes

  • Governor Amr Hanafi said that some survivors were rescued by an aircraft, while others were transported to safety aboard a warship

CAIRO: Egyptian authorities said 17 people including British nationals and other foreigners were missing after a tourist yacht capsized off the country’s Red Sea coast on Monday, with 28 others rescued.
The vessel, which was carrying 31 tourists of various nationalities and a 14-member crew, sent out a distress call at 5:30 am (0330 GMT), said a statement from Egypt’s Red Sea governorate.
An AFP tally confirmed that tourists involved in the incident include nationals from the UK, China, Finland, Poland and Spain.
The “Sea Story” embarked on Sunday on a multi-day diving trip from Port Ghalib near Marsa Alam in the southeast, and had been due to dock on Friday at the town of Hurghada, 200 kilometers (124 miles) north.
Governor Amr Hanafi said that some survivors were rescued by an aircraft, while others were transported to safety aboard a warship.
“Intensive search operations are underway in coordination with the navy and the armed forces,” Hanafi added in a statement.
Authorities have not confirmed the nationalities of the tourists.
Beijing’s embassy in Egypt said two of its nationals were “in good health” after being “rescued in the cruise ship sinking accident in the Red Sea,” Chinese state media reported.
The Finnish foreign ministry confirmed to AFP that one of its nationals is missing.
Polish foreign ministry spokesman Pawel Wronski said authorities “have information that two of the tourists may have had Polish citizenship.”
“That’s all we know about them. That’s all we can say for now,” he told national news agency PAP.The Red Sea governor’s office did not immediately respond to AFP’s request for comment about the possible cause of the accident.
According to a manager of a diving resort close to the rescue operation, one surviving crew member said they were “hit by a wave in the middle of the night, throwing the vessel on its side.”
Authorities in the Red Sea capital of Hurghada on Sunday shut down marine activities and the city’s port due to “bad weather conditions.”
But winds around Marsa Alam had remained favorable until Sunday night, the diving manager told AFP, before calming again by morning.
By Monday afternoon, it became increasingly “unlikely that the 17 missing would be rescued after 12 hours in the water,” he said, requesting anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.
The Marsa Alam area saw at least two similar boat accidents earlier this year but there were no fatalities.
The Red Sea coast is a major tourist destination in Egypt, a country of 105 million that is in the grip of a serious economic crisis. Nationally, the tourism sector employs two million people and generates more than 10 percent of GDP.
Dozens of dive boats criss-cross between coral reefs and islands off Egypt’s eastern coast every day, where safety regulations are robust but unevenly enforced.
Earlier this month, 30 people were rescued from a sinking dive boat near the Red Sea’s Daedalus reef.
In June, two dozen French tourists were evacuated safely before their boat sank in a similar accident.
Last year, three British tourists died when a fire broke out on their yacht, engulfing it in flames.


Israel says it’s moving toward Lebanon ceasefire

Updated 59 min 11 sec ago
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Israel says it’s moving toward Lebanon ceasefire

  • Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations, Danny Danon, said of a ceasefire: “We haven’t finalized it yet, but we are moving forward”

JERUSALEM/BEIRUT: Israel is moving toward a ceasefire in the war with Hezbollah but there are still issues to address, its government said on Monday, while two senior Lebanese officials voiced guarded optimism of a deal soon even as Israeli strikes pounded Lebanon.
Axios, citing an unnamed senior US official, said Israel and Lebanon had agreed to the terms of a deal, and that Israel’s security cabinet was expected to approve the deal on Tuesday.
Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations, Danny Danon, said of a ceasefire: “We haven’t finalized it yet, but we are moving forward.” Asked for comment, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said it had nothing to say about the report.
Hostilities have intensified in parallel with the diplomatic flurry: Over the weekend, Israel carried out powerful airstrikes, one of which killed at least 29 people in central Beirut — while the Iran-backed Hezbollah unleashed one of its biggest rocket salvoes yet on Sunday, firing 250 missiles.
In Beirut, Israeli airstrikes levelled more of the Hezbollah-controlled southern suburbs on Monday, sending clouds of debris billowing over the Lebanese capital.
Efforts to clinch a truce appeared to advance last week when US mediator Amos Hochstein declared significant progress after talks in Beirut before holding meetings in Israel and then returning to Washington.
“We are moving in the direction toward a deal, but there are still some issues to address,” Israeli government spokesperson David Mencer said, without elaborating.
Michael Herzog, the Israeli ambassador in Washington, told Israel’s GLZ radio an agreement was close and “it could happen within days ... We just need to close the last corners,” according to a post on X by GLZ senior anchorman Efi Triger.
In Beirut, Deputy Parliament Speaker Elias Bou Saab said a decisive moment was approaching and expressed cautious optimism. “The balance is slightly tilted toward there being (an agreement), but by a very small degree, because a person like Netanyahu cannot be trusted,” he said in a news conference.
A second senior Lebanese official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Beirut had not received any new Israeli demands from US mediators, who were describing the atmosphere as positive and saying “things are in progress.”
The official told Reuters a ceasefire could be clinched this week.
The conflict between Israel and Hezbollah spiralled into full-scale war in September when Israel went on the offensive, pounding wide areas of Lebanon with airstrikes and sending troops into the south.
Israel has dealt major blows to Hezbollah, killing its leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah and other top commanders and inflicting massive destruction in areas of Lebanon where the group holds sway.
Diplomacy has focused on restoring a ceasefire based on UN Security Council Resolution 1701, which ended a 2006 Hezbollah-Israel war. It requires Hezbollah to pull its fighters back around 30 km (19 miles) from the Israeli border.

ENFORCEMENT
Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said the test for any agreement would be in the enforcement of two main points.
“The first is preventing Hezbollah from moving southward beyond the Litani (River), and the second, preventing Hezbollah from rebuilding its force and rearming in all of Lebanon,” Saar said in broadcast remarks to the Israeli parliament.
Far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir said Israel must press on with the war until “absolute victory.” Addressing Netanyahu on X, he said “it is not too late to stop this agreement!“
But Agriculture Minister Avi Dichter said Israel should reach an agreement in Lebanon. “If we say ‘no’ to Hezbollah being south of the Litani, we mean it,” he told journalists.
Hezbollah leader Sheikh Naim Qassem said last week that the group had reviewed and given feedback on the US ceasefire proposal, and any truce was now in Israel’s hands.
Branded a terrorist group by the United States, the heavily armed, Shiite Muslim Hezbollah has endorsed Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri of the Shiite Amal movement to negotiate.
Israel says its aim is to secure the return home of tens of thousands of people evacuated from its north due to rocket attacks by Hezbollah, which opened fire in support of Hamas at the start of the Gaza war in October 2023.
Israel’s offensive has forced more than 1 million people from their homes in Lebanon.
Diplomacy has focused on restoring a ceasefire based on UN Security Council Resolution 1701, which ended a 2006 Hezbollah-Israel war. It requires Hezbollah to pull its fighters back around 30 km (19 miles) from the Israeli border, and the regular Lebanese army to deploy into the frontier region.


Arrest Warrant: UK would follow ‘due process’ if Netanyahu were to visit – foreign minister

Updated 25 November 2024
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Arrest Warrant: UK would follow ‘due process’ if Netanyahu were to visit – foreign minister

  • ICC issued arrest warrants on Thursday against Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu
  • Several EU states have said they will meet commitments under the statute if needed

FIUGGI: Britain would follow due process if Benjamin Netanyahu visited the UK, foreign minister David Lammy said on Monday, when asked if London would fulfil the International Criminal Court’s arrest warrant against the Israeli prime minister.
“We are signatories to the Rome Statute, we have always been committed to our obligations under international law and international humanitarian law,” Lammy told reporters at a G7 meeting in Italy.
“Of course, if there were to be such a visit to the UK, there would be a court process and due process would be followed in relation to those issues.”
The ICC issued the warrants on Thursday against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, his former defense minister Yoav Gallant, and Hamas leader Ibrahim Al-Masri for alleged crimes against humanity.
Several EU states have said they will meet their commitments under the statute if needed, but Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has invited Netanyahu to visit his country, assuring him he would face no risks if he did so.
“The states that signed the Rome convention must implement the court’s decision. It’s not optional,” Josep Borrell, the EU’s top diplomat, said during a visit to Cyprus for a workshop of Israeli and Palestinian peace activists.
Those same obligations were also binding on countries aspiring to join the EU, he said.

 

 


Turkiye man kills seven before taking his own life

Updated 25 November 2024
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Turkiye man kills seven before taking his own life

Istanbul: A 33-year-old Turkish man shot dead seven people in Istanbul on Sunday, including his parents, his wife and his 10-year-old son, before taking his own life, the authorities reported on Monday.
The man, who was found dead in his car shortly after the shooting, is also accused of wounding two other family members, one of them seriously, the Istanbul governor’s office said in a statement.
The authorities, who had put the death toll at four on Sunday evening, announced on Monday the discovery near a lake on Istanbul’s European shore of the bodies of the killer’s wife and son, as well as the lifeless body of his mother-in-law.
According to the Small Arms Survey (SAS), a Swiss research program, over 13.2 million firearms are in circulation in Turkiye, most of them illegally, for a population of around 85 million.