Frankly Speaking: Senior EU aid official denies Europe is selective on refugees, says Syrians were treated same as Ukrainians

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Updated 16 May 2022
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Frankly Speaking: Senior EU aid official denies Europe is selective on refugees, says Syrians were treated same as Ukrainians

  • Michael Koehler, deputy director general of ECHO, tells Arab News that Assad regime atrocities ‘have not been forgotten’
  • Claims EU takes principled position on Palestine but explains cuts in EU development assistance to Palestinian Authority
  • Koehler names and shames EU member countries that did not pay their share of promised aid

JEDDAH: Denying that the European Union discriminates between refugees Michael Koehler, the deputy director general of the European Civil Protection and Humanitarian Aid Operations (ECHO), has claimed that Syrians were welcomed in the same way as Ukrainians and that the crimes of the Bashar Assad regime will not be forgotten.

In a wide-ranging interview with Arab News, Koehler also reiterated Europe’s commitment to supporting Palestinian humanitarian needs, stating that any cut in EU aid relates solely to financial transfers for development assistance, not humanitarian aid.

Koehler denied that Europe’s treatment of Ukrainians fleeing their country because of the war with Russia and those from the Middle East has revealed racism, double standards and hypocrisy. “The only difference that I see is that refugees from Ukraine have, on the basis of a decision of the European ministers of interior, immediately been granted work permits,” he told the host of Arab News’ “Frankly Speaking” interview show, Katie Jensen. “But apart from that, the treatment is not different from refugees from other parts of the world.”

“Frankly Speaking” features in-depth discussions with leading policymakers and business leaders, diving deep into the biggest news-making headlines across the Middle East and around the world. During his appearance on the show, Koehler spoke on a number of issues, including what the future holds for displaced Ukrainians and whether the EU plans to pull funding from Middle East crisis zones to make up for the humanitarian aid gap. 

Koehler said one needs to look back at the arrival of the Syrians and Iraqis in 2015 and 2016 when slightly more comparable numbers of refugees were pouring into Europe. “The million Syrians that poured into (Germany) were very much welcomed,” he said. “It is not quite fair in a way to compare the welcome that now Ukrainians are receiving two months into the crisis, with the situation of other refugees that have been in Europe for four years, five years, six years or seven years, and where certain problems have arisen.”

“We are absolutely not yet there in the Ukraine crisis, but it’s a very general phenomenon. Structurally, this is a very well-known phenomenon,” he said, pointing to instances where the initial warm welcome given to refugees by the host population gave way to problems that “led sometimes to populist reactions.”

Still, Koehler expressed regret at comments such as those made by Bulgarian Prime Minister Kiril Petkov (“These are not the refugees we are used to, these people are Europeans, intelligent, educated people”), and the implication that countries have the right to choose refugees based on race, religion or politics.

“No, absolutely not. Absolutely not,” he said. “It is, however, of course, normal that if you are a direct neighbor of a country that is in the situation Ukraine finds itself in, then of course there is perhaps a slightly bigger emotion. There’s a slightly bigger readiness of private persons to help, but we’ve seen the same thing in other scenarios.”

Alluding to the insensitive remarks of European politicians, Koehler said: “We shouldn’t take the statements of this or that individual politician as the kind of policy line of European member states and of the EU. Politicians can voice their personal opinions, but this doesn’t mean that the legal order that settles the way refugees are welcomed, the support they receive and so forth, that this would be changed.”

Koehler disagreed with the notion that with the Ukrainian humanitarian crisis holding the spotlight, the atrocities committed by the Assad regime in Syria, where 6.2 million people remain internally displaced, have been forgotten. “No, they have not been forgotten,” he responded. “In fact, I shared via Twitter part of the ministerial meeting on Syria in the region that we are hosting here at Brussels for the sixth time. This is the annual meeting of the international community.

“The international community has put together a record pledge: €6.4 billion for 2022-2023, which is half a billion more than the equivalent pledge of last year. So, what this tells us is that there is no fatigue in the international community when it comes to assisting Syrians. The donors are there, there is no donor fatigue and the international organizations are mobilized.”

But what about all the complaints of humanitarian agencies that they are running out of money? Koehler says he does not deny there is a problem of “donor insufficiency.”

“If you look at the amount of money that’s mobilized every year for humanitarian aid, you see an increase of money. This is totally outpaced by the needs, because every year we have more crises. The existing crises unfortunately don’t go away and the number of people that are suffering keeps increasing.”

Asked how the humanitarian funding gap could be filled, Koehler said the solution is a mixture of elements, starting with more donors, especially those in the EU. “Look at the clubs of rich countries. There are 38 members of OECD or the G20,” he said. “Not all of these countries have already started to deliver humanitarian aid. Some do, but not very consistently. There may be a year where they may put a lot of money on the table, and in other years they are a bit more (tight-fisted) with their resources.”

Among the many ways the Middle East is exposed to the vagaries of the Ukraine war, Russia has hinted at vetoing the renewing of the mandate that allows the UN to use the Bab Al-Hawa crossing in northern Syria when it expires on July 9. This means that EU aid might have to go through Damascus and thus be under the control of the Assad regime. “If Bab Al-Hawa was closed, there would be a huge supply problem and we have seen what it means already in the northeast of Syria,” Koehler said.

“However, we are also very much in favor of cross-line cooperation, so we have no problem with bringing aid from Damascus to the northeast, for example, or the northwest. Unfortunately, this is happening only on a small scale, which has to do with political but also logistical problems.”

According to Koehler, there is a new system by which aid is always delivered through specialized partners, never through governments, “so delivering aid, for example in the part of Syria that is controlled by the authorities in Damascus, does not mean to give money to the Assad government.

“It is implemented through specialized owned organizations, NGOs, UN agencies and so forth. For that we have monitoring, we have audits, we have independent audits by third parties,” he said. “We have our offices on the ground. ECHO has an office in Damascus that can monitor what’s going on, and as soon as there is some kind of suspicion of diversion of aid, we stop. We stop, we enquire and we only resume aid once we are sufficiently, let’s say, reassured about the way the aid is implemented.”

Koehler said ECHO was using the same modus operandi in Afghanistan. “As I said earlier, we never work through governments. So, we work with the local NGOs. We work with the Red Crescent, we work, for example, with UNICEF and other organizations and we make sure that this money comes to the benefit directly of the population concerned,” he said.

However, he acknowledged that with more restrictions announced by the Taliban, many of them targeted at women, “we are frankly disappointed with the way things are developing in Afghanistan.”

Last April the EU pledged €525 million of humanitarian aid to Afghanistan, and according to Koehler, as a consequence of the developments in Afghanistan since the Taliban takeover of the country last year, the international community, in particular the EU, have stepped up humanitarian funding.

“The Taliban came up with a number of assurances, concerning, for example, girls’ education and women’s rights. However, we now see that many of these assurances have proved questionable or even formally revoked. and this of course creates major problems.”

Moving on to another humanitarian hotspot, Koehler played down fears that humanitarian aid funding will stop despite a UN warning this month that more than five and a half million Palestinian refugees may no longer have access to basic services such as food, education and health care due to a drop in contributions from member states, the EU in particular.

“We support UNRWA and we continue our assistance,” he said, referring to the UN agency that supports the relief and human development of Palestinian refugees.

With regard to the EU’s contribution, he said this is “not a cut in funding. This is about negotiating the conditions for the 2021-2022 installments.”

He added: “What has stopped for a short while is not humanitarian aid but direct financial transfers that EU development assistance is making available for the benefit of the Palestinian National Authority. And this is not a stop for good, but this is about agreeing to a certain number of conditions, under which this money would be made available.”

But amid concerns over possible closure of UNRWA, what is the EU’s position on the right of return? “The EU has a principled position in this regard and we stand still behind the two-state solution. We want a negotiated solution between the parties,” Koehler said. “We see the occupation of Palestine as something that has to be brought to an end, in accordance with relevant UN resolutions on the basis of bilateral negotiations that we are ready to incentivize and support as much as possible.”

Koehler concluded by saying that aid agencies and donors must unite and “speak with one voice” for effective humanitarian relief efforts in crisis zones. “Wherever the international community, the donors from the US to the UK, to the EU, to Sweden, to Germany, to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, wherever the donors speak with one voice, this one voice has an effect,” he said, citing the example of the failed attempt in 2020 by the Iran-backed Houthi militia to impose a 2 percent tax on humanitarian aid deliveries in Yemen.

“The international community said ‘no way.’ Also, the World Food Programme said ‘no way.’ We said, ‘If that is what you want to do, we will simply discontinue our operations in the territory that you have control over.’”


Zverev crashes as Tsitsipas, Draper advance in Monte Carlo

Updated 9 min 41 sec ago
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Zverev crashes as Tsitsipas, Draper advance in Monte Carlo

  • World No. 2 Zverev has struggled for any kind of form since his defeat by Jannik Sinner in the Australian Open final
  • Berrettini has won 17 of his past 18 matches on clay

MONTE CARLO, Principality of Monaco: Top seed Alexander Zverev crashed out in his opening match of the Monte Carlo Masters on Tuesday falling to Italy’s Matteo Berrettini as defending champion Stefanos Tsitsipas and Britain’s Jack Draper both advanced.

World No. 2 Zverev has struggled for any kind of form since his defeat by Jannik Sinner in the Australian Open final at the end of January, winning just six of 12 matches.

But with a first-round bye in the absence of world No. 1 Sinner, who is suspended for a doping violation until May 4, Zverev was among the favorites.

After a controlled start to the game, the German slumped to a 2-6, 6-3, 7-5 defeat to 34th-ranked Berrettini, at the end of a high-flying match, which had included an impressive 48-stroke rally won by the Italian.

“It’s been the worst period since my injury (the) last few months,” said Zverev who has suffered a string of early exits of late, including at Indian Wells.

“I played a great first set, and once I got broken in the second set I play ten levels down. My ball is much slower. I stop hitting the ball.

“The same story the last few months. Nothing changes. So it’s me who lost the match, once again.

“I thought my level was terrible, but that’s just my opinion.”

Defending champion and three-time Monte Carlo winner Tsitsipas advanced past 38th-ranked Australian Jordan Thompson. After a lacklustre US tour, the Dubai winner won through 4-6, 6-4, 6-2 in his second round tie.

Indian Wells champion Draper, seeded fifth, eased past 45th-ranked American Marcos Giron 6-1, 6-1.

Novak Djokovic — the winner in 2013 and 2015 — and Carlos Alcaraz start their campaigns on Wednesday.

Zverev won the first set against former Wimbledon runner-up Berrettini but a break of serve in the sixth game of the second set allowed the Italian to level the match.

Berrettini broke at 3-all in the final set before blowing a chance to close out victory on his own serve, but he broke again for a 6-5 lead after an astonishing 48-shot rally.

The 34th-ranked Berrettini made no mistake with his second opportunity though, advancing to a last-16 meeting with Lorenzo Musetti or Jiri Lehecka.

“The game plan was the same but I changed my attitude and the way I was believing in my strokes,” Berrettini said.

“I told myself to be more aggressive and if I am going to lose this match, I am going to do the right things and luckily it worked.”

Berrettini has won 17 of his past 18 matches on clay. Last season, he captured clay-court titles in Marrakech, Gstaad and Kitzbuehel. However, he hasn’t played at the French Open since 2021 due to injuries.

“I have missed the biggest tournament on clay for the past three years and that was tough and now I want to enjoy it. I feel really comfortable on clay,” said the former world number six.

For Zverev, last year’s Roland Garros runner-up, it was another disappointing outcome on clay after quarter-final exits in Buenos Aires and Rio de Janeiro. His next tournament will be on home soil in Munich.

Meanwhile Tsitsipas let a 5-2 lead slip in the second set, before getting past Thompson to set up a third round meeting with either Portugal’s Nuno Borges or Spaniard Pedro Martinez.

“I really didn’t know what to expect, you don’t know what your opponent is capable of,” said Tsitsipas.

“He showed a good first set, he seemed to be playing quite reserved and wasn’t giving me much to work with. I was just trying to find something to reignite that consistency within my game.”

Dane Holger Rune, the 10th seed, retired due to illness against Portugal’s Nuno Borges.

Rune, the Monte Carlo runner-up in 2023, called for the doctor after losing the opening set before shaking hands with his opponent while trailing 6-2, 3-0.

Bulgarian Grigor Dimitrov, a two-time Monte Carlo semifinalist, defeated Chilean Nicolas Jarry 6-3, 6-4, on his seventh match point.


Government given one day to produce evidence for deporting Columbia University protester Khalil

Updated 33 min 2 sec ago
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Government given one day to produce evidence for deporting Columbia University protester Khalil

  • President Donald Trump’s administration says it has revoked Khalil’s status as a lawful permanent resident under a 1952 law allowing the deportation of any immigrant whose presence in the country the secretary of state deems harmful to US foreign policy

JENA, Louisiana: A month after Columbia University student Mahmoud Khalil was picked up by immigration agents in New York and transferred 1,200 miles to a detention center in rural Louisiana, an immigration judge on Tuesday gave the government a day to provide evidence he should be deported and said she would rule on that question on Friday.
“If he’s not removable I’m going to be terminating this case on Friday,” Assistant Chief Immigration Judge Jamee Comans said during a hearing at the LaSalle Immigration Court in Jena, Louisiana. Khalil was in the courtroom at a table where he could see his attorney Marc Van Der Hout, appearing remotely from California, on a nearby screen.
Department of Homeland Security lawyers told Comans they would provide the evidence by her 5 p.m. Wednesday deadline.

HIGHLIGHGTS

• Khalil's case tests Trump's efforts to deport student activists

• Trump administration revokes Khalil's residency under 1952 law

• Khalil's lawyers argue arrest violates First Amendment rights

President Donald Trump’s administration says it has revoked Khalil’s status as a lawful permanent resident under a 1952 law allowing the deportation of any immigrant whose presence in the country the secretary of state deems harmful to US foreign policy.
The US government also has said the pro-Palestinian demonstrator should be forced from the country because he withheld that he worked for a United Nations Palestinian relief agency in his visa application, and also left off the application that he worked for the Syria office in the British embassy in Beirut and that he was a member of the group Columbia University Apartheid Divest.
During Tuesday’s hearing, Comans read the government’s allegations, and Van Der Hout responded with “deny” to each.
The immigration case is separate from a challenge to the legality of his March arrest, known as a habeas corpus petition. A different judge hearing Khalil’s habeas petition has ruled that he must remain in the United States for now.
Since Khalil’s arrest Secretary of State Marco Rubio has said he has revoked the visas of hundreds of foreign students. The Trump administration says college protests against US military support for Israel have included harassment of Jewish students.
Student protest organizers, including some Jewish groups, say criticism of Israel is being wrongly conflated with antisemitism.
Khalil, a Palestinian born in a refugee camp in Syria, has called himself a political prisoner. His lawyers have argued the Trump administration improperly targeted him for his political views in violation of his right to free speech guaranteed by the US Constitution’s First Amendment.
Khalil’s wife, US citizen Noor Abdalla, is due to give birth to their first child “imminently,” Khalil’s lawyers said in a court filing on Friday. She has not been able to travel to Louisiana to visit him due to her pregnancy. She watched on Tuesday via a court video link.

 


Trump administration moves to restore some terminated foreign aid programs, sources say

Updated 53 min ago
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Trump administration moves to restore some terminated foreign aid programs, sources say

  • According to Stand Up For Aid, an advocacy group of current and former US officials, WFP contracts canceled on Lewin’s orders last weekend for Lebanon, Syria, Somalia and Jordan totaled more than $463 million

WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump’s administration on Tuesday moved to reinstate at least six recently canceled US foreign aid programs for emergency food assistance, six sources familiar with the matter told Reuters.
The quick reversal of decisions made just days ago underscored the rapid-fire nature of Trump’s cuts to foreign aid. That has led to programs being cut, restored then cut again, disrupting international humanitarian operations.
USAID Acting Deputy Administrator Jeremy Lewin, who has previously been identified as a member of billionaire Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, asked staff in an internal email to reverse the terminations.

HIGHLIGHTS

• Lewin asked staff to reverse terminations

• WFP awards in Lebanon, Syria, Somalia among those to be restored

He asked to restore awards to the World Food Programme in Lebanon, Syria, Somalia, Jordan, Iraq and Ecuador, five sources familiar with the matter said.
The administration has also resumed four awards to the International Organization for Migration in the Pacific region, two sources familiar with the matter said.
“Sorry for all the back and forth on awards,” Lewin said on Tuesday in the internal email seen by Reuters. “There are a lot of stakeholders and we need to do better about balancing these competing interests — that’s my fault and I take responsibility,” he added.
Reuters reported on Monday that the Trump administration had ended life-saving aid programs for more than a dozen countries including Afghanistan, Yemen, Somalia and Syria, totaling over $1.3 billion.
According to Stand Up For Aid, an advocacy group of current and former US officials, WFP contracts canceled on Lewin’s orders last weekend for Lebanon, Syria, Somalia and Jordan totaled more than $463 million.
Many of the terminated programs had been granted waivers by US Secretary of State Marco Rubio following an initial round of cuts to foreign aid programs. The State Department said those did not reflect a final decision.
The State Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment about restoring the awards.

A ‘DEATH SENTENCE’
The decision to restore some aid followed pressure from inside the administration and from Congress, two sources said.
The World Food Programme said on Monday that the US notified the organization it was eliminating emergency food assistance funding in 14 countries, warning: “If implemented, this could amount to a death sentence for millions of people facing extreme hunger and starvation.”
The US did not restore aid to Taliban-ruled Afghanistan and to Yemen, most of which is controlled by Islamist militants of the Iran-backed Houthi movement. Washington has been the largest aid donor to both countries, which have suffered years of devastating war.
State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce on Tuesday told reporters that the United States had concerns that WFP funding for Yemen and Afghanistan was benefiting the Houthis and the Taliban.
“There were a few programs that were cut in other countries that were not meant to be cut that have been rolled back and put into place,” Bruce said, adding that the administration remains committed to foreign aid.
Among the cuts over the weekend were $169.8 million for the WFP in Somalia, covering food assistance, nutrition for malnourished babies and children and humanitarian air support. In Syria, $111 million was cut from WFP food assistance.
The cuts have been the latest piece of the Trump administration’s drive to dismantle USAID, the main US humanitarian aid agency.
The administration has canceled billions of dollars in foreign aid since the Republican president began his second term on January 20 in an overhaul that officials described as marked by chaos and confusion.
Senate Foreign Relations Committee Democrats on Tuesday wrote a letter to Rubio regarding plans to restructure the State Department, including by folding in USAID, which they said was “unconstitutional, illegal, unjustified, damaging, and inefficient.”

 


US says it is aware of Palestinian American’s killing by Israeli forces in West Bank

Updated 09 April 2025
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US says it is aware of Palestinian American’s killing by Israeli forces in West Bank

  • Israel has expanded and consolidated settlements in the occupied West Bank as part of the steady integration of these territories into the state of Israel in breach of international law, the UN human rights office said last month

WASHINGTON: The US State Department said on Tuesday it was aware of the killing by Israeli forces of a Palestinian American teenager in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and was seeking more information about the incident.
A State Department spokesperson made the comments to reporters when asked about the killing of US citizen Omar Mohammad Rabea, 14, and the shooting of two other teenagers.
“We are certainly aware of that dynamic,” the State Department spokesperson said. “There is an investigation that is going on. We are aware of the reports from the IDF that this was a counterterrorism act, we need to learn more about the nature of what happened on the ground.”
The Palestinian foreign ministry condemned the weekend incident as an “extra-judicial killing” by Israeli forces during a raid. A local mayor said Rabea was shot along with two other teenagers by an Israeli settler and that the Israeli army pronounced him dead after detaining him.
The Israeli military said it shot a “terrorist” who endangered civilians by hurling rocks.
“We don’t have the complete picture of what was going on on the ground,” the State Department spokesperson added.
Israel has expanded and consolidated settlements in the occupied West Bank as part of the steady integration of these territories into the state of Israel in breach of international law, the UN human rights office said last month.
Settler violence in the West Bank, including incursions into occupied territory and raids, has intensified since the start of Israel’s war in Gaza that has killed over 50,000, according to Gaza’s health ministry, and led to genocide and war crimes accusations that Israel denies.
The Israeli onslaught in Gaza followed a Hamas attack in October 2023 in which 1,200 were killed and about 250 taken hostage, according to Israeli tallies.
 

 


Israel troops shoot dead woman in alleged West Bank knife attack

Updated 09 April 2025
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Israel troops shoot dead woman in alleged West Bank knife attack

  • Yaqub was a lawyer and mother of three from nearby Biddya, the village’s mayor, Ahmed Abu Safiyeh, told AFP
  • The Israeli military said Tuesday that Israeli settlers set fire to a Palestinian event hall overnight in the area of Biddya, and that no injuries were reported

HARES, Palestinian Territories: The Palestinian health ministry said Israeli troops killed a 30-year-old woman near the West Bank city of Salfit on Tuesday after what the army described as an attempted stabbing.
The ministry reported the death of Amana Ibrahim Mohammed Yaqub, 30, “who was shot by (Israeli) forces near Salfit,” south of Nablus.
The Israeli military said it had “neutralized a terrorist who hurled rocks and attempted to stab soldiers adjacent to the Gitai Avisar junction” close to the West Bank village of Hares.
An AFP journalist reported seeing a lifeless body under a foil blanket by the roadside at the scene of the attack.
Yaqub was a lawyer and mother of three from nearby Biddya, the village’s mayor, Ahmed Abu Safiyeh, told AFP.
The Israeli military said Tuesday that Israeli settlers set fire to a Palestinian event hall overnight in the area of Biddya, and that no injuries were reported.
An AFP journalist reported most of the hall was burned to the ground, and that settlers left graffiti in Hebrew on nearby walls.
The area around Salfit and Biddya is dense with Israeli settlements, including the town of Ariel.
Since the start of the Gaza war in October 2023, violence has soared in the occupied West Bank. Israeli troops and settlers have killed at least 918 Palestinians in the territory, according to health ministry figures.
Palestinian attacks and clashes during military raids have killed at least 33 Israelis, including soldiers, over the same period, according to Israeli figures.