With hundreds lost in the migrant shipwreck near Greece, identifying the dead is painfully slow 

Kassem Abo Zeed holds up a photograph with his wife, Ezra, who is missing after fishing boat carrying migrants sank off southern Greece, in the southern port city of Kalamata on June 15, 2023. (AP/File)
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Updated 11 August 2023
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With hundreds lost in the migrant shipwreck near Greece, identifying the dead is painfully slow 

  • The boat carrying 500-750 people from Pakistan, Syria and Egypt sank on June 14, one of deadliest shipwrecks in Mediterranean 
  • Only 104 people were pulled from the sea alive — all men and boys — while 82 bodies, only one of them a woman, were recovered 

ATHENS: Nearly two months after a dilapidated fishing trawler crammed with people heading from Libya to Italy sank in the central Mediterranean, killing hundreds, relatives are still frantically searching for their loved ones among the missing and the dead. 

Many questions remain about Greek authorities’ response and exactly how and why the boat, carrying an estimated 500-750 people mostly from Pakistan, Syria and Egypt, capsized and sank in the early hours of June 14 in what became one of the deadliest migrant shipwrecks in the Mediterranean. 

Only 104 people were pulled from the sea alive — all men and boys. Eighty-two bodies, only one of them a woman, were recovered. The rest, including women and children, sank in one of the deepest parts of the Mediterranean. With depths of around 4,000 meters (13,000 feet) in that area, any recovery of the vessel or its victims are all but impossible. 

Identifying the dead and determining exactly who was on board is a slow, meticulous, heart-wrenching process. 




This undated handout image provided by Greece's coast guard on June 14, 2023, shows scores of people on a battered fishing boat that later capsized and sank off southern Greece. (AP/File)

By Aug. 7, around 40 of the recovered bodies were identified through a painstaking process combining DNA analysis, dental records, fingerprints and interviews with survivors and relatives, police Lt. Col. Pantelis Themelis, commander of Greece’s Disaster Victim Identification Team, told The Associated Press. 

The task is complicated by a lack of information on who was on the boat, and by the fact that many were from countries where, due to war and civil turmoil, relatives are struggling to provide DNA samples. 

For some, the lack of a body to bury means they hold out hope, however improbable, that their loved one is somehow still alive. 

“In my heart I feel that my son is alive, by God’s grace, and I don’t believe even 1 percent that my son is dead,” said Mohamad Diab, whose 21-year-old son Abdulrahman has been missing since the trawler sank. “I don’t even think about this.” 




A man cries after speaking with survivors of a deadly migrant boat sinking at a migrant camp in Malakasa north of Athens, on June 19, 2023. (AP/File)

In his nearly two-month quest for his son, Diab has all but exhausted his options. He provided a DNA sample through the International Commission on Missing Persons, sent relatives to Greece, and spends hours on his phone, making calls and watching and re-watching videos of survivors on social media. 

The housepainter from an impoverished Palestinian refugee camp in Lebanon on the outskirts of Beirut clings to a single, tenuous discovery: A brief moment in a video of the immediate aftermath of the sinking, when a man resembling his son is carried into a hospital in the southern Greek city of Kalamata. 

Although inquiries at the hospital and with Greek authorities drew a blank, Diab insists his son might be in a coma, or imprisoned and unable to contact his family. 

But all injured survivors have long since been released from hospital, and the nine survivors arrested as suspected smugglers are all Egyptians. Abdulrahman Diab’s name is not among them. 

The thought of having lost his eldest son is unbearable. So Diab clings desperately to the hope that somehow, somewhere, Abdulrahman is out there, still breathing, still alive. 

“My faith in God is great,” he said. 

In Athens, the members of the Disaster Victim Identification Team continue the slow process of piecing together the identities of the bodies. 

The team is still receiving DNA test results from prospective relatives abroad, Themelis said. And a telephone hotline in six languages set up after the disaster will remain operational for at least another two months, although calls now are few and far between. 

An international mass-casualty event “requires a good investigative procedure that is time-consuming, with persistence and patience, to be able to collect information on missing people,” said Themelis. “This is fundamental. Who really were the people who might have been on the ship?” 

His team, set up in 2018, draws on staff from a variety of services as needed, including the fire department, coroners, translators and the police. It was this team that was called in to identify the remains of more than 50 people killed in the Feb. 28 railway disaster in central Greece. 

DVI work, Themelis said, is humanitarian. “It is separate from anything else and has no job other than the humanitarian work of the identification of disaster victims.” 

Pakistan has already sent hundreds of DNA test results to help in the identification process, Themelis said. In countries where interviews with close relatives and DNA collection were problematic, that role was being carried out by the Red Cross and Red Crescent. 

For Diab, a positive DNA match would mean all hope is lost for Abdulrahman, who grew up with his three younger brothers in Lebanon’s infamous Shatila camp for Palestinian refugees on the outskirts of Beirut, a cramped urban enclave with narrow alleys and crackling power lines overhead. 

As a teenager he helped his father paint houses, but work dried up after Lebanon sank into a major financial crisis in 2019. 

Relatives and friends, including Abdulrahman’s uncle who runs a supermarket in Germany, took the risk to travel to Europe. Eventually, he decided to follow them, arranging flights to Egypt and then Libya, and the risky voyage across the Mediterranean, using a network of smugglers and middlemen. 

Mohamad Diab sold his belongings and borrowed money to raise the $7,000 in smuggling fees, hoping for a better future for his son. He never thought the journey could be fatal. 

And for as long as he has no confirmation that it was, he can still cling to the belief that Abdulrahman will one day come home. 

“I still have hope, I will not lose hope until I see his body,” Diab said. “I still have hope that I will see him and hear his voice.” 


Polish police say one killed in axe attack at Warsaw University

Updated 56 min 41 sec ago
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Polish police say one killed in axe attack at Warsaw University

  • "Police have detained a man who entered the University of Warsaw campus," Warsaw Police said
  • Gazeta Wyborcza daily reported that the attacker was a third-year law student

WARSAW: Police said on Wednesday they had detained a 22-year-old Polish man after he killed one person with an axe at Warsaw University, in an attack the institution described as a "huge tragedy".
"Police have detained a man who entered the University of Warsaw campus. One person died, another was taken to hospital with injuries," Warsaw Police said in a statement on X.
They said the incident occurred at around 6:40 p.m. (1640 GMT), when the man attacked people on the campus with an axe, adding that the detainee was a 22-year-old Polish citizen.
Gazeta Wyborcza daily reported that the attacker was a third-year law student.
Private broadcaster Polsat News reported that a woman's severed head and an axe had been found at the university.
A spokesperson for the district prosecutor's office declined to comment on whether a severed head had been found.
The spokesperson said that a female administrative employee of the university had been killed at the scene and a security guard was injured and was taken to hospital in critical condition.
He said that the attacker had entered an auditorium at the university.
Reuters reporters at the scene saw police vans and a cordon around the auditorium where the attack took place.
The Rector of the University of Warsaw said in a statement that May 8 would be a day of mourning at the institution, calling the attack a "huge tragedy".
"We express our great sorrow and sympathy to the family and loved ones," the statement read.


Belgian teens found with 5,000 ants in Kenya given option of fine or sentence

Updated 07 May 2025
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Belgian teens found with 5,000 ants in Kenya given option of fine or sentence

  • Authorities said the ants were destined for European and Asian markets in an emerging trend of trafficking lesser-known wildlife species

NAIROBI: Two Belgian teenagers found with 5,000 ants in Kenya were given a choice of paying a fine of $7,700 or serving 12 months in prison — the maximum penalty for the offense — for violating wildlife conservation laws.

Authorities said the ants were destined for European and Asian markets in an emerging trend of trafficking lesser-known wildlife species.

Belgian nationals Lornoy David and Seppe Lodewijckx, both 19 years old, were arrested on April 5 with 5,000 ants at a guest house in Nakuru county, which is home to various national parks. They were charged on April 15.

Magistrate Njeri Thuku, sitting at the court in Kenya’s main airport on Wednesday, said in her ruling that despite the teenagers telling the court they were naïve and collecting the ants as a hobby, the particular species of ants they collected is valuable and they had thousands of them — not just a few.

The Kenya Wildlife Service had said the teenagers were involved in trafficking the ants to markets in Europe and Asia, and that the species included messor cephalotes, a distinctive, large and red-colored harvester ant native to East Africa.

“This is beyond a hobby. Indeed, there is a biting shortage of messor cepholates online,” Thuku said in her ruling.

The illegal export of the ants “not only undermines Kenya’s sovereign rights over its biodiversity but also deprives local communities and research institutions of potential ecological and economic benefits,” KWS said in a statement.

Duh Hung Nguyen, a Vietnamese national, told the court that he was sent to pick up the ants and arrived at Kenya’s main airport where he met his contact person, Dennis Ng’ang’a, and together they traveled to meet the locals who sell the ants.

Ng’ang’a, who is from Kenya, had said he didn’t know it was illegal because ants are sold and eaten locally.


Bill Gates meets Indonesian leader to discuss development initiatives

Updated 07 May 2025
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Bill Gates meets Indonesian leader to discuss development initiatives

  • Gates’ foundation is developing a tuberculosis vaccine that’s planned to be tested in Indonesia

JAKARTA: Bill Gates was in Indonesia on Wednesday to discuss health and sustainable development initiatives with the leader of the world’s fourth most populous country.

Gates met President Prabowo Subianto at the colonial-style Merdeka palace in Jakarta to discuss global health, nutrition, financial inclusion and public digital infrastructure, Indonesia’s presidential office said in a statement ahead of the meeting.

The co-founder of Microsoft and Gates Foundation praised Indonesia’s adoption of vaccines against Rotavirus for diarrhea and Pneumococcus for pneumonia and the country’s efforts in reducing child mortality.

He said 10 million children under the age of five worldwide died when his foundation launched in 2000, with 90 percent of the deaths due to diarrhea, pneumonia or malaria. That number has now been cut in half to below 5 million, Gates said.

“It’s been an amazing time period. And there’s many new tools coming,” he told the meeting, which was also attended by prominent Indonesian businesspeople and philanthropists.

Gates’ foundation is currently developing a tuberculosis vaccine that’s planned to be tested in Indonesia, Subianto said.

“This is crucial because TB is still a deadly disease in the country,” he said.

Gates said that because rich countries don’t have tuberculosis, “it just doesn’t get hardly any money for diagnostics or drugs or vaccines.”

Gates has granted more than $159 million to Indonesia since 2009.

Much of it was allocated to the health sector, especially for vaccine procurement, Subianto said. 

Thanks to the funds, Subianto said Biofarma, a state-run pharmaceutical company, now can produce 2 billion doses of its polio vaccine every year, benefiting more than 900 million people in 42 countries.


France says Algeria has issued arrest warrants for writer Daoud

Updated 07 May 2025
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France says Algeria has issued arrest warrants for writer Daoud

PARIS: Algeria has issued two arrest warrants for acclaimed French-Algerian writer Kamel Daoud, the French Foreign Ministry said on Wednesday, as tensions surge between the two countries.

The Algerian judiciary informed France of the move, the Foreign Ministry said.

“We are monitoring and will continue to monitor developments in this situation closely,” he said, stressing that Daoud was “a renowned and respected author” and that France was committed to freedom of expression.

In 2024, Daoud won France’s top literary prize, the Prix Goncourt, for his novel “Houris,” centered on Algeria’s civil war between the government and radicals in the 1990s.

The novel, banned in Algeria, tells the story of a young woman who loses her voice when a hard-liner cuts her throat as she witnesses her family being massacred during the war.

In November, the woman, Saada Arbane, told Algerian television, using a speech aid, that the main character in the book is based on her experiences. Daoud, 54, has denied his novel is based on Arbane’s life.

Arbane says she told her story during a course of treatment with a psychotherapist who became Daoud’s wife in 2016. 

She has accused Daoud of using the details narrated during their therapy sessions in his book.


UN appoints special envoy to combat Islamophobia

New position will be filled by Miguel Angel Moratinos of Spain. (File/AFP)
Updated 07 May 2025
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UN appoints special envoy to combat Islamophobia

  • Former Spanish Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos will serve in new role
  • UN observes International Day to Combat Islamophobia on March 15

NEW YORK CITY: The UN has appointed a special envoy to combat Islamophobia in a bid to fight anti-Muslim hatred around the world.

The new position will be filled by Miguel Angel Moratinos of Spain, who also serves as high representative for the UN Alliance of Civilizations, an initiative to combat extremism.

Moratinos previously served in the Spanish government and worked closely with the UN during his time as foreign minister from 2004 to 2010.

He also served as EU special representative for the Middle East peace process from 1996 to 2003.

In that role, he promoted peace agreements and attempted to foster dialogue between Israel and the Arab world.

He also served as Spanish ambassador to Israel in 1996.

The UN marks International Day to Combat Islamophobia each year on March 15. The day was first observed following a resolution put forward by Pakistan that was unanimously adopted by the UN General Assembly in 2022.

The document was sponsored by the 60 member states of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation.

This year on March 15, Moratinos spoke out against the “bigotry and dehumanizing rhetoric” that Muslims “have to quite often face in many parts of the world.”

“Hate speech drives wedge between communities, sparks fear and anger and may often lead to violence which threatens peace and stability in societies,” he said.

“All forms of hate should be rooted out wherever and whenever it occurs. This means pushing for policies that fully respect human rights and protect religious and cultural identities, particularly of minorities.

“This means investing in social cohesion by encouraging initiatives that promote dialogue, mutual respect and protects human rights and the dignity of all.”