HELSINKI: Latvia is growing worried over the increasing number of migrants attempting to cross over into the Baltic nation through the border with Belarus and has called up the military to assist border guards.
Latvia’s State Border Guard said on Tuesday that 103 people had been stopped in the previous 24 hours for trying to illegally cross the Latvia-Belarus border that runs a total of 173 kilometers (108 miles). A total of seven persons were allowed in Latvia, a European Union and NATO nation of 1.8 million, for humanitarian reasons.
Most migrants are from Africa and the Middle East, particularly Afghanistan and Syria.
The number of people turned away at the Belarus border has exceeded 100 on several days since the end of August — a substantially higher daily figure than earlier in the year, officials said. Nearly 900 migrants were stopped from crossing over last week alone. This year’s cumulative figure is almost 7,800, up from 5.826 in full year 2022.
Guntis Pujats, head of the border guard, told Latvian television on Tuesday that the large number of illegal border crossing attempts was fueled what he called a state-sponsored international people smuggling operation by Belarus’ authoritarian President Aleksander Lukashenko.
Pujats said that, from time to time, Lukashenko targets either Latvia, Lithuania or Poland, which all share borders with Belarus, to test their abilities to deal with “hybrid attacks” from Minsk including pushing migrants to border areas.
In 2021, thousands of migrants, many from Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq, flocked to Belarus’ border with Poland, where they were stranded for weeks. The EU accused Lukashenko, of aiding illegal border crossings in retaliation for sanctions imposed after an election the West described as a sham. Lukashenko denied encouraging migration to Europe.
Due to the recent surge in illegal migration, Pujats said Latvia’s border guard was proposing to close the Silene crossing point on the border with Belarus that is also the EU’s external border.
Defense Minister Inara Murniece told the Latvian broadcaster that the government had decided to reschedule a local military exercise and instead ask the Latvian army to send soldiers to assist border guards at the eastern border with Belarus.
In addition, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland — all NATO members — have signaled that if the situation continues to deteriorate, they reserve the right to completely close their borders with Belarus.
Lithuania said it would send 20 border guards to Latvia, its northern neighbor, to tackle the increasing flows of migrants from Belarus.
“We see that Latvia is facing a serious challenge right now,” Lithuanian Interior Minister Agne Bilotaite told reporters on Tuesday. “The traffic and the attempts to enter have increased significantly. Considering that Latvia has not yet secured its state border with a physical barrier and surveillance systems ... it is difficult for them to manage this process.”
In early August, the interior ministers Poland and the Baltic states, including also Estonia, warned that the nations were prepared to seal off their borders with Russia’s ally Belarus in the event of any military incidents or a massive migrant push by Minsk.
The Polish government said at the time it was planning to deploy an additional 2,000 troops to its border with Belarus, twice the number the country’s Border Guard agency had requested, as fears of illegal migration rise.
Latvia grows worried over a surge of migrants attempting to cross from Belarus
https://arab.news/gb6d5
Latvia grows worried over a surge of migrants attempting to cross from Belarus
- Latvia’s State Border Guard said on Tuesday that 103 people had been stopped in the previous 24 hours for trying to illegally cross the Latvia-Belarus border
- Most migrants are from Africa and the Middle East, particularly Afghanistan and Syria
UN aid chief says to cut 20% of staff due to funding shortfall
- UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres last month announced a new initiative to improve efficiency and cut costs as the world body turns 80 this year amid a cash crisis
NEW YORK: The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs will cut 20 percent of its staff as it faces a shortfall of $58 million, UN aid chief Tom Fletcher has told staff after OCHA’s largest donor — the US — cut funding.
OCHA “currently has a workforce of around 2,600 staff in over 60 countries. The funding shortfall means we are looking to regroup to an organization of around 2,100 staff in fewer locations,” Fletcher wrote in a note.
OCHA works to mobilize aid, share information, support aid efforts, and advocate for those in need during a crisis. It relies heavily on voluntary contributions.
FASTFACT
The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs mobilizes aid, shares information, supports aid efforts, and advocates for those in need during a crisis.
“The US alone has been the largest humanitarian donor for decades, and the biggest contributor to OCHA’s program budget,” Fletcher said, noting that its annual contribution of $63 million would have accounted for 20 percent of OCHA’s extrabudgetary resources in 2025.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres last month announced a new initiative to improve efficiency and cut costs as the world body turns 80 this year amid a cash crisis.
Fletcher said OCHA would “focus more of our resources in the countries where we work” but would work in fewer places.
OCHA “will scale back our presence and operations in Cameroon, Colombia, Eritrea, Iraq, Libya, Nigeria, Pakistan, Gaziantep (in Turkiye) and Zimbabwe,” Fletcher said.
“As we all know, these exercises are driven by funding cuts announced by member states and not by a reduction of needs,” he said.
“Humanitarian needs are on the rise and have perhaps never been higher, driven by conflicts, climate crises, disease, and the lack of respect of international humanitarian law.”
‘Rejected migrants’ moved to detention centers in Albania
- Italy’s government of Premier Giorgia Meloni approved a decree last month that expanded the use of the Albanian fast-track asylum processing centers to include the detention of rejected asylum-seekers with deportation orders
SHENGJIN: Italian authorities on Friday transferred 40 migrants with no permission to remain in the country to Italian-run migration detention centers in Albania.
It was the first time a EU country sent rejected migrants to a nation outside the EU that is neither their own nor a country they had transited on their journey, migration experts said.
A military ship with the migrants departed the Italian port of Brindisi and arrived hours later in the Albanian port of Shengjin, about 65 km northeast of the capital, Tirana.
FASTFACT
A military ship with the migrants departed the Italian port of Brindisi and arrived hours later in the Albanian port of Shengjin, about 65 km northeast of the capital, Tirana.
The migrants were seen being transferred in buses and minivans under heavy security to an Italian-run center in Shengjin, where they will be processed before being transferred to a second center in Gjader, also run by Italian authorities.
The Italian government has not released their nationalities or further details.
Both facilities in Shengjin and Gjader were initially built to process asylum requests of people intercepted in the Mediterranean Sea by Italy.
But since their inauguration in October, Italian courts have stopped authorities from using them, and small groups of migrants sent there have returned to Italy.
Italy’s government of Premier Giorgia Meloni approved a decree last month that expanded the use of the Albanian fast-track asylum processing centers to include the detention of rejected asylum-seekers with deportation orders.
It is not clear how long the migrants may be held in Albania. They can be detained in Italy for up to 18 months pending deportation.
Meloni’s novel approach to expel the migrants echoes US President Donald Trump’s recent deportations of migrants of various nationalities to Panama.
It’s also in line with a recent EU Commission proposal that, if passed, would allow EU members to set up so-called “return hubs” abroad.
Some experts and rights groups question the transfers Migration experts say it was unclear how legal Italy’s actions were.
Meghan Benton of the Migration Policy Institute said the move likely will be challenged in court.
Speaking from Toulouse, France, Benton said other EU countries are interested in doing the same, including the Netherlands with Uganda.
Francesco Ferri, a migration expert with ActionAid, who was among a group of nongovernmental organizations and Italian lawmakers visiting Albania to follow the migrant transfer, said Italian authorities have failed to clarify what happens to the migrants once they’re in Albania. He said there is no legislation in Italian law, EU law, or the Albania-Italy agreement that would allow rejected asylum-seekers to be deported directly from Albania, making the purpose of the transfer unclear.
“For us, it is unacceptable,” Ferri said.
The Albanian centers opened in October, but they remained substantially inactive due to legal hurdles and broad opposition from human rights associations, which believe they violate international laws and put migrants’ rights at risk.
The November 2023 agreement between Italy and Albania— worth nearly 800 million euros over five years — allows up to 3,000 migrants the Italian coast guard intercepted in international waters each month to be sheltered in Albania and vetted for possible asylum in Italy or repatriation.
Italy has agreed to welcome those migrants who are granted asylum, while those whose applications are rejected face deportation directly from Albania.
The first three groups of 73 migrants transferred there in October, November, and January spent only a few hours in Albania.
They were returned to Italy after Italian magistrates refused to validate their detention in a non-EU country.
So far this year, 11,438 migrants landed on Italian shores, less than the 16,090 who arrived in the same period last year.
According to the Italian Interior Ministry, most arrived from Bangladesh, followed by Syria, Tunisia, and Egypt. Irregular border crossings were 31 percent lower across the EU, according to figures released by the EU’s Border and Coast Guard Agency Frontex.
Spike in wounded as fighting intensifies in parts of Somalia
- Military operations continue in Bari in Puntland, while confrontations often occur in Sool and Sanaag regions in the north, the organization said
MOGADISHU: Hospitals in parts of Somalia are struggling with rising numbers of wounded after a sharp increase in fighting since the beginning of the year, the International Committee of the Red Cross said on Friday.
Recent attacks, including a roadside blast narrowly missing the president’s convoy last month, are heightening fears of a resurgence by terrorists, despite gains by the Somali government and international partners.
After 15 years of fighting federal troops, Al-Qaeda-linked Al-Shabab had been forced onto the defensive in 2022 and 2023 by Somali forces backed by Africa Union-led peacekeepers.
“Several regions of Somalia have seen a sharp escalation of hostilities, and hospitals near active front lines are struggling to meet a surge in needs,” the ICRC said in a statement.
“We have seen a significant increase of weapon-wounded patients treated in the medical facilities we support since the beginning of the year.” In Mogadishu, Madina Hospital supported by the ICRC, has admitted 203 wounded — a 26-percent increase from the previous three months.
The ICRC said the Middle and Lower Shabelle regions in the south had seen a significant increase in fighting since March, with displacements and civilian casualties.
Military operations continue in Bari in Puntland, while confrontations often occur in Sool and Sanaag regions in the north, the organization said.
The surge in fighting across Somalia has also forced more than 100,000 to flee their homes, the ICRC said.
Earlier this month, Al-Shabab militants fired multiple rockets near Mogadishu’s airport, disrupting international flights.
The group has seized key locations in Middle and Lower Shabelle, coastal regions on either side of the capital.
A bomb blast narrowly missed the convoy of President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud on March 18, showing the group once again poses a significant threat to the capital.
Thousands of children subject to sexual violence in eastern Congo, UNICEF says
GENEVA: Children including toddlers represent more than a third of victims in nearly 10,000 cases of rape and other forms of sexual violence committed in eastern Congo in the first two months of the year, the UN children’s agency said on Friday.
M23 rebels seized parts of eastern Congo earlier this year as part of a rapid offensive that left thousands dead, including children, and forced hundreds of thousands from their homes.
UNICEF spokesperson James Elder told a Geneva press briefing that the rapes and other forms of sexual violence were being used as “a weapon of war” and were taking place once every 30 minutes on average, with toddlers also among the victims.
FASTFACT
UNICEF spokesperson James Elder says that the rapes and other forms of sexual violence are being used as ‘a weapon of war’ and are taking place once every 30 minutes on average, with toddlers also among the victims.
“We are not talking about isolated incidents; we are talking about a systemic crisis,” he said, citing a database collected by organizations on the ground working on sexual violence, which showed that between 35-45 percent of the total were under-18s.
“It is a weapon of war and a deliberate tactic of terror.”
Elder, who spoke via video link from Goma, said that funding shortages were affecting the ability to treat survivors of sexual attacks. In a hospital he visited this week 127 rape survivors had no access to medical kits which can prevent an HIV infection in the immediate aftermath.
“The gaps in funding are life-threatening,” he said.
Elder did not elaborate on the reasons for the funding shortages in Congo, although deep cuts by top donors in the US to foreign aid have hit humanitarian programs elsewhere.
US envoy Witkoff holds talks with Putin about Ukraine as Trump tells Moscow to ‘get moving’
- Putin greeted Steven Witkoff in St. Petersburg at the start of the negotiations
- Trump posts on Truth Social that Russia has to get moving as too many people are dying in Ukraine
MOSCOW: US President Donald Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff held talks with President Vladimir Putin on Friday in St. Petersburg about the search for a peace deal on Ukraine as Trump told Russia to “get moving.”
Putin was shown on state TV greeting Witkoff in St. Petersburg’s presidential library at the start of the negotiations. The Izvestia news outlet earlier released video of Witkoff leaving a hotel in the city, accompanied by Kirill Dmitriev, Putin’s investment envoy.
Witkoff has emerged as a key figure in the on-off rapprochement between Moscow and Washington amid talk on the Russian side of potential joint investments in the Arctic and in Russian rare earth minerals.
However, the talks come at a time when US-Russia dialogue aimed at agreeing a ceasefire ahead of a possible peace deal to end the war in Ukraine appears to have stalled over disagreements around conditions for a full pause in hostilities.
Trump, who has shown signs of losing patience, has spoken of imposing secondary sanctions on countries that buy Russian oil if he feels Moscow is dragging its feet on a Ukrainian deal.
On Friday, he said in a post on Truth Social: “Russia has to get moving. Too many people (are) DYING, thousands a week, in a terrible and senseless war — A war that should have never happened, and wouldn’t have happened, if I were President!!!“
Putin has said he is ready in principle to agree a full ceasefire, but has said that many crucial conditions have yet to be agreed about how it would work and has said that what he calls the root causes of the war have yet to be addressed.
Specifically, he has said that Ukraine should not join NATO, that the size of its army needs to be limited, and that Russia should get the entirety of the territory of the four Ukrainian regions it claims as its own despite not fully controlling any of them.
With Moscow controlling just under 20 percent of Ukraine and Russian forces continuing to advance on the battlefield, the Kremlin believes Russia is in a strong position when it comes to negotiations and that Ukraine should make concessions.
Kyiv says Russia’s terms would amount to a capitulation.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Putin and Witkoff might discuss the possibility of the Russian leader meeting Trump face-to-face.
Putin and Trump have spoken by phone but have yet to meet in person since the US leader returned to the White House in January for a second four-year term.
However, Peskov played down the Witkoff-Putin talks, telling Russian state media before they started that the US envoy’s visit would not be “momentous” and no breakthroughs were expected.
He said the meeting would be a chance for Russia to express its “concerns.” Moscow and Kyiv have repeatedly accused each other of violating a moratorium on striking each other’s energy infrastructure.
The meeting, the third this year between Putin and Witkoff, comes at a time when US tensions with Iran and China, both close allies of Moscow, have been heightened by Tehran’s nuclear program and a burgeoning trade war with Beijing.
Witkoff, who visited a synagogue in St. Petersburg earlier on Friday, is due in Oman on Saturday for talks with Iran over its nuclear program. Trump has threatened Tehran with military action if it does not agree to a deal. Moscow has repeatedly offered its help in trying to clinch a diplomatic settlement.
US and Russian officials said they had made progress during talks in Istanbul on Thursday toward normalizing the work of their diplomatic missions as they begin to rebuild ties.
A February meeting between Witkoff and Putin culminated with the US envoy flying home with Marc Fogel, an American teacher whom Washington had said was wrongfully detained by Russia.
A Russian-American spa worker Ksenia Karelina, who had been sentenced to 12 years in prison in Russia, was exchanged on Thursday for Arthur Petrov, whom the US had accused of forming a global smuggling ring to transfer sensitive electronics to Russia’s military.
