NICOSIA: The United Nations refugee agency on Friday accused government authorities in ethnically divided Cyprus of rounding up dozens of migrants and forcing them back inside a UN-controlled buffer zone that they crossed to seek asylum.
UNHCR spokeswoman Emilia Strovolidou said that as many as 99 asylum seekers were “pushed back” into the buffer zone between mid-May and Aug. 8.
The asylum seekers entered the European Union member country from the breakaway Turkish Cypriot north and crossed the buffer zone into the south where they could file their applications with the internationally recognized government.
Of those 99 migrants, 76 people from countries including Syria, Iran, Afghanistan, Nigeria, Somalia, Bangladesh, Sudan, Iraq and Gaza remain stranded in two locations inside the buffer zone, to the west and east of the capital Nicosia. They include 18 minors, six of whom are unaccompanied.
Strovolidou said although the UN has supplied the asylum seekers with military food rations, tents, blankets, toilets and washing facilities, they remain exposed to extreme heat, dust and humidity.
“Their humanitarian needs are increasing, and their physical and psychological condition is deteriorating as they continue to remain in these conditions, some for nearly three months,” Strovolidou told The Associated Press.
She said some are survivors of gender-based violence and trafficking and people suffering from serious illnesses such as cancer, asthma and serious mental health issues.
Cyprus was split in 1974 when Turkiye invaded after supporters of a union with Greece mounted a coup with the backing of the junta then ruling Greece. Cyprus joined the EU in 2004, but only the south enjoys full membership benefits.
Aleem Siddique, spokesman for the UN peacekeeping force in Cyprus, urged an immediate end to the “pushbacks” and for Cypriot authorities to live up to their obligations under international and EU law.
“In nearly all instances, the asylum seekers found their way into government-controlled areas from where they were intercepted by the Cyprus Police and forcibly dumped into the buffer zone after having their passports and mobile phones confiscated,” Siddique told AP.
He said the UN has shared video evidence of the “pushback operations” with Cypriot authorities.
“The buffer zone in not a refugee camp,” Siddique said.
The Cyprus government has taken a tough line with migrant crossings along the 180-kilometer (120 mile) length of the buffer zone, insisting that it would not permit it to become a gateway for illegal migration.
Deputy Minister for Migration Nicholas Ioannides said earlier this week that the government doesn’t want to be at odds with the UN and is in talks with the UNHCR to resolve the issue.
What complicates the issue are the peculiarities of the buffer zone itself, which isn’t a formal border and as such. Cypriot authorities say the UN is mistaken when it speaks about pushbacks that specifically pertain to “expulsions at recognized sea or land borders.”
In a written statement to AP, the ministry said migrants who cross the buffer zone arrive on the island’s north from Turkiye — a safe country — and then cross southward along remote stretches of the porous buffer zone where there are no physical barriers preventing crossings.
According to an established legal framework, Cypriot police and other authorities are lawfully empowered to conduct “effective surveillance” of the buffer zone in order to combat illegal migration by “discouraging people from circumventing checks” at all eight lawful crossing points.
The ministry said given the “tremendous migratory pressures” Cyprus is under, the government has adopted a “principled stance” to avoid turning the buffer zone into a “route for irregular migration” while offering humanitarian assistance to stranded migrants.
Human rights lawyer Nicoletta Charalambidou is contesting the Cypriot government’s claim that it’s acting in line with international and EU law.
She has launched legal action on behalf of 46 stranded migrants to get Cypriot authorities to allow them to submit asylum applications.
“The government has an obligation to allow these people to file asylum claims,” she told AP. She added that asylum applications should be assessed individually to determine if conditions of safety exist in Turkiye for each applicant.
UN refugee agency accuses Cyprus government of pushing asylum seekers into a UN buffer zone
https://arab.news/nj8dq
UN refugee agency accuses Cyprus government of pushing asylum seekers into a UN buffer zone
- UNHCR spokeswoman Emilia Strovolidou said that as many as 99 asylum seekers were “pushed back” into the buffer zone between mid-May and Aug. 8
- Of those 99 migrants, 76 people from countries including Syria, Iran, Afghanistan, Nigeria, Somalia, Bangladesh, Sudan, Iraq and Gaza remain stranded in two locations
After Trump halted funding for Afghans who helped the US, this group stepped in to help
- No One Left Behind helps Afghans and Iraqis who qualify for the special immigrant visa program, which was set up by Congress in 2009 to help people who are in danger because of their efforts to aid the US during the Afghanistan and Iraq Wars
WASHINGTON: When Andrew Sullivan thinks of the people his organization has helped resettle in America, one particular story comes to mind: an Afghan man in a wheelchair who was shot through the neck by a member of the Taliban for helping the US during its war in Afghanistan.
“I just think ... Could I live with myself if we send that guy back to Afghanistan?” said Sullivan, executive director of No One Left Behind. “And I thankfully don’t have to because he made it to northern Virginia.”
The charitable organization of US military veterans, Afghans who once fled their country and volunteers in the US is stepping in to help Afghans like that man in the wheelchair who are at risk of being stranded overseas. Their efforts come after the Trump administration took steps to hinder Afghans who helped America’s war effort in trying to resettle in the US
No One Left Behind helps Afghans and Iraqis who qualify for the special immigrant visa program, which was set up by Congress in 2009 to help people who are in danger because of their efforts to aid the US during the Afghanistan and Iraq Wars.
President Donald Trump in January suspended programs that buy flights for those refugees and cut off aid to the groups that help them resettle in the US Hundreds who were approved for travel to the US had visas but few ways to get here. If they managed to buy a flight, they had little help when they arrived.
The White House and State Department did not respond to requests for comment.
Meanwhile, the situation for Afghans has become more tenuous in some of the places where many have temporarily settled. Pakistan, having hosted millions of refugees, has in recent years removed Afghans from its country. increased deportations. An agreement that made Albania a waystation for Afghans expires in March, Sullivan said.
Hovering over all of this is the fear that the Trump administration may announce a travel ban that could cut off all access from Afghanistan. In an executive order signed on Inauguration Day, Trump told key Cabinet members to submit a report within 60 days that identifies countries with vetting so poor that it would “warrant a partial or full suspension” of travelers from those countries to the US.
US State Department spokeswoman Tammy Bruce said Monday that the review was ongoing and no list had been finalized.
But groups that work with Afghans are worried.
When funding was suspended, No One Left Behind stepped in. Their goal is to make sure Afghans with State Department visas don’t get stuck overseas. Other organizations — many who got their start helping Afghans during the US military’s chaotic withdrawal from Kabul in 2021 — are doing the same.
To qualify for this visa, Afghans must prove they worked for the US for at least one year. That means tracking down documentation from former supervisors, who were often affiliated with companies no longer in business. They also undergo extensive vetting and medical checks.
“Our view was, OK, we’ve got to act immediately to try and help these people,” said Sullivan. “We’ve been in kind of an all-out sprint.”
The organization has raised money to buy flights and help Afghans when they land. Between February 1 and March 17, the group said it successfully booked flights for 659 Afghans.
It also launched a website where visa holders can share information, giving Sullivan’s group a starting point to figure out where they might live in the US.
Sullivan and the organization’s “ambassadors” — Afghans and Iraqis who already have emigrated to the US, many through the special immigrant visa program — have gone to Albania and Qatar to help stranded Afghans.
Aqila is one of those ambassadors who went to Albania. The Associated Press is identifying Aqila by her first name because her family in Afghanistan is still at risk.
Aqila said many of the families didn’t know what would happen when they arrived in America. Would they be homeless? Abandoned? One man feared he’d end up alone in the airport parking lot because his contact in America — a long-haul trucker — couldn’t come pick him up. She assured him that someone would be there.
They gave them cards with contact information for attorneys. They printed papers with information about their rights in English, Dari, and Pashto.
No One Left Behind reached out to family members and friends in the US to help with the transition when they landed in America.
Mohammad Saboor, a father of seven children, worked as an electrician and A/C technician with international and US forces for 17 years. Two months ago, he and his family boarded a plane to Albania in anticipation of soon being able to go to America. They landed in California on March 12, exhausted but safe
The next day he and his family explored their new apartment in the Sacramento suburb of Rancho Cordova.
Saboor said he hasn’t felt safe in Afghanistan since the Taliban took over the country in August 2021. He worried that he’d be killed as retribution for the nearly two decades he’d worked with the US and its allies. He wondered what kind of future his children would have in a Taliban-controlled Afghanistan.
The family picked the suburb in the hope that the large Afghan population in the Sacramento area would help them get settled and find work. He envisions a bright future in America, where his kids can go to school and eventually give back to the country that took his family in. Arriving in the US, he said, gave them a “great feeling.”
“I believe that now we can live in a 100 percent peaceful environment,” he said.
Sullivan said he hopes there will be exceptions for Afghans in the special immigrant visa program if a travel ban is imposed. They’ve been thoroughly vetted, he said, and earned the right to be here.
“These are folks that actually served shoulder-to-shoulder with American troops and diplomats for 20 years,” he said.
Aqila, the Afghan ambassador, said it’s stressful to hear stories of what people went through in Afghanistan. But the reward comes when she sees photos of those who have arrived in America.
“You can see the hope in their eyes,” she said. “It’s nice to be human. It’s nice be kind to each other.”
EU sanctions Rwandan officials ahead of Congo peace talks
KIGALI: The EU sanctioned nine people and a gold refinery on Monday in connection with a Rwanda-backed rebellion in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, a day before peace talks scheduled in Angola between M23 rebels and the Congolese government.
The sanctions targeted M23 political leader Bertrand Bisimwa and Rwandan army commanders.
They were also applied to the CEO of Rwanda Mines, Petroleum and Gas Board, and Gasabo Gold Refinery in Kigali, which the EU accused of illicitly exporting natural resources from Congo.
Amid a flurry of diplomatic activity, a rebel alliance that includes M23 confirmed it would send a five-member delegation to Tuesday’s talks in Luanda, which could mark M23’s first direct negotiations with the Congolese government.
Congo President Felix Tshisekedi’s office said on Sunday that Kinshasa would send representatives to Luanda, reversing the government’s long-standing vow not to negotiate with the group, which it has dismissed as a mere front for the Rwandan government.
Pressure has been growing on Tshisekedi to negotiate with M23 after a series of battlefield setbacks since January.
The rebels have seized eastern Congo’s two biggest cities and several smaller localities.
The fighting has killed at least 7,000 people this year, according to the Congolese government, and hundreds of thousands have been displaced.
The conflict is rooted in the spillover into Congo of Rwanda’s 1994 genocide and the struggle for control of Congo’s vast mineral resources, many of which are used in batteries used for electric vehicles and other electronic products.
The UN and international powers accuse Rwanda of providing arms and sending soldiers to fight with the ethnic Tutsi-led M23.
Rwanda says its forces are acting in self-defense against Congo’s army and militias that are hostile to Kigali.
A Rwandan government spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the EU sanctions.
Western countries have taken measures against Rwanda over the conflict, including the withholding of development aid by Britain and Germany, but Kigali has been defiant.
On Monday, it announced it was severing diplomatic relations with Belgium, the former colonial power in Rwanda and Congo, and giving Belgian diplomats 48 hours to leave.
Rwanda’s Foreign Ministry accused Belgium, which has called for strong EU action against Kigali, of “using lies and manipulation to secure an unjustified hostile opinion of Rwanda.”
Belgium’s Foreign Affairs Minister Maxime Prevot said Brussels would reciprocate by declaring Rwandan diplomats persona non grata, calling Kigali’s move “disproportionate.”
Previous rounds of EU sanctions have targeted M23 commanders and Rwandan army officers.
Zobel Behalal, a senior expert at the Global Initiative against Transnational Organized Crime, said the latest sanctions were notable in going after Rwanda Mines, Petroleum and Gas Board, and the Gasabo Gold Refinery.
“The EU sanctions ... are a recognition that profits from natural resources are one of the main motivations for Rwanda’s involvement in this conflict,” said Behalal.
The mines board and the gold refinery did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
UN experts slam US arrests of pro-Palestinian students
- “These actions are disproportionate, unnecessary, and discriminatory and will only lead to more trauma and polarization negatively impacting the learning environment within university campuses,” the UN experts said in a statement
- The Trump administration cut $400 million in federal funding for Columbia University, accusing it of not sufficiently addressing anti-Semitism
GENEVA: UN-appointed experts on Monday branded US authorities’ arrests of foreign students for pro-Palestinian protests on campus “disproportionate” and called for their rights to be respected.
US campuses including Columbia University in New York were rocked by student protests against Israel’s war in Gaza following the October 7, 2023 attack by Palestinian militant group Hamas, drawing accusations of anti-Semitism.
Immigration officers arrested Mahmoud Khalil, a leader of protests at Columbia, on the weekend of March 9-10 after US President Donald Trump vowed to deport foreign pro-Palestinian student demonstrators.
The White House later said authorities had supplied a list of other Columbia students that officers were seeking to deport over their alleged participation in protests.
“These actions are disproportionate, unnecessary, and discriminatory and will only lead to more trauma and polarization negatively impacting the learning environment within university campuses,” the UN experts said in a statement.
“These actions create a chilling effect on the rights to freedom of expression, assembly and of association,” they added.
The Trump administration has moved to revoke Khalil’s residency permit, accusing him of leading “activities aligned with Hamas.”
Khalil’s lawyer later told a court that he had been taken to Louisiana and denied legal advice.
The independent experts, appointed by the UN to report on rights issues, urged US authorities “to cease repression and retaliation, including in the form of arbitrary detention of US lawful permanent residents, and removal of international students who have participated in university protests.”
The Trump administration cut $400 million in federal funding for Columbia University, accusing it of not sufficiently addressing anti-Semitism.
Columbia administrators later said they had suspended and expelled a number of students who had occupied a campus building last year.
Kenya urged to investigate mutilated bodies dumped in quarry
NAIROBI: Human Rights Watch has urged Kenya to conclude an investigation into mutilated bodies found in a quarry last year and address claims that police blocked recovery efforts.
There was shock and disgust last July in the East African country when 10 butchered female corpses and other unidentified body parts were recovered, mostly by volunteers, from an abandoned quarry in the Mukuru slum in the capital, Nairobi.
The discovery came as Kenya was gripped by deadly government protests, with rights groups alleging police brutality and the abduction of prominent protesters.
Authorities promised swift action and quickly arrested a man who they said had confessed to murdering and dismembering 42 women.
But around a month later, the suspect escaped police custody and disappeared without a trace.
“No prosecution has been initiated either for the bodies or this escape,” HRW and the Mukuru Community Center for Social Justice said in a joint statement.
HRW said volunteers at the quarry alleged that police officers had forced them to stop retrieving body parts.
Doctor deported to Lebanon had photos ‘sympathetic’ to Hezbollah on phone, US says
BOSTON: US authorities on Monday said they deported a Rhode Island doctor to Lebanon last week after discovering “sympathetic photos and videos” of the former longtime leader of Hezbollah and militants in her cell phone’s deleted items folder.
Alawieh had also told agents that while in Lebanon, she attended the funeral last month of Hezbollah’s slain leader Hassan Nasrallah, whom she supported from a “religious perspective.”
The US Department of Justice provided those details as it sought to assure a federal judge in Boston that US Customs and Border Protection did not willfully disobey an order he issued on Friday that should have halted Dr. Rasha Alawieh’s immediate removal.
The 34-year-old Lebanese citizen, who held an H-1B visa, was detained on Thursday at Logan International Airport in Boston after returning from a trip to Lebanon to see family.
Her cousin then filed a lawsuit seeking to halt her deportation.
In its first public explanation for her removal, the Justice Department said Alawieh, a kidney specialist and assistant professor at Brown University, was denied re-entry to the US based on what CBP found on her phone and statements she made during an airport interview.
“It’s a purely religious thing,” she said about the funeral, according to a transcript of that interview reviewed by Reuters.
“He’s a very big figure in our community. For me it’s not political.”
Western governments including the US designate Hezbollah a terrorist group.
