Freetown: When an Israeli air strike killed her employer and destroyed nearly everything she owned in southern Lebanon, it also crushed Fatima Samuella Tholley’s hopes of returning home to Sierra Leone to escape the spiralling violence.
With a change of clothes stuffed into a plastic bag, the 27-year-old housekeeper told AFP that she and her cousin made their way to the capital Beirut in an ambulance.
Bewildered and terrified, the pair were thrust into the chaos of the bombarded city — unfamiliar to them apart from the airport where they had arrived months before.
“We don’t know today if we will live or not, only God knows,” Fatima told AFP via video call, breaking down in tears.
“I have nothing... no passport, no documents,” she said.
The cousins have spent days sheltering in the cramped storage room of an empty apartment, which they said was offered to them by a man they had met on their journey.
With no access to TV news and unable to communicate in French or Arabic, they could only watch from their window as the city was pounded by strikes.
The spike in violence in Lebanon since mid-September has killed more than 1,000 people and forced hundreds of thousands more to flee their homes, as Israel bombards Hezbollah strongholds around the country.
The situation for the country’s migrant workers is particularly precarious, as their legal status is often tied to their employer under the “kafala” sponsorship system governing foreign labor.
Rights groups say the system allows for numerous abuses including the withholding of wages and the confiscation of official documents — which provide workers their only lifeline out of the country.
“When we came here, our madams received our passports, they seized everything until we finished our contract” said 29-year-old Mariatu Musa Tholley, who also works as a housekeeper.
“Now [the bombing] burned everything, even our madams... only we survived.”
Sierra Leone is working to establish how many of its citizens are currently in Lebanon, with the aim of providing emergency travel certificates to those without passports, Kai S. Brima from the foreign affairs ministry told AFP.
The poor west African country has a significant Lebanese community dating back over a century, which is heavily involved in business and trade.
Scores of migrants travel to Lebanon every year, with the aim of paying remittances to support families back home.
“We don’t know anything, any information,” Mariatu said.
“[Our neighbors] don’t open the door for us because they know we are black,” she wept.
“We don’t want to die here.”
Fatima and Mariatu said they had each earned $150 per month, working from 6:00 am until midnight seven days a week.
They said they were rarely allowed out of the house.
AFP contacted four other Sierra Leonean domestic workers by phone, all of whom recounted similar situations of helplessness in Beirut.
Patricia Antwin, 27, came to Lebanon as a housekeeper to support her family in December 2021.
She said she fled her first employer after suffering sexual harassment, leaving her passport behind.
When an airstrike hit the home of her second employer in a southern village, Patricia was left stranded.
“The people I work for, they left me, they left me and went away,” she told AFP.
Patricia said a passing driver saw her crying in the street and offered to take her to Beirut.
Like Fatima and Mariatu, she has no money or formal documentation.
“I only came with two clothes in my plastic bag,” she said.
Patricia initially slept on the floor of a friend’s apartment, but moved to Beirut’s waterfront after strikes in the area intensified.
She later found shelter at a Christian school in Jounieh, some 20 kilometers (12 miles) north of the capital.
“We are seeing people moving from one place to another,” she said.
“I don’t want to lose my life here,” she added, explaining she had a child back in Sierra Leone.
Housekeeper Kadij Koroma said she had been sleeping on the streets for almost a week after fleeing to Beirut when she was separated from her employer.
“We don’t have a place to sleep, we don’t have food, we don’t have water,” she said, adding that she relied on passers by to provide bread or small change for sustenance.
Kadij said she wasn’t sure if her employer was still alive, or if her friends who had also traveled from Sierra Leone to work in Lebanon had survived the bombardment.
“You don’t know where to go,” she said, “everywhere you go, bomb, everywhere you go, bomb.”
“We don’t want to die here”: Sierra Leone housekeepers trapped in Lebanon
https://arab.news/pwk5v
“We don’t want to die here”: Sierra Leone housekeepers trapped in Lebanon
- With a change of clothes stuffed into a plastic bag, the 27-year-old housekeeper made her way to the capital Beirut in an ambulance
- The situation for the country’s migrant workers is particularly precarious, as their legal status is often tied to their employer
Tunisia votes Sunday in its third presidential election since the Arab Spring
- Tunisia’s President Kais Saied faces few obstacles to winning another term in the country’s presidential election Sunday because his major opponents have been imprisoned or left off the ballot
- The presidential election is Tunisia’s third since protests led to the 2011 ouster of President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali during the Arab Spring
TUNIS: With his major opponents imprisoned or left off the ballot, Tunisian President Kais Saied faces few obstacles to winning reelection on Sunday, five years after riding anti-establishment backlash to a first term.
The North African country’s Oct. 6 presidential election is its third since protests led to the 2011 ouster of President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali — the first autocrat toppled in the Arab Spring uprisings that also overthrew leaders in Egypt, Libya and Yemen.
International observers praised the previous two contests as meeting democratic norms. However, a raft of arrests and actions taken by a Saied-appointed election authority have raised questions about whether this year’s race is free and fair. And opposition parties have called for a boycott.
What’s at stake?
Not long ago, Tunisia was hailed as the Arab Spring’s only success story. As coups, counter-revolutions and civil wars convulsed the region, the North African nation enshrined a new democratic constitution and saw its leading civil society groups win the Nobel Peace Prize for brokering political compromise.
But its new leaders were unable to buoy its struggling economy and were plagued by political infighting and episodes of violence and terrorism.
Amid that backdrop, Saied, then 61 and a political outsider, won his first term in 2019. He advanced to a runoff promising to usher in a “New Tunisia” and hand more power to young people and local governments.
This year’s election will offer a window into popular opinion about the trajectory that Tunisia’s fading democracy has taken since Saied took office.
Saied’s supporters appear to have remained loyal to him and his promise to transform Tunisia. But he isn’t affiliated with any political party, and it’s unclear just how deep his support runs among Tunisians.
It’s the first presidential race since Saied upended the country’s politics in July 2021, declaring a state of emergency, sacking his prime minister, suspending the parliament and rewriting Tunisia’s constitution consolidating his own power.
Those actions outraged pro-democracy groups and leading opposition parties, who called them a coup. Yet despite anger from career politicians, voters approved Saied’s new constitution the following year in a low-turnout referendum.
Authorities subsequently began arresting Saied’s critics including journalists, lawyers, politicians and civil society figures, charging them with endangering state security and violating a controversial anti-fake news law that observers argue stifles dissent.
Fewer voters turned out to participate in parliamentary and local elections in 2022 and 2023 amid economic woes and widespread political apathy.
Who’s running?
Many wanted to challenge Saied, but few were able to.
Seventeen potential candidates filed paperwork to run and Tunisia’s election authority approved only three: Saied, Zouhair Maghzaoui and Ayachi Zammel.
Maghzaoui is a veteran politician who has campaigned against Saied’s economic program and recent political arrests. Still, he is loathed by opposition parties for backing Saied’s constitution and earlier moves to consolidate power.
Zammel is a businessman supported by politicians not boycotting the race. During the campaign, he has been sentenced to prison time in four voter fraud cases related to signatures his team gathered to qualify for the ballot.
Others had hoped to run but were prevented. The election authority, known as ISIE, last month dismissed a court ruling ordering it to reinstate three additional challengers.
With many arrested, detained or convicted on charges related to their political activities, Tunisia’s most well-known opposition figures are also not participating.
That includes the 83-year-old leader of Tunisia’s most well organized political party Ennahda, which rose to power after the Arab Spring. Rached Ghannouchi, the Islamist party’s co-founder and Tunisia’s former house speaker, has been imprisoned since last year after criticizing Saied.
The crackdown also includes one of Ghannouchi’s most vocal detractors: Abir Moussi, a right-wing lawmaker known for railing against Islamists and speaking nostalgically for pre-Arab Spring Tunisia. The 49-year-old president of the Free Destourian Party also was imprisoned last year after criticizing Saied.
Other less known politicians who announced plans to run have also since been jailed or sentenced on similar charges.
Opposition groups have called to boycott the race. The National Salvation Front — a coalition of secular and Islamist parties including Ennahda — has denounced the process as a sham and questioned the election’s legitimacy.
What are the other issues?
The country’s economy continues to face major challenges. Despite Saied’s promises to chart a new course for Tunisia, unemployment has steadily increased to one of the region’s highest at 16 percent, with young Tunisians hit particularly hard.
Growth has been slow since the COVID-19 pandemic and Tunisia has remained reliant on multilateral lenders such as the World Bank and the European Union. Today, Tunisia owes them more than $9 billion. Apart from agricultural reform, Saied’s overarching economic strategy is unclear.
Negotiations have long been stalled over a $1.9 billion bailout package offered by the International Monetary Fund in 2022. Saied has been unwilling to accept its conditions, which include restructuring indebted state-owned companies and cutting public wages. Some of the IMF’s stipulations — including lifting subsidies for electricity, flour and fuel — would likely be unpopular among Tunisians who rely on their low costs.
Economic analysts say that foreign and local investors are reluctant to invest in Tunisia due to continued political risks and an absence of reassurances.
The dire economic straits have had a two-pronged effect on one of Tunisia’s key political issues: migration. From 2019 to 2023, an increasing number of Tunisians attempted to migrate to Europe without authorization. Meanwhile, Saied’s administration has taken a harsh approach against migrants arriving from sub-Saharan Africa, many who have found themselves stuck in Tunisia while trying to reach Europe.
Saied energized his supporters in early 2023 by accusing migrants of violence and crime and portraying them as part of a plot to change the country’s demography. The anti-migrant rhetoric prompted extreme violence against migrants and a crackdown from authorities. Last year, security forces targeted migrant communities from the coast to the capital with a series of arrests, deportation to the desert and the demolition of tent camps in Tunis and coastal towns.
Bodies continue to wash ashore on Tunisia’s coastline as boats carrying Tunisians and migrants from sub-Saharan Africa manage only to make it a few nautical miles before sinking.
What does it mean overseas?
Tunisia has maintained ties with its traditional Western allies but also forged new partnerships under Saied.
Much like many populist leaders who’ve taken power worldwide, Saied emphasizes sovereignty and freeing Tunisia from what he calls “foreign diktats.” He has insisted that Tunisia won’t become a “border guard” for Europe, which has sought agreements with him to better police the Mediterranean.
Tunisia and Iran lifted visa requirements and in May announced plans to boost trade ties. It has also accepted millions in loans as part of China’s Belt and Road Initiative to build hospitals, stadiums and ports.
Yet European countries remain Tunisia’s top trade partners and their leaders have maintained productive ties with Saied, hailing agreements to manage migration as a “model” for the region.
Saied has spoken ardently in support of Palestinians as war has swept the Middle East and opposes moves made to normalize diplomatic ties with Israel.
Israeli strike closes off road used to flee Lebanon to Syria, Lebanese transport minister says
- transport minister said that the crossing was subject to the authority of the Lebanese state
- Israeli air raids at night targeted Hezbollah official Hashem Safieddine, rumored successor to its assassinated leader Hassan Nasrallah
WASHINGTON/BEIRUT/JERUSALEM: An Israeli strike on Friday morning near Lebanon’s Masnaa border crossing with Syria cut off a road used by hundreds of thousands of people to flee Israeli bombardments in recent days, Lebanon Transport Minister Ali Hamieh told Reuters.
Hamieh said the strike hit inside Lebanese territory near the border crossing, creating a four-meter (12 feet) wide crater.
An Israel Defense Forces (IDF) military spokesman had accused Iran-backed Lebanese armed group Hezbollah on Thursday of using the crossing to transport military equipment into Lebanon. “The IDF will not allow the smuggling of these weapons and will not hesitate to act if forced to do so, as it has done throughout this war,” IDF spokesman Avichay Adraee said on X.
According to Lebanese government statistics, more than 300,000 people — a vast majority of them Syrian — had crossed from Lebanon into Syria over the last 10 days to escape escalating Israeli bombardment.
The escalating fighting between Hezbollah and Israel has raised fears that the United States and Iran will be sucked into the Middle East conflict raging on several fronts.
Nations worldwide have prepared contingency plans to evacuate citizens from Lebanon after a dramatic escalation in the conflict between Israel and the Lebanese armed movement Hezbollah.
Although no country has launched a large-scale military evacuation yet, some are chartering aircraft. People are also fleeing on their own.
US President Joe Biden said he did not believe there is going to be an “all-out war” in the Middle East, as Israel weighs options for retaliation after Tehran’s largest ever assault on its arch-enemy.
However, Biden said more needed to be done to avoid a Middle East war, as Israel’s military hit Beirut with new air strikes in its battle against Lebanese armed group Hezbollah.
Asked by reporters in Washington on Thursday how confident he was that such a war could be averted, Biden said, “How confident are you it’s not going to rain? Look, I don’t believe there is going to be an all-out war. I think we can avoid it.
“But there is a lot to do yet, a lot to do yet.”
While the United States, the European Union, and other allies have called for an immediate 21-day ceasefire in the Israel-Lebanon conflict, Biden said the US was discussing with Israel its options for responding to Tehran’s assault, which included Israel striking Iran’s oil facilities.
“We’re discussing that,” Biden told reporters.
His comments contributed to a surge in global oil prices, and rising Middle East tension has made traders worry about potential supply disruptions.
However, Biden added: “There is nothing going to happen today.” Asked later if he was urging Israel not to attack Iran’s oil installations, Biden said he would not negotiate in public.
On Wednesday, the president said he would not support any Israeli strike on Iran’s nuclear sites.
On Thursday, Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations, Danny Danon, told CNN his country had “a lot of options” for retaliation and would show Tehran its strength “soon.”
Beirut’s southern suburb of Dahiye, a stronghold of the Iran-backed Hezbollah, came under renewed strikes near midnight on Thursday after Israel ordered people to leave their homes in some areas, residents and security sources said.
The air raids targeted Hezbollah official Hashem Safieddine, rumored successor to its assassinated leader Hassan Nasrallah, in an underground bunker, Axios reporter Barak Ravid said on X, citing three Israeli officials.
Safieddine’s fate was not clear, he said.
Israel’s military declined comment.
Israel said Hezbollah launched about 230 rockets from Lebanon toward Israel on Thursday.
Hezbollah said it targeted what it called Israel’s “Sakhnin base” for military industries in Haifa Bay on the Mediterranean coast of northern Israel with a salvo of rockets.
Late on Thursday, Hezbollah said it also targeted Israel’s “Nesher base” in Haifa with a salvo of Fadi 2 rockets.
G7 calls for restraint
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed Iran will pay for Tuesday’s missile attack, and Washington said it would work with its longtime ally to ensure Iran faced “severe consequences.”
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, speaking in Doha, said on Thursday that Tehran would be ready to respond.
“Any type of military attack, terrorist act or crossing our red lines will be met with a decisive response by our armed forces,” he said.
Israel, which has been fighting Hamas in the Palestinian territory of Gaza for almost a year, sent troops into southern Lebanon on Tuesday after two weeks of intense airstrikes in a worsening conflict that has drawn in Iran and risks involving the United States.
Hezbollah says it killed 17 troops
Israel says its operations in Lebanon seek to allow tens of thousands of its citizens to return home after Hezbollah bombardments during the Gaza war forced them to evacuate from its north.
More than 1.2 million Lebanese have been displaced by Israeli attacks, and nearly 2,000 people have been killed since the start of the Israeli attacks on Lebanon over the last year, most of them in the past two weeks, Lebanese authorities said.
Early on Friay, Lebanon’s health ministry said 27 people were killed and 151 wounded over the prior day.
Hezbollah says it has repelled several land operations by Israeli troops, with measures such as ambushes and direct clashes.
The group said it killed 17 Israeli military personnel in combat in southern Lebanon on Thursday, citing its field and security sources. Israeli forces did not comment on the claim.
Israel deadliest West Bank strike in decades
- The Israeli military said its strike in the northern West Bank killed Hamas leader Zahi Yaser Abd Al-Razeq Oufi
BEIRUT: A source within the Palestinian security services told AFP that an air raid on the refugee camp of Tulkarm, killing 18 people, was the deadliest in the occupied West Bank since 2000.
The Israeli military said its strike in the northern West Bank killed Hamas leader Zahi Yaser Abd Al-Razeq Oufi, who it accused of participating in numerous attacks.
Alaa Sroji, a social activist from the area, said an Israeli warplane had “hit a cafeteria in a four-story building.”
Israel, at war in Gaza since Hamas’s October 7 attack, has expanded its military campaign to secure its northern border and ensure the safe return of more than 60,000 people displaced by Hezbollah attacks over the past year.
On the Gaza front, the military said a strike three months ago killed three senior Hamas leaders, including Rawhi Mushtaha, the head of the militant movement’s government in the war-ravaged Palestinian territory.
Hezbollah began strikes on Israeli troops a day after Hamas staged its October 7 attack on Israel, which resulted in the deaths of 1,205 people in Israel, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures that include hostages killed in captivity.
Israel’s retaliatory offensive in Gaza has killed at least 41,788 people, the majority of them civilians, according to figures provided by the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry. The United Nations has described the figures as reliable.
The ministry toll Thursday included 99 fatalities over the past 24 hours.
Iran’s Khamenei to give rare Friday sermon after attack on Israel
- The prayer will follow “a commemoration ceremony” for Hassan Nasrallah
- Khamenei had declared public mourning in Iran for Nasrallah and on Wednesday said that the Hezbollah chief’s death was “not a small matter.”
TEHRAN: Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is set to lead Friday prayers and deliver a public sermon that could shed light on the Islamic republic’s plans after a massive missile attack on enemy Israel.
Khamenei’s rare Friday sermon — a first in almost five years — comes three days before the one-year anniversary of the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza, triggered by the Iran-backed Palestinian group’s October 7 attack.
The supreme leader, who wields the highest authority in Iran, will lead Muslims in prayer at the Imam Khomeini Grand Mosalla mosque in central Tehran, his official website said.
The prayer will follow “a commemoration ceremony” at 10:30 am (0700 GMT) for Hassan Nasrallah, the slain leader of Tehran-backed Lebanese armed movement Hezbollah.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, who answer to Khamenei, said Tuesday’s barrages of some 200 missiles were in retaliation for Israel’s killing of Nasrallah alongside Guards commander Abbas Nilforoushan in a late September strike on Beirut, and of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran in July.
Khamenei last led Friday prayers in January 2020 after Iran fired missiles at a US army base in Iraq, in response to a strike that killed revered Revolutionary Guards commander Qasem Soleimani.
In Tehran on Thursday, crowds waving Hezbollah and Iran flags gathered outside the former US embassy building in Tehran to denounce Israeli “crimes” in the Gaza Strip and in Lebanon, Iranian media reported.
Khamenei had declared public mourning in Iran for Nasrallah and on Wednesday said that the Hezbollah chief’s death was “not a small matter.”
Hamas, Hezbollah and other armed groups in the Middle East are part of the Iran-aligned “axis of resistance” opposed to Israel and its ally the United States.
Analysts said Iran’s missile attack — its second-ever directly targeting Israel — was meant to counter a string of setbacks suffered by Tehran and its regional allies.
Iran has said this week’s attack was carried out in “self-defense” and warned of “crushing attacks” on Israel if it retaliated.
The Islamic republic has also warned the US — Israel’s top arms provider — against intervening, threatening “a harsh response” if it did.
Washington has said Iran must suffer “consequences,” which may be coordinated with Israeli officials, for the ballistic missile fire.
US President Joe Biden said Thursday he was discussing possible Israeli strikes on Iranian oil sites.
In April Tehran had sent missiles and drones against Israel in retaliation for a deadly Israeli strike on Iran’s consulate in Damascus.
In both attacks, nearly all missiles were intercepted by Israel or its allies, according to Israeli authorities.
37 killed in Israeli strikes on Lebanon in past 24 hours, health ministry says
- Among the dead were nine residents of an apartment in the Lebanese capital, according to authorities
- There was no warning before the strike late Wednesday, which hit the building close to UN headquarters
BEIRUT: Thirty seven people were killed and 151 wounded in Israeli strikes on Lebanon in the past 24 hours, the Lebanese health ministry said in a statement early on Friday
Among the dead were nine residents of an apartment in the Lebanese capital, according to ministry.
Israel has been pounding areas of the country where the Hezbollah militant group has a strong presence since late September, but has rarely struck in the heart of Beirut.
There was no warning before the strike late Wednesday, which hit the building close to the United Nations headquarters, the prime minister’s office and parliament. Hezbollah’s civil defense unit said seven of its members were killed.
Israel is also conducting a ground incursion into Lebanon against Hezbollah, while also conducting strikes in Gaza that killed dozens, including children. The Israeli military said nine soldiers have died in the conflict in southern Lebanon.
Israel and Hezbollah have traded fire across the Lebanon border almost daily since the day after Hamas’ cross-border attack on Oct. 7, 2023, which killed 1,200 Israelis and took 250 others hostage.
Israel declared war on the militant group in the Gaza Strip in response. More than 41,000 Palestinians have been killed in the territory, and just over half the dead have been women and children, according to local health officials.
Nearly 2,000 people have been killed in Lebanon, according to the Lebanese Health Ministry.
