GENEVA: A spike in clashes between rival militias in Libya has pushed the number of people driven from their homes to an estimated 287,000, the United Nations’ refugee agency said Friday.
UNHCR spokesman Adrian Edwards told reporters that some 100,000 people had fled over the past three weeks from Warshefana, on the outskirts of the capital Tripoli.
Another 15,000 people were estimated to have been displaced around Libya’s eastern city of Benghazi, he said.
A total of some 287,000 people are estimated to have fled conflict and are scattered in 29 towns and cities countrywide, many of them in dire straits, he said.
“The need for health care, food, and other basic commodities — plus for shelter ahead of winter — has become critical,” said Edwards.
He said aid agencies were working flat out to help those in need but faced “major constraints in funding for the internally displaced, while the security situation over recent months has posed challenges in reaching those in need.”
Most displaced people are living with locals who in some cases have opened their homes to several families at a time to meet the growing need for shelter, Edwards said.
Those unable to stay with relatives or host families were sleeping in schools, parks and non-residential buildings converted into emergency shelters.
Host communities were finding themselves swamped, Edwards said, giving the example of the small town of Ajaylat, some 80 km west of Tripoli.
The community of around 100,000 people had taken in 16,000 more who fled fighting, placing a massive strain on health facilities.
“As well as the impact on the local population, the fighting is also affecting refugees, asylum-seekers, and migrants in Libya — many of them from Middle Eastern countries and Sub-Saharan Africa,” Edwards noted.
Lawlessness and spiraling food prices have made some of them desperate to leave.
“Libya’s policy of detaining refugees and migrants has pushed many to put their lives in the hands of smugglers to try to get to Europe,” said Edwards.
The majority of the more than 165,000 people who have arrived on Europe’s shores so far this year, risking their lives to cross the Mediterranean, came from Libya.
Half of those leaving Libya were from war-torn Syria or people escaping the iron-fisted regime in Eritrea.
Libya clashes render 287,000 homeless
Libya clashes render 287,000 homeless
Israel opposition submits bill to dissolve parliament: statement
JERUSALEM: Israel’s opposition leaders said Wednesday they submitted a bill to dissolve parliament, which if successful could start paving the way to a snap election.
Ultra-Orthodox parties that are propping up Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government are threatening to vote for the motion.
“The opposition faction leaders have decided to bring the bill to dissolve the Knesset to a vote in the Knesset plenum today. The decision was made unanimously and is binding on all factions,” the leaders said in a statement, adding that all their parties would freeze their ongoing legislation to focus on “the overthrow of the government.”
Gaza rescuers say 31 killed by Israel fire near aid center
- Israeli troops fired on people waiting to enter a food distribution center
GAZA: The Gaza civil defense agency said 31 people were killed and “about 200” wounded Wednesday when Israeli troops fired on people waiting to enter a food distribution center.
“We transported at least 31 martyrs and about 200 wounded as a result of Israeli tank and drone fire on thousands of citizens... on their way to receive food from the American aid center,” civil defense spokesman Mahmud Bassal told AFP. The Israeli army did not immediately respond to an AFP request for comment.
Turkish court issues arrest warrant for owner of pro-opposition TV channel
- Arrest warrant for Cafer Mahiroglu, owner of Halk TV, issued as part of an investigation into an alleged criminal organization
- Several main opposition CHP members including district mayors were arrested under the investigation
ANKARA: An Istanbul court has issued an arrest warrant for the owner of a television channel aligned with Turkiye’s main opposition party on charges of bid-rigging, the prosecutor’s office said late on Tuesday.
The arrest warrant for Cafer Mahiroglu, owner of Halk TV, was issued as part of an investigation into an alleged criminal organization suspected of rigging public tenders by bribing public officials.
Several main opposition CHP members including district mayors were arrested under the investigation, part of a widening legal crackdown against the jailed mayor of Istanbul, President Tayyip Erdogan’s main political rival, and the opposition.
Mahiroglu, a Turkish businessperson who lives in London, denied the charges in a post on X.
“I am being accused based on the fabricated false statements and slander of someone I have never met or seen in my life,” he said, adding that he has been living abroad for 35 years.
“So, there is a price to be the owner of Halk TV, the people’s television, and to defend democracy, rights and law.”
He did not say if he would return to Turkiye to contest the charges.
Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu of the Republican People’s Party (CHP), who leads Erdogan in some opinion polls, was jailed in March pending trial on corruption charges, which he denies.
His arrest triggered mass protests, economic turmoil and broad accusations of government influence over the judiciary and anti-democratic applications. The government has denied the accusations and said the judiciary is independent.
Since his arrest, authorities have detained dozens of CHP members, officials from the Istanbul municipality, and other CHP-run municipalities.
Sudanese army retreats from Libyan border after alleging Haftar attack
- Haftar forces denied involvement in the attack and accused a force affiliated with the Sudanese armed forces of attacking a military patrol
- The war between Sudan’s army and the RSF has drawn in multiple foreign countries
DUBAI: The Sudanese army retreated from the Libya-Egypt-Sudan border triangle area, it said on Wednesday, a day after it accused forces loyal to eastern Libyan military commander Khalifa Haftar of an attack alongside the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces.
Sudanese soldiers, largely from former rebel groups aligned with the army, had patrolled the area. Sudan’s military, which is fighting against the RSF in a civil war, accuses the RSF and Haftar’s forces of using the corridor for weapons deliveries. The area is close to the city of Al-Fashir, one of the war’s main frontlines.
“As part of its defensive arrangements to repel aggression, our forces today evacuated the triangle area,” the Sudanese army said in a statement without elaborating.
Late on Tuesday, Haftar’s forces had denied participating in a cross-border attack, saying forces allied to the Sudanese army had attacked Libyan patrols.
Sudan accuses the United Arab Emirates, one of Haftar’s backers, of being behind the weapons deliveries, which the UAE denies. Egypt, a close ally of the Sudanese army, also backs Haftar.
‘What wrong did he do?’ Gaza family mourn three-year-old shot dead
- In Gaza, “There’s no hope or peace”
KHAN YUNIS, Palestinian Territories: Gazan mother Amal Abu Shalouf ran her hand over her son’s face and hair, a brief farewell before a man abruptly sealed the body bag carrying the three-year-old who was killed just hours earlier on Tuesday.
“Amir, my love, my dear!” cried his mother, struggling to cross the crowded courtyard of Nasser Hospital in Khan Yunis, southern Gaza’s main city, where several bodies lay in white plastic shrouds.
According to the civil defense agency, at least nine people were killed on Tuesday in the southern Gaza Strip as Israeli forces carried out military operations, more than 20 months into the war triggered by Hamas’s 2023 attack on Israel.
Contacted by AFP, the military did not respond to a request for comment about Amir Abu Shalouf’s death.
At the hospital, a man carried the boy’s body in his arms through a crowd of dozens of mourners.
“I swear, I can’t take it,” his teenage brother, Ahmad Abu Shalouf, said, his face covered in tears.
“What wrong did he do?” said another brother, Mohammad Abu Shalouf. “An innocent little boy, sitting inside his tent, and a bullet struck him in the back.”
Mohammad said he had “found him shot in the back” as he returned to the tent that has become the family’s home in Al-Mawasi, a coastal area near Khan Yunis that is now a massive encampment for displaced Palestinians.
The devastating war has created dire humanitarian conditions in Gaza, where the United Nations has warned that the entire population is at risk of famine.
The grieving mother, comforted by relatives, said her young son had been begging for food in recent days and dreaming of a piece of meat.
“There is no food, no water, no clothing,” said Amal, who has eight children to take care of.
Amal said she too was injured in the pre-dawn incident that killed her son.
“I heard something fall next to my foot while I was sitting and baking, and suddenly felt something hit me. I started screaming,” she said.
Outside the tent at the time, she said she tried crawling and reaching for other family members.
“Then I heard my daughter screaming from inside the tent... found them holding my son, his abdomen and back covered in blood.”
A group of men formed lines to recite a prayer for the dead, their words almost drowned out by the noise of Israeli drones flying overhead.
In the second row, Ahmad Abu Shalouf held his hands over his stomach in prayer, unable to hold back a stream of tears.
Similar scenes played out at the hospital courtyard again and again over several hours, as the day’s dead were mourned.
At one point, an emaciated man collapsed in front of the shrouded bodies.
One mourner pressed his head against one of the bodies, carried on a stretcher at the start of a funeral procession, before being helped up by others.
At a distance, a group of women supported Umm Mohammad Shahwan, a grieving mother, with all of them in tears.
“We need the war to end,” said Amal Abu Shalouf.
In Gaza, she lamented, “there’s no hope or peace.”
