News in Brief

Date: 09 October 2021 - 21:57

News ID: ۹۵۲۲۵

ABOARD GEO BARENTS (AP) – Guards at a Libyan detention center for migrants shot dead at least six people amid chaos in the overcrowded facility, UN officials said Saturday, the latest tragedy involving migrants in the North African country. The development comes a week after authorities rounded up more than 5,000 migrants in a massive crackdown and after UN-commissioned investigators said abuses and ill treatment of migrants in Libya amount to crimes against humanity. The shooting took place Friday in the Mabani detention center west of the capital Tripoli, where authorities earlier this month sent 4,187 new detainees, including 511 women and 60 children, according to the International Organization for Migration. A spokesman for Libya’s Interior Ministry, which oversees migrant detention centers, did not immediately respond to requests for comment. It wasn’t immediately clear what triggered the violence. But Vincent Cochetel, the UN refugee agency’s special envoy for the Central Mediterranean, said “human rights violations and inhuman conditions” at Libya’s overcrowded detention centers led to the mayhem, which included “indiscriminate shooting.”

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KINSHASA (AFP) – More than 100 people are believed dead or missing in the sinking of a makeshift vessel on the Congo river, provincial authorities in the Democratic Republic of Congo said Saturday. Fifty-one bodies had been recovered by late Friday from the sinking during the night of Monday to Tuesday, and another 69 are believed to be missing, Nestor Magbado, a spokesman for the governor of the northwestern province of Mongala, told AFP. He said there were 39 survivors. With no manifest of the passengers on board, the number missing is an estimate based on the capacity of the boat, he said. The vessel was actually nine traditional wooden canoes, known as pirogues, all tied together, Magbado said. He added that the accident may have been caused by “overcrowding aggravated by bad weather” during the night. The scale of the accident was not clear until it was reported by media late on Friday, and confirmed on Saturday by provincial authorities.

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LOS ANGELES (AFP) – A fractured pipeline spewing crude oil off the coast of California could have been leaking for a year, U.S. investigators say. Tens of thousands of gallons of oil are feared to have leeched into waters that are home to whales, dolphins and otters since a leak was discovered last weekend. Stretches of prime surfing coastline have been shuttered as clean-up crews raced to prevent the spoiling of beaches and rescue animals caught up in the slick. U.S. news outlets reported that a ship’s anchor could have been responsible for dragging the pipeline along the seabed and splitting it open. But Coast Guard officials investigating the incident said Friday the rupture might not be new, and could have happened as long as a year ago. Captain Jason Neubauer said multiple ships’ anchors may have contributed to the displacement of the pipe, and it was not initially clear when the leak began. Martyn Willsher, the chief executive of pipeline operator Amplify Energy, said this week that underwater observations revealed that 4,000 feet (1,200 meters) of the pipeline was not where it should be.

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TRIPOLI (Al Jazeera) – Libya’s rival sides have reached an initial agreement on the withdrawal of foreign forces and mercenaries from the North African nation in a move seen as a key step towards unifying the warring sides in the violence-wracked country. The United Nations mission mediating between the rivals said a 10-member joint military commission, with five representatives from each side, (JMC 5+5,) inked a “gradual and balanced” withdrawal deal at the end of three-day, UN-facilitated talks in Geneva. It added that the plan, coupled with an implementation mechanism, would be “the cornerstone for the gradual, balanced, and sequenced process of withdrawal” of the mercenaries and foreign forces. Jan Kubis, the UN special envoy for Libya, welcomed the move as “another breakthrough achievement”. The deal “creates a positive momentum that should be built upon to move forward towards a stable and democratic stage, including through the holding of free, credible and transparent national elections on 24 December, with results accepted by all,” Kubis said.

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RIO DE JANEIRO (Al Jazeera) – Brazil has become only the second country in the world to record more than 600,000 coronavirus deaths, as far-right President Jair Bolsonaro’s handling of the pandemic continues to face sharp criticism and scrutiny. Bolsonaro, a coronavirus skeptic, has drawn the ire of health experts and many Brazilians for downplaying the severity of the virus, rejecting lockdowns and other public health measures, and failing to rapidly secure COVID-19 vaccines. He has faced mass protests during the past several months, with demonstrators slamming his government’s COVID-19 policies and calling for his impeachment, and a Brazilian Senate committee in April launched an investigation into his pandemic policies. But despite Friday’s sombre milestone, there were signs that infections in Brazil were finally ebbing, as the country ramped up vaccinations after a slow start.