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Tunisia burns migrant tents in latest clearance effort: AFP

Tunisian authorities on Thursday set fire to tents housing sub-Saharan African migrants, an AFP correspondent said, in a new drive to clear their informal camps.Many migrants arrived in Tunisia after crossing the deserts of Algeria and Mali, hoping to reach Italy. But tighter controls on the sea route have left them stranded.For nearly two years, olive groves around El Amra, a town near the city of Sfax, served as informal camps for thousands of the migrants but on April 4 authorities began dismantling the camps.Around 3,300 more migrants had to leave the olive groves on Thursday, said Houcem Eddine Jebabli, spokesman for the National Guard, which said around 4,000 had left in the earlier operation.”It’s the strategy of the State that Tunisia not be a place of settlement or transit for illegal migrants. Tunisia is coordinating with the countries of departure, of welcome as well as the international NGOs to ensure voluntary repatriation,” Jebabli told reporters.The makeshift shelters located a few kilometres (miles) from Tunisia’s Mediterranean coast have grown as a source of tension. Local residents complain about the camps and demand that the land be cleared.Last year, Tunisia signed a 255-million-euro ($290-million) deal with the European Union, nearly half of which is earmarked for tackling irregular migration.Tunisian President Kais Saied on March 25 called on the United Nations International Organization for Migration (IOM) to accelerate voluntary returns for irregular migrants to their home countries.Among those told to leave the camps on Thursday was a Guinean, known as Mac, who has been in Tunisia for two years.”It’s very hard here,” he said.Like many migrants, he has registered with IOM to return to his homeland.The IOM said Thursday it had facilitated the voluntary return of more than 2,300 migrants from Tunisia, after nearly 7,000 throughout 2024, which was well above the combined total for 2023 and 2022.

Sudan war destroys world’s only research centre on skin disease mycetoma: director

The world’s only research centre on mycetoma, a neglected tropical disease common among farmers, has been destroyed in Sudan’s two-year war, its director and another expert say.Mycetoma is caused by bacteria or fungus and usually enters the body through cuts. It is a progressively destructive infectious disease of the body tissue, affecting skin, muscle and even bone.It is often characterised by swollen feet, but can also cause barnacle-like growths and club-like hands.”The centre and all its infrastructure were destroyed during the war in Sudan,” Ahmed Fahal, director of the Mycetoma Research Centre (MRC), told AFP.”We lost the entire contents of our biological banks, where there was data from more than 40 years,” said Fahal, whose centre had treated thousands of patients from Sudan and other countries.”It’s difficult to bear.” Since April 15, 2023, Sudan’s army has been at war with the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces throughout the northeast African country.The MRC is located in the Khartoum area, which the army last month reclaimed from the RSF during a war that has killed tens of thousands of people and uprooted more than 12 million.Sudan’s health care system has been left at the “breaking point”, according to the World Health Organization.Among the conflict’s casualties is now the MRC, established in 1991 under the auspices of the University of Khartoum. It was a rare story of medical success in impoverished Sudan.A video provided by the global Drugs for Neglected Diseases initiative (DNDi) shows collapsed ceilings, shelves overturned, fridges open and documents scattered about.AFP was not able to independently verify the MRC’s current condition.The centre had grown to include 50 researchers and treat 12,000 patients each year, Fahal said.Mycetoma is listed as a neglected tropical disease by the WHO.The organisms that cause mycetoma also occur in Sudan’s neighbours, including Chad and Ethiopia, as well as in other tropical and sub-tropical areas, among them Mexico and Thailand, WHO says.For herders, farmers and other workers depending on manual labour to survive, crippling mycetoma infections can be a life sentence.Drawing on the MRC’s expertise, in 2019 the WHO and Sudan’s government convened the First International Training Workshop on Mycetoma, in Khartoum.”Today, Sudan, which was at the forefront of awareness of mycetomas, has gone 100 percent backwards,” said Dr. Borna Nyaoke-Anoke, DNDi’s head of mycetoma. 

Israel army warns of ‘larger’ Gaza assault as strikes kill 55

Gaza rescue teams and medics said Israeli air strikes killed at least 55 people on Thursday, as the military threatened an even larger offensive if hostages were not freed soon. Israel resumed its military assault in the Gaza Strip on March 18, after the collapse of a two-month ceasefire that had brought a temporary halt to fighting in the blockaded Palestinian territory.Israel’s army chief, visiting troops in Gaza on Thursday, threatened to expand the offensive in Gaza if hostages seized during Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel were not released.”If we do not see progress in the return of the hostages in the near future, we will expand our activities to a larger and more significant operation,” Lieutenant General Eyal Zamir said.The warning came as the army issued fresh evacuation orders for northern areas of Gaza ahead of a planned attack.Earlier in the day, six members of one family — a couple and their four children — were killed when an air strike levelled their home in northern Gaza City, the civil defence agency said in a statement.Nidal al-Sarafiti, a relative, said the strike happened as the family was sleeping.”What can I say? The destruction has spared no one,” he told AFP.Nine people were killed and several wounded in another strike on a former police station in the Jabalia area of northern Gaza, according to a statement from the Indonesian hospital, where the casualties were taken.”Everyone started running and screaming, not knowing what to do from the horror and severity of the bombing,” said Abdel Qader Sabah, 23, from Jabalia.Israel’s military said it struck a Hamas “command and control centre” in the area but did not say whether it was the police station.In another deadly attack, the bodies of 12 people were recovered after the Hajj Ali family home, also in Jabalia, was struck, the civil defence said.Another 28 people were killed in strikes across the territory, medics and the civil defence agency reported.They came as the Israeli military ordered Palestinians living in the northern areas of Beit Hanoun and Sheikh Zayed to evacuate ahead of an attack.”Due to ongoing terrorist activities and sniper fire against IDF troops in the area, the IDF is intensely operating in the area,” the military’s Arabic-language spokesman Avichay Adraee said on X.The United Nations has warned that Israel’s expanding evacuation orders across Gaza are resulting in the “forcible transfer” of people into ever-shrinking areas.Aid agencies estimate that the vast majority of Gaza’s 2.4 million residents have been displaced at least once since the war began. – Killed ‘one by one’ -In the aftermath of a strike in Khan Yunis, AFP footage showed bodies on the ground, including those of a young woman and a boy in body bags, surrounded by grieving relatives kissing and stroking their faces.”One by one we are getting martyred, dying in pieces,” said Rania al-Jumla who lost her sister in another strike in Khan Yunis.Since Israel resumed its military operations, at least 1,978 people have been killed in Gaza, raising the overall death toll to at least 51,355 since the war began, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory.The military acknowledged on Thursday that Israeli tank fire had killed a UN worker in the central Gaza city of Deir el-Balah last month, according to an investigation’s initial findings.It had initially denied operating in the area where a Bulgarian employee of United Nations Office for Project Services (UNOPS) was killed on March 19.Bulgaria said it had received an “official apology” from Israel over the killing.The findings came after the military on Sunday reported on a separate probe into the killing of 15 Palestinian emergency workers in Gaza.It admitted that operational failures led to their deaths, and said a field commander would be dismissed.The war was ignited by the Hamas-led October 7 attack on Israel, which resulted in the deaths of 1,218 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.During the attack, militants also abducted 251 people and took them to Gaza. Of those, 58 remain in captivity, including 34 the military says are dead.Israeli officials maintain that the ongoing military campaign is essential to securing the release of the remaining hostages. However, many families of the captives, along with thousands of protesters, have strongly criticised the authorities for pressing ahead with the offensive rather than striking a deal.

Trump announces interview with reporter in Signal chat scandal

President Donald Trump announced Thursday he will sit for an interview with the reporter who uncovered a major security lapse after being inadvertently added to a group chat in which top US officials shared secret military strike plans.The Atlantic magazine editor Jeffrey Goldberg was propelled to global fame — and roundly attacked by Trump and other cabinet officials — after publishing details of the sensitive exchanges on the Signal app in the run up to US strikes on rebel Huthis in Yemen.Trump referenced the so-called “Signalgate” scandal when he announced the interview — scheduled for later Thursday — in a social media post that accused Goldberg of being “the person responsible for many fictional stories about me.””I am doing this interview out of curiosity, and as a competition with myself, just to see if it’s possible for The Atlantic to be ‘truthful,’ Trump said.Goldberg’s stunning inclusion in the Yemen strikes chat sent shockwaves through the national security establishment and around the world, leading to calls for the resignation of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, a former Fox News host. Hegseth, who is a military veteran but had no previous national security experience, revealed the times of strikes on the Iran-backed Huthis and the type of aircraft, missiles and drones used — all before the attacks actually happened.Democrats have claimed that the lives of US service members could have been put at risk by the breach, and the row has raised serious questions about potential intelligence perils.Trump has so far stood by Hegseth and other top officials on the chat, dismissing the scandal as a “witch hunt” and arguing that his Pentagon chief is doing a “great job.”Goldberg — who will conduct Thursday’s interview with two Atlantic colleagues, according to Trump’s post — also drew the president’s ire in 2020 for an article in which he reported senior US military officers hearing the president call soldiers killed in World War I “suckers” and “losers.”Trump has angrily denied the claim on multiple occasions but John Kelly, his chief of staff at the time of the purported remark, confirmed Goldberg’s reporting. 

Gaza rescuers say Israeli strikes kill 53

Gaza rescue teams and medics said Israeli air strikes killed at least 53 people on Thursday, as the military issued fresh evacuation orders ahead of a planned attack.Israel resumed its military offensive in the Gaza Strip on March 18, after the collapse of a two-month ceasefire that had brought a temporary halt to fighting in the blockaded Palestinian territory.Israel’s army chief, visiting troops in Gaza on Thursday, threatened a “larger” offensive in Gaza if hostages seized in the Hamas October 7, 2023 attack on Israel are not freed.”If we do not see progress in the return of the hostages in the near future, we will expand our activities to a larger and more significant operation,” Lieutenant General Eyal Zamir said.Six members of one family — a couple and their four children — were killed when an air strike levelled their home in northern Gaza City Thursday, the civil defence said in a statement.Nidal al-Sarafiti, a relative, said the strike happened as the family was sleeping.”What can I say? The destruction has spared no one,” he told AFP.Nine people were killed and several wounded in another strike on a former police station in the Jabalia area of northern Gaza, according to a statement from the Indonesian hospital, where the casualties were taken.”Everyone started running and screaming, not knowing what to do from the horror and severity of the bombing,” said Abdel Qader Sabah, 23, from Jabalia.Israel’s military said it struck a Hamas “command and control centre” in the Jabalia area but did not say whether it was the police station.In another deadly attack, the bodies of 12 people were recovered after the Hajj Ali family home, also in Jabalia, was struck, the civil defence said.Another 26 people were killed in strikes across the territory, medics and the civil defence agency reported.They came as the Israeli military ordered Palestinians living in the northern areas of Beit Hanoun and Sheikh Zayed to evacuate ahead of an attack.”Due to ongoing terrorist activities and sniper fire against IDF troops in the area, the IDF is intensely operating in the area,” the military’s Arabic-language spokesman Avichay Adraee said on X.The United Nations has warned that Israel’s expanding evacuation orders across Gaza are resulting in the “forcible transfer” of people into ever-shrinking areas.Aid agencies estimate that the vast majority of Gaza’s 2.4 million residents have been displaced at least once since the war began. – Killed ‘one by one’ -In the aftermath of a strike in Khan Yunis, AFP footage showed bodies on the ground, including those of a young woman and a boy in body bags, surrounded by grieving relatives kissing and stroking their faces.”One by one we are getting martyred, dying in pieces,” said Rania al-Jumla who lost her sister in another strike in Khan Yunis.Since Israel resumed its military operations, at least 1,978 people have been killed in Gaza, raising the overall death toll to at least 51,355 since the war began, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory.The military said Thursday that Israeli tank fire killed a UN worker in the central Gaza city of Deir el-Balah last month, according to an investigation’s initial findings.It had initially denied operating in the area where a Bulgarian employee of United Nations Office for Project Services (UNOPS) was killed on March 19.Bulgaria said it had received an “official apology” from Israel over the killing.The findings come after the military on Sunday reported on a separate probe into the killing of 15 Palestinian emergency workers in Gaza.It admitted that operational failures led to their deaths, and said a field commander would be dismissed.The war was ignited by the Hamas-led October 7 attack on Israel, which resulted in the deaths of 1,218 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.During the attack, militants also abducted 251 people and took them to Gaza. Of those, 58 remain in captivity, including 34 the military says are dead.Israeli officials maintain that the ongoing military campaign is essential to securing the release of the remaining hostages. However, many families of the captives, along with thousands of protesters, have strongly criticised the authorities for pressing ahead with the offensive rather than striking a deal.

Israel president says ‘moral imperative’ to bring home Gaza hostages

Israel’s president said at a Holocaust remembrance ceremony on Thursday that the return of hostages held by Palestinian militants in Gaza was a “universal moral imperative” and called on the international community to help end “this horrific humanitarian crime”.Isaac Herzog spoke from the southern Polish city of Oswiecim, the site of the former Nazi German death camp Auschwitz-Birkenau, on the occasion of the annual March of the Living to commemorate its victims.Auschwitz was the largest of the extermination camps built by Nazi Germany and has become a symbol of the Holocaust of six million European Jews. One million Jews and more than 100,000 non-Jews died at the site between 1940 and 1945.”With a broken heart, I remind us all that even though after the Holocaust we swore ‘never again’, today — here and now — the souls of dozens of Jews are once again yearning within a cage, longing for water and freedom,” Herzog said at a ceremony.Nearly 60 “of our brothers and sisters remain held by terrorist murderers in Gaza, in a horrific crime against humanity”, he added.”The return of the hostages is a universal moral imperative, and I call from here — from this sacred place — for the entire international community to mobilise and end this horrific humanitarian crime.”Some 251 people, including women and children, were seized during Palestinian militant group Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on southern Israel, which left 1,218 Israelis dead according to an AFP tally based on official data, and sparked a deadly war in Gaza.Fifty-eight hostages are still being held there, including 34 the Israeli military says are dead.Israel’s military response in Gaza has unleashed a humanitarian crisis and killed at least 51,355 people, mainly civilians, according to the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza.Herzog did not mention Israel’s military operations in Gaza at the ceremony on Thursday.But Polish President Andrzej Duda said they had talked about the situation in the Middle East.”We both expressed the hope that the war that is going on in the Gaza Strip — which began with the Hamas attack on Israel — will be brought to an end,” Duda said at the ceremony. – ‘I want my grandson home’ -Thousands of people, many draped in the Israeli flag and with tears in their eyes, took part in this year’s March of the Living, which began under the sun and ended in a heavy storm at Auschwitz-Birkenau.  Participants lit candles along the railway tracks of the site and left placards with the names of loved ones killed at the camp. Holocaust survivors and former Gaza hostages were among those present.Eli Sharabi, an Israeli who was held hostage by Hamas for 16 months, said: “All the representatives present here today… it is a victory of the spirit of the Jewish people.” It is also “a reminder that the Jewish people will exist forever”, he told reporters. Faina Kuperstein, the grandmother of a hostage still being held in Gaza, said: “I want my grandson home as soon as possible.”She told reporters she believed he was “going through almost the same thing that Holocaust survivors went through”. Qatar, with the United States and Egypt, brokered a truce in Gaza between Israel and Hamas which began on January 19 and enabled a surge in aid, alongside the exchange of hostages and prisoners.Israel resumed its intense air strikes and ground offensive across Gaza on March 18 amid disagreement over the next phase in the ceasefire that for two months had largely halted the fighting.Last month, Herzog said he was shocked that the hostage issue was no longer a top priority in the country and criticised the war policy of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government.Thousands of Israelis have been holding daily protests in Jerusalem, angry over the government’s policies including a return to war, which many see as forsaking the hostages still being held in Gaza.burs-amj/rlp