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Rescuers pull 394 migrants from dangerously overcrowded boat off Tunisia

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ABOARD SEA-WATCH 3, Mediterranean, Aug 1 – Two humanitarian rescue ships pulled 394 migrants from a dangerously overcrowded wooden boat in the Mediterranean overnight on Sunday in an operation lasting about six hours, a Reuters witness said.

The German and French NGO ships Sea-Watch 3 and Ocean Viking rescued the migrants in Tunisian waters 68 km (42 miles) from the North African coast, near oil facilities and other ships.

Sea-Watch 3, which assumed command of the operation, took 141 of the survivors while Ocean Viking took the rest. The yacht Nadir, from the German NGO ResQ Ship, later gave support.

It was not clear if there were any deaths or injuries among the migrants who were in the wooden boat, which was crammed with migrants on deck and inside the hull.

A RHIB (rigid hulled inflatable boat) from the French NGO SOS Mediterranee migrant rescue ship Ocean Viking approaches a wooden boat overcrowded with migrants, during a joint rescue operation with the German NGO migrant rescue ship Sea-Watch 3, in international waters off the coast of Tunisia, in the western Mediterranean Sea, August 1, 2021. REUTERS/Darrin Zammit Lupi

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The craft was taking in water and its engine was not working, the Reuters witness said.

Migrant boat departures from Libya and Tunisia to Italy and other parts of Europe have increased in recent months as weather conditions have improved.

According to the U.N.-affiliated International Organization for Migration, more than 1,100 people fleeing conflict and poverty in Africa and the Middle East have perished this year in the Mediterranean.

Many of the migrants in this latest rescue were seen jumping off the boat and trying to swim to Sea-Watch 3, the Reuters witness said.

The migrants were mainly men from Morocco, Bangladesh, Egypt and Syria.

Reporting by Darrin Zammit Lupi, writing by Stephen Jewkes, editing by Mark Heinrich

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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Tunisian president says he will not become a dictator after MP arrest

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TUNIS, July 30 (Reuters) – Tunisia’s president promised on Friday he would not turn into a dictator and rejected accusations he had staged a coup, as two parliament members were arrested following his decision to lift their immunity when he seized control of government this week.

Tunisia has been thrust into a political crisis by President Kais Saied’s move on Sunday to dismiss the prime minister and freeze parliament for 30 days, leading major parties to accuse him of a coup. read more

Saied has yet to carry out steps that critics say are needed to reassure Tunisians, including the appointment of an interim prime minister and a roadmap to end the emergency measures.

“I know the constitutional texts very well, respect them and taught them and after all this time I will not turn into a dictator as some have said,” the presidency quoted the former law professor saying.

Concerns over rights and freedoms in Tunisia, a democracy since the 2011 revolution, rose on Friday after the arrest of parliamentarian and influential blogger Yassin Ayari and the announcement of investigations into alleged violence by people protesting Saied’s actions during a demonstration on Monday.

The military judiciary said Ayari had been imprisoned by a judicial ruling issued three years ago for defaming the army. Saied on Sunday removed the immunity of parliament members, leaving any with cases against them vulnerable to arrest.

Another member of parliament, Maher Zid of the conservative Muslim Karama party, was detained late on Friday, according to his lawyer, after being sentenced to two years in prison in 2018 for offending people on social media and insulting the then president.

On Monday, the biggest party in parliament, the moderate Islamist Ennahda, held a sit-in outside parliament after it was surrounded by the army. Hundreds of supporters of Ennahda and Saied confronted each other, some throwing stones or bottles.

The judiciary said it had opened investigations into four people linked to Ennahda for “attempting to commit acts of violence” during the protest, including a member of a party council and two members with connections to its leader.

Saied’s move to seize executive control appears to have widespread popular support in Tunisia, where years of misgovernance, corruption, political paralysis and economic stagnation have been aggravated this year by a deadly surge in COVID-19 cases.

The United States on Friday delivered 1 million doses of the Moderna vaccine to Tunisia through the Covax programme, the U.S. embassy in Tunis said.

Saied on Friday moved the country’s COVID-19 nightly curfew back to 10 p.m. from 7 p.m. Despite the political crisis, there have been no signs of unrest in Tunisia since the protest outside parliament on Monday.

Washington has been a vocal supporter of Tunisian democracy since the revolution. read more

“We urge President Saied to provide a clear roadmap and quickly lift the emergency measures and unfreeze the parliament,” State Department spokesperson Jalina Porter said on Friday.

Reporting by Tarek Amara; Writing by Angus McDowall; Editing by Alison Williams, Emelia Sithole-Matarise, Joe Bavier, Clelia Oziel and Daniel Wallis

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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Tunisian president sacks prime minister, freezes parliament

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  • President sacks government, freezes parliament
  • President says he will govern alongside new PM
  • Parliament speaker calls move a coup
  • Tunisia’s democratic constitution facing biggest test yet

TUNIS, July 25 (Reuters) – Tunisia’s president dismissed the government and froze parliament on Sunday in a dramatic escalation of a political crisis, prompting huge crowds to fill the capital in his support, but his opponents labelled the moves a coup.

President Kais Saied said he would assume executive authority with the assistance of a new prime minister, in the biggest challenge yet to a 2014 democratic constitution that split powers between president, prime minister and parliament.

Tunisians rose up in revolution in 2011 against decades of autocracy in the first eruption of the Arab Spring, installing a democratic system that ensured new freedoms and has navigated repeated crises, but which has not delivered economic prosperity.

Years of paralysis, corruption, declining state services and growing unemployment had already soured many Tunisians on their political system before the global pandemic hammered the economy last year and COVID-19 infection rates shot up this summer.

Major protests, called by social media activists but not backed by any of the big political parties, took place on Sunday with much of the anger focused on the moderate Islamist Ennahda party, the biggest in parliament.

Ennahda, banned before the revolution, has been the most consistently successful party since 2011 and a member of successive coalition governments.

“Many people were deceived by hypocrisy, treachery and robbery of the rights of the people,” Saied said in a statement carried on state media.

“I warn any who think of resorting to weapons… and whoever shoots a bullet, the armed forces will respond with bullets,” he added.

Soon after the statement, people flooded the streets of Tunis in defiance of a COVID-19 curfew, as supporters of Saied honked car horns and cheered the news.

“We have been relieved of them,” said Lamia Meftahi, a woman celebrating in central Tunis, speaking of the parliament and government.

“This is the happiest moment since the revolution,” she added.

‘DEFEND THE REVOLUTION’

The president has been enmeshed in political disputes with Prime Minister Hichem Mechichi for over a year, as the country grapples with an economic crisis, a looming fiscal crunch and a flailing response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Parliament Speaker Rached Ghannouchi, head of the moderate Islamist Ennahda party, the biggest in parliament, accused Saied of launching “a coup against the revolution and constitution” in a phone call to Reuters.

“We consider the institutions still standing, and the supporters of the Ennahda and the Tunisian people will defend the revolution,” he added, raising the prospect of confrontations between supporters of Ennahda and Saied.

In his statement, Saied said his actions were in line with Article 80 of the constitution, and also cited the article to suspend the immunity of members of parliament.

Saied and the parliament were both elected in separate popular votes in 2019, while Mechichi took office last summer, replacing another short-lived government.

Disputes over Tunisia’s constitution were intended to be settled by a constitutional court. However, seven years after the constitution was approved, the court has yet to be installed after disputes over the appointment of judges.

Reporting by Tarek Amara and Ahmed Tolba; Writing by Angus McDowall; editing by Jonathan Oatis

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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Egypt notified that Ethiopia has resumed filling of giant dam

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Ethiopia’s Grand Renaissance Dam is seen as it undergoes construction work on the river Nile in Guba Woreda, Benishangul Gumuz Region, Ethiopia September 26, 2019. REUTERS/Tiksa Negeri/File Photo

CAIRO, July 5 (Reuters) – Egypt’s irrigation minister said on Monday he had received official notice from Ethiopia that it had begun filling the reservoir behind its giant hydropower dam, the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD), for a second year.

Egypt has informed Ethiopia of its categorical rejection of the measure, which it regards as a threat to regional stability, Irrigation Minister Mohamed Abdel Aty said in a statement.

Ethiopia says the dam on its Blue Nile is crucial to its economic development and providing power to its population.

Egypt views the dam as a grave threat to its Nile water supplies, on which it is almost entirely dependent. Sudan, another downstream country, has expressed concern about the safety of the dam and the impact on its own dams and water stations.

The volume of the accumulating water would depend on the amount of seasonal rain that fell in Ethiopia, Egyptian Irrigation Ministry spokesman Mohamed Ghanim told a local TV channel.

“We won’t see any effect now on the Nile. We have a month or a month and a half ahead of us,” he said.

Egypt and Sudan have waged a diplomatic campaign for a legally binding deal over the dam’s operation, but talks have repeatedly stalled.

The diplomatic push intensified ahead of the first filling of the dam with last summer, and again in recent weeks.

The U.N. Security Council is expected to discuss the issue on Thursday, and Abdel Aty had written to the council to inform it of the latest developments, the statement said.

Ethiopia says it is finally exercising its rights over Nile waters long controlled by its downstream neighbours.

Its ambassador to Khartoum said on Sunday that Egypt and Sudan already knew the details of the first three years of the dam’s filling, and that the issue should not be brought before the Security Council as it was not a matter of peace and security.

Reporting by Momen Saeed Atallah, Omar Fahmy and Nafisa Eltahir, Writing by Aidan Lewis; editing by Diane Craft and Sonya Hepinstall

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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