TRIPOLI, April 24 — The bodies of a total of 34 migrants have been recovered since their boat sank off Libya’s coast five days ago, the Libyan Red Crescent said today. The latest toll follows the recovery of 11 bodies today, which were “handed over to authorities” in the Mediterranean city of Sabratha, west of Tripoli, the Red Crescent confirmed on Facebook. A security source told AFP “the number of victims could increase” after the “rubber boat carrying dozens of migrants overturned not far from the coast of Sabratha on Wednesday”. Last Wednesday, the Red Crescent reported finding six bodies and a further 17 were recovered Sunday. Footage posted to Facebook showed Red Crescent volunteers carrying bodies in black bags to ambulances.

Armed groups in Zawiya, a city in northwestern Libya, ceased fighting after clashes erupted overnight causing the death of four people, according to the Ambulance and Emergency Service. The armed groups, both of which are reportedly affiliated with the Tripoli-based Government of National Unity, clashed at the city’s entrance and nearby residential areas. Thirty families were evacuated from their homes through a safe passage established by rescue teams of the Ambulance and Emergency Service. Earlier this month, armed groups clashed in the city with violence causing harm to civilians as three people were wounded. The violence also damaged the Zawiya refinery, Libya’s largest oil refinery with a capacity of up to 120,000 barrels per day.

EAST SETAUKET, N.Y. (PRWEB) April 24, 2023The completion of the new North Benghazi Court Building in April 2022 marks a promising milestone for the reconstruction efforts in Libya. PENETRON ADMIX, easily mixed in during batching, forms an integral part of the concrete from the start and is unaffected by the marine environment. "Penetron is proud to have won this prestigious project over the competition, which included all the recognized names in our industry," says Kadem A. Elbarghathi, Managing Director of Penetron North Africa. With the completion of the North Benghazi Court Building, it is evident that concrete durability in a marine environment is crucial. The Penetron Group is a leading manufacturer of specialty construction products for concrete waterproofing, concrete repairs and floor preparation systems.

The Libyan authorities evacuated in early Monday morning 105 Libyan nationals from Sudan as fierce fighting continues in the neighboring country. In a statement, the Libyan Foreign Ministry said that the nationals were evacuated via sea to Saudi Arabia in coordination with the Saudi authorities. The group included Libyan diplomatic staff and their families, Libyan students, and employees of Libyan institutions operating in Sudan, the ministry said. The Libyan authorities will then commission a flight to bring the group home “in the near future”, according to the ministry’s statement. According to Sudan’s health ministry, the deadly clashes have left at least 420 people killed and more than 3,700 injured, as of 23 April.

Tunisian coast guards recovered a total of 31 bodies of migrants in the last few hours, including two minors, who died in various shipwrecks on the Central Mediterranean route to Europe and were “dragged by the waves” to the shore. The “decomposing” corpses appeared on the coasts of Kerkennah, Sfax, Mahdia and Gabes, the National Guard reported Monday, in the deadliest year since 2017 for migrants embarking on this route, with more than 440 deaths recorded to date. Since January, over 35,000 people, almost four times more than in 2022, have reached the Italian shores, for which reason the government of the far-right Giorgia Meloni decreed a state of emergency on April 11. According to data on Monday from the UN Refugee Agency, UNHCR, the main starting points are Tunisia (19,247 migrants), followed by Libya (15,509) and Turkey (1,247). The European Parliament advanced an emergency plan that will force the 27 members to cooperate in the event that the reception capacity of a partner country is overwhelmed by the “sudden and massive” arrival of asylum seekers and migrants and they will have one year to reform the asylum system.

Four people were killed following clashes between two armed groups in Zawiya, a city in northwestern Libya, according to a statement by the Ambulance and Emergency Service on Monday. Clashes erupted overnight at the western entrance to the city and continued until Monday dawn before the warring parties declared truce, said the Ambulance and Emergency Service. According to witnesses, two brothers, named Munir and Muhammad Abu Zaid, were among the victims. An RPG shell reportedly hit their family’s house in the Dila residential area, resulting in the immediate death of the pair. As of Monday noon, the situation in the city remains relatively calm, as per the Ambulance and Emergency Service.

FILE - Italy's Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni speaks with the media as she arrives for an EU summit at the European Council building in Brussels, Thursday, March 23, 2023. The Italian Coast Guard said Monday, April 24 some 1,200 migrants have arrived since Sunday on the tiny Italian island of Lampedusa. Although far-right Premier Giorgia Meloni has led a crackdown both on smugglers and on the charity vessels, migrants keep risking dangerous voyages in the Central Mediterranean — departing from Tunisia, Libya and Turkey — in hopes of finding work or relatives in Europe.

However, Haftar’s son explained, in statements to Saudi newspaper Al-Sharq Al-Awsat, that he visited Sudan at the request of the Sudanese football club Al-Merrikh Sporting Club, which named Al-Siddiq Haftar as honorary president. Last February, Benghazi hosted a match between the Sudanese club and Egypt’s Zamalek at the Benina Martyrs Stadium. Al-Siddiq Haftar, whose father leads the Libyan National Army (LNA), said his trip to Sudan was in response to invitation by Al-Merrikh club presidency. Haftar’s son said he had a briefing meeting with Hemedti during his encounter with the club’s officials. Haftar’s son denied reports, which surfaced at that time, that made donations to the club.

The Minister of Justice Halima Ibrahim has supervised the release of 1,057 convicts from the correctional facility on the occasion of Eid Al-Fitr. The Ministry said on its Facebook page that it spares no effort in working to take care of the interests of inmates, preserve their rights and provide them with the required services. The ministry indicated that this initiative contributes to building bridges of reconciliation and supporting social and national consensus.

French Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Anne-Claire Legendre said Sunday that France was organizing the evacuation of its embassy staff, French citizens in Sudan and citizens of allied countries. Questions have swirled over how the mass rescues of foreign citizens would unfold, with Sudan's main international airport closed and millions of people sheltering indoors. On Friday, the U.S. said it had no plans for a government-coordinated evacuation of the estimated 16,000 American citizens trapped in Sudan. Many Sudanese fear that despite the generals' repeated promises, the violence will only escalate as tens of thousands of foreign citizens try to leave. “We are sure both sides of fighting are more careful about foreign lives than the lives of Sudanese citizens,” Atiya said.

Turkiye, Egypt may cooperate to help LibyaYasar YakisShort Url https://arab.news/2uc5nTurkiye and Egypt have been at loggerheads for a prolonged period. At a time when Turkiye was isolated in the region, El-Sisi extended a warm handshake to Erdogan and a new dynamic was unleashed between Turkiye and Egypt. The recent earthquake diplomacy also helped these two heavyweights of the Middle East thaw their frozen relations. The second major issue between Turkiye and Egypt is the ongoing political and military instability in Libya. Turkiye and Egypt do not have contradictory interests in Libya, which is an oil-rich country that also whets the appetite of several third countries.

The Tripoli-based Government of National Unity (GNU) is asking Washington to help it recover tens of billions of dollars in state assets that it alleges were stolen by Libya’s former dictator Muammar Gaddafi and his cronies and stashed around the world, Wall Street Journal reported. The Libyan officials say family members and others close to Gaddafi looted government coffers of cash, gold and rare antiquities, according to WSJ. A 2016 study by Berlin-based Transparency International estimates as much as $120 billion was taken.

InternationalChatGPT's help is being taken to run the government in Japan: Will tell mistakes, give new ideas; Decisions taken due to decreasing populationOpen AI's Chatbot (ChatGPT) has become the most talked about within 5 months of its launch. After being used in many places, now it is also being used to run the government. Indeed, the city of Yokosuka in Japan's Kanagawa Prefecture has announced that it will begin using ChatGPT to help with administrative tasks. At the same time, instructions have been given that all employees can use this chatbot to shorten sentences, correct spelling mistakes and write ideas. This decision has been taken to bring efficiency in government work due to the threat of a reduction in the population of the city.

The Elcano Royal Institute has warned that the new high-level electoral steering panel, established last February by the U.N. Envoy to Libya Abdoulaye Bathily, remains “partial and vulnerable to hijacking from members of the Libyan political elite who have little interest in a successful transition.”In an analysis piece penned by Irene Fernández-Molina, the Madrid-based think tank stated overcoming any potential hijack is “certainly not easy, but in any case, the only way ahead hangs on democratic elections.”The Elcano Royal Institute affirmed that the key to solving the Libyan crisis “remains first and foremost domestic.” While acknowledging the “crucial role” of foreign interference in exasperating the crisis, the Spanish think tank maintains that the war in Libya “is no proxy war”“Both the Libyan political elite and armed non-state actors seem overall content with the status quo given the currently limited levels of violence and, not least, the rising global prices of energy since the outbreak of Russia’s war on Ukraine.”“That explains the general lack of a genuine commitment to relaunch the transition and electoral roadmap,” it added. In a similar context, the think tank pointed out that one of the dilemmas affecting the political crisis and legitimacy dispute in Libya is “the mismatch between international and internal recognition […] where the former has preceded the latter.”“Yet the externally-backed government has proved eventually unable to achieve a viable social contract with all the key societal groups and political stakeholders inside the country,” it explained. The institute cited, as an example, last summer’s protests by disgruntled Libyan youth in multiple cities from Tobruk to Tripoli, which were directed against the entire national political elite, “revealing more profound domestic recognition and social contract issues that will affect any future conflict settlement and Libyan government.”“It was already widely assumed that domestic recognition should always take precedence over international recognition, that governance legitimacy cannot thrive by itself without effectiveness,” it stated, adding that “coherence around international government recognition positions may stand in the way of the inclusivity –and success– of conflict mediation and peacemaking.”The Elcano Royal Institute called on the European Union to focus on “ensuring intra-EU and broader international political unity to deter spoilers” in order to “actively support” Bathily’s plan of holding elections by the end of 2023. “At the same time, if it materialises, the national reconciliation conference for Libya that the African Union has announced it is preparing to host should also receive strong EU backing.”“Finally, complementary dialogue formats should be considered in order to give some international oxygen to an increasingly neglected Libyan youth and civil society,” concludes the institute.

Mellitah Oil and Gas, a subsidiary of the National Oil Corporation (NOC), has completed the drilling of the FC25 well in the El Feel field, with a capacity of 7,500 barrels per day of oil, NOC announced on Thursday. This is the second well drilled by the subsidiary since the beginning of the year, according to the state-owned oil company.