RAS AJDIR, Tunisia // The whistle-blasts of the Tunisian soldiers ripped through the air, and Mounir Hussain mechanically walked forward with hundreds of fellow refugees.
Nearby, more refugees from Libya's violence were being ushered into the country by Tunisian border guards and workers from the International Organisation for Migration, a UN agency helping organise the refugees' repatriation.
"What will I say to my family when I come home with nothing?" said Mr Hussain, 26, a Bangladeshi labourer who fled Libya last week amid the revolt against Muammar Qaddafi.
About 90,000 mostly foreign workers have passed through the Tunisian border post at Ras Ajdir. Thousands also appear stranded near the border, growing increasingly desperate.
Pressure on the border, however, began easing yesterday as countries stepped up repatriation flights.
Mr Hussain's journey to Ras Ajdir began 15 months ago in Bangladesh, when rural poverty drove him abroad.
"People said you could find work in Libya, and I couldn't get a visa to other countries," said Mr Hussain, who paid a broker US$7,500 (Dh27,500) to obtain a Libyan visa for him.
Libya has liberalised its economy and spent part of its oil wealth on badly needed infrastructure since international sanctions were lifted in 2003, luring foreign companies and workers.
After five months without work and six weeks with a Libyan building company that paid only in food, Mr Hussain found a job installing air ducts for a Maltese firm in Tripoli. "I was happy, because at last I had money to send home to my family," he said.
Mr Hussain's success swiftly collapsed after February 21, he said, when Col Qaddafi's son, Saif al Islam Qaddafi, told Libyans in a televised address to unite against foreigners he blamed for violence in the country.
Later that day, Libyan forces opened fire on protesters in Tripoli calling for Col Qaddafi to depart after 41 years in power.
Mr Hussain's manager informed the firm's 40 Bangladeshi workers that the operations were ceasing. A Chinese engineering company employee named Liu Yu Tong also recalled hearing of Saif's speech with trepidation in Tripoli's suburb of Tajoura. By the end of day, the company's four Libyan drivers had quit their jobs, leaving the Chinese engineers and other workers hunkered down in their office.
The next day, a Libyan friend of Mr Liu who managed a small state engineering agency told them by telephone that armed men - apparently bandits - had robbed the office three times that day, stealing cars and computers and sexually assaulting two women employees.
"After that the phones were cut, shops closed and there was no water or electricity," said Mr Liu, a translator from Hunan province. The next morning Mr Liu and his colleagues set out by car for the Tunisian border.
"There were soldiers on the road who stole our mobile phones and memory cards," said Mr Liu, echoing a common complaint among refugees from Libya.
On February 24, Mr Liu entered Tunisia with about 190 Chinese employees of his firm, accompanied by Chinese diplomats. That evening they were given rooms in an upscale hotel in Zarzis, a seaside resort town, and last week were waiting to be sent home by the Chinese government.
Meanwhile, Mr Hussain said he and his colleagues hid out for three days in their Tripoli office after the violence started, listening to gunfire outside every night.
Mr Hussain telephoned his parents, who urged him to flee. Last Monday he arranged bus transport to Tunisia, borrowing money when the driver raised the price at the last minute.
Like Mr Liu, the Bangladeshis were robbed of their mobile phones and memory cards at checkpoints manned by Libyan forces, Mr Hussain said. They reached the border on Monday night.
The group huddled on the bare ground, trying to sleep through the cold, rain and wind. Mr Hussain asked a guard on the Libyan side of the border if they could join other refugees sleeping indoors.
"It's forbidden," said the guard. "We're getting sick," Mr Hussain said. "Please." "Impossible," the guard replied.
On Tuesday the group were pressed into no-man's land between the two countries, which was teeming with thousands of refugees. That night they were allowed to sleep indoors, and on Wednesday morning entered Tunisia, their future uncertain.
UN agencies and Tunisian authorities and volunteers have stepped into the gap left by some governments struggling to mount repatriation missions.
When the first refugees reached Ras Ajdir on February 19, a retired Tunisian soldier named Abdeslam Hamad leapt into action, helping organise transport, food and housing at municipal buildings in the nearby town of Ben Guerdane.
"I've been here 24 hours a day, always running," said Mr Hamad, who met yesterday with volunteers, Tunisian army officers and UN staff at Ben Guerdane's cultural centre. "One minute on the phone, the next out among refugees."
Initially, refugees were ferried by bus and car to the cultural centre for a meal donated by local restaurants, before being lodged in schools, community centres and youth hostels. Today accommodation near the border is concentrated at a tent city run by the Tunisian army, the Red Crescent and the UN's High Commission for Refugees, where thousands are awaiting repatriation by plane and boat.
While scenes of chaos at the border early this week have been replaced by orderly queues, UN officials stress the urgent need for more transport to prevent a humanitarian crisis.
Yesterday, Eric Laroche, the assistant director general of the World Health Organisation, said that the concentration of people at Ras Ajdir contained "all the ingredients for an epidemic explosion".
On Wednesday afternoon, Mr Hussain and his companions were on the border, awaiting transport to the tent city several kilometres away. "At this moment, I don't know what will happen to me," said Mr Hussain, choking back a tremor in his voice. "I have to do something for my family, but I lost everything in Libya. How am I going to get home?"
jthorne@thenational.ae
Election pledges on migration
CDU: "Now is the time to control the German borders and enforce strict border rejections"
SPD: "Border closures and blanket rejections at internal borders contradict the spirit of a common area of freedom"
In numbers: PKK’s money network in Europe
Germany: PKK collectors typically bring in $18 million in cash a year – amount has trebled since 2010
Revolutionary tax: Investigators say about $2 million a year raised from ‘tax collection’ around Marseille
Extortion: Gunman convicted in 2023 of demanding $10,000 from Kurdish businessman in Stockholm
Drug trade: PKK income claimed by Turkish anti-drugs force in 2024 to be as high as $500 million a year
Denmark: PKK one of two terrorist groups along with Iranian separatists ASMLA to raise “two-digit million amounts”
Contributions: Hundreds of euros expected from typical Kurdish families and thousands from business owners
TV channel: Kurdish Roj TV accounts frozen and went bankrupt after Denmark fined it more than $1 million over PKK links in 2013
Isle of Dogs
Director: Wes Anderson
Starring: Bryan Cranston, Liev Schreiber, Ed Norton, Greta Gerwig, Bill Murray, Jeff Goldblum, Scarlett Johansson
Three stars
Bharatanatyam
A ancient classical dance from the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu. Intricate footwork and expressions are used to denote spiritual stories and ideas.
NO OTHER LAND
Director: Basel Adra, Yuval Abraham, Rachel Szor, Hamdan Ballal
Stars: Basel Adra, Yuval Abraham
Rating: 3.5/5
Company%20profile
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RESULT
Chelsea 2
Willian 13'
Ross Barkley 64'
Liverpool 0
The major Hashd factions linked to Iran:
Badr Organisation: Seen as the most militarily capable faction in the Hashd. Iraqi Shiite exiles opposed to Saddam Hussein set up the group in Tehran in the early 1980s as the Badr Corps under the supervision of the Iran Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC). The militia exalts Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei but intermittently cooperated with the US military.
Saraya Al Salam (Peace Brigade): Comprised of former members of the officially defunct Mahdi Army, a militia that was commanded by Iraqi cleric Moqtada Al Sadr and fought US and Iraqi government and other forces between 2004 and 2008. As part of a political overhaul aimed as casting Mr Al Sadr as a more nationalist and less sectarian figure, the cleric formed Saraya Al Salam in 2014. The group’s relations with Iran has been volatile.
Kataeb Hezbollah: The group, which is fighting on behalf of the Bashar Al Assad government in Syria, traces its origins to attacks on US forces in Iraq in 2004 and adopts a tough stance against Washington, calling the United States “the enemy of humanity”.
Asaeb Ahl Al Haq: An offshoot of the Mahdi Army active in Syria. Asaeb Ahl Al Haq’s leader Qais al Khazali was a student of Mr Al Moqtada’s late father Mohammed Sadeq Al Sadr, a prominent Shiite cleric who was killed during Saddam Hussein’s rule.
Harakat Hezbollah Al Nujaba: Formed in 2013 to fight alongside Mr Al Assad’s loyalists in Syria before joining the Hashd. The group is seen as among the most ideological and sectarian-driven Hashd militias in Syria and is the major recruiter of foreign fighters to Syria.
Saraya Al Khorasani: The ICRG formed Saraya Al Khorasani in the mid-1990s and the group is seen as the most ideologically attached to Iran among Tehran’s satellites in Iraq.
(Source: The Wilson Centre, the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation)
COMPANY PROFILE
Name: Kumulus Water
Started: 2021
Founders: Iheb Triki and Mohamed Ali Abid
Based: Tunisia
Sector: Water technology
Number of staff: 22
Investment raised: $4 million
RESULTS
Cagliari 5-2 Fiorentina
Udinese 0-0 SPAL
Sampdoria 0-0 Atalanta
Lazio 4-2 Lecce
Parma 2-0 Roma
Juventus 1-0 AC Milan
The specs
Engine: 3.0-litre six-cylinder turbo
Power: 398hp from 5,250rpm
Torque: 580Nm at 1,900-4,800rpm
Transmission: Eight-speed auto
Fuel economy, combined: 6.5L/100km
On sale: December
Price: From Dh330,000 (estimate)
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The rules on fostering in the UAE
A foster couple or family must:
- be Muslim, Emirati and be residing in the UAE
- not be younger than 25 years old
- not have been convicted of offences or crimes involving moral turpitude
- be free of infectious diseases or psychological and mental disorders
- have the ability to support its members and the foster child financially
- undertake to treat and raise the child in a proper manner and take care of his or her health and well-being
- A single, divorced or widowed Muslim Emirati female, residing in the UAE may apply to foster a child if she is at least 30 years old and able to support the child financially
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Upul Tharanga (captain), Dinesh Chandimal, Niroshan Dickwella
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Match info:
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Ronaldo (4')
Morocco 0
Sholto Byrnes on Myanmar politics
COMPANY%20PROFILE
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MATCH INFO
Newcastle United 3
Gayle (23'), Perez (59', 63')
Chelsea 0
KEY DEVELOPMENTS IN MARITIME DISPUTE
2000: Israel withdraws from Lebanon after nearly 30 years without an officially demarcated border. The UN establishes the Blue Line to act as the frontier.
2007: Lebanon and Cyprus define their respective exclusive economic zones to facilitate oil and gas exploration. Israel uses this to define its EEZ with Cyprus
2011: Lebanon disputes Israeli-proposed line and submits documents to UN showing different EEZ. Cyprus offers to mediate without much progress.
2018: Lebanon signs first offshore oil and gas licencing deal with consortium of France’s Total, Italy’s Eni and Russia’s Novatek.
2018-2019: US seeks to mediate between Israel and Lebanon to prevent clashes over oil and gas resources.
Bharat
Director: Ali Abbas Zafar
Starring: Salman Khan, Katrina Kaif, Sunil Grover
Rating: 2.5 out of 5 stars
The Way It Was: My Life with Frank Sinatra by Eliot Weisman and Jennifer Valoppi
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Formula Middle East Calendar (Formula Regional and Formula 4)
Round 1: January 17-19, Yas Marina Circuit – Abu Dhabi
Round 2: January 22-23, Yas Marina Circuit – Abu Dhabi
Round 3: February 7-9, Dubai Autodrome – Dubai
Round 4: February 14-16, Yas Marina Circuit – Abu Dhabi
Round 5: February 25-27, Jeddah Corniche Circuit – Saudi Arabia
Company%20Profile
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