Month: November 2023

BREGANA, CROATIA (TIP): It took Croatia years to finally enter into Europe’s passport-free travel zone that promised to ease access for other European nationals travelling to the country and boost its tourism-driven economy. But less than a year since its border crossings with European Union peers were dismantled, temporary checks have been reintroduced amid a surge in illegal migration across the region. Neighbouring Slovenia re-introduced checks along its borders last month, following similar moves by Italy and other EU countries.
“People ask themselves what kind of fence could stop these people who passed so many frontiers and countries,” said Perica Matijevic, the head of the Krnjak municipality near Croatia’s border with Bosnia that has been a hot-spot for crossings. Matijevic, who referred to a registration camp for incoming migrants that is being prepared in the area, is not alone in his weariness.
Locals in the scarcely populated area complain that groups of migrants — almost all of whom are young men — moving through the area have only increased anxieties.
“One should feel safe in his own house but migrants pass through our yards … there were thefts, it’s not pleasant,” said economics student Sara Matijevic from the village of Dugi Dol, close to where the camp will open.
Croatia, which guards one of EU’s longest external land borders, has long been a magnet for illegal migrants hoping to enter the bloc. Over the years, the country gained an infamous reputation for fiercely patrolling its borders, leading to accusations that its authorities used violence to push back EU-bound refugees.
In 2021, Zagreb was forced to admit as much following the publication of an investigation by major European media outlets that uncovered alleged systematic targeting of refugees by special units in Croatia, Greece and Romania. Atefa, a 29-year-old Afghan refugee who did not provide her surname for security reasons, said Croatian police treated her and eight fellow migrants “like animals”.
Along with forcing them to collect garbage and pouring water in their shoes, officers groped women and made obscene noises, she told AFP. (AFP)

Gaza City (TIP): The Hamas-controlled health ministry said on November 17 that 24 patients at a hospital in war-torn Gaza had died within 48 hours due to power outages, as Israeli forces searched the complex for Hamas hideouts. The announcement came shortly after Israel agreed to a US request to allow two fuel trucks a day into Gaza, following a UN warning that the shortages had halted aid deliveries and put people at risk of starvation. The situation was dire at the Al-Shifa hospital, the largest in Gaza, which Israel’s army said it was searching for a third day for suspected hideouts of fighters from the Islamist movement’s armed wing.
“Twenty-four patients… have died over the last 48 hours” at Al-Shifa hospital “as vital medical equipment has stopped functioning because of the power outage”, Gaza health ministry spokesman Ashraf al-Qudra said.
Israel’s national security adviser says the country’s war cabinet has agreed to allow two tanker trucks of fuel to enter the Gaza Strip each day – a quantity he described as “very minimal”.
Speaking at a news conference on Friday, Tzachi Hanegbi said the fuel would be allowed for Gaza’s communications system and water and sewage services.
He said the aim is to prevent the spread of disease without disrupting Israel’s ability to continue its war against the Hamas militant group.
Hanegbi said the fuel amounted to roughly 2% to 4% of the normal quantities of fuel that entered Gaza before the war erupted on 7 October.
The UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) earlier said its aid trucks were unable to enter Gaza from Egypt for a second straight day due to the lack of fuel and a near-total communications blackout.
UNRWA said it would be unable to “manage or coordinate humanitarian convoys” from Friday because of the telecommunications outage.
“The situation in Al-Shifa is catastrophic” for patients, displaced people and health workers who are crammed inside without electricity, water and food, the hospital’s director, Mohammed Abu Salmiya, told AFP on the phone later during a brief restoration of communications.
Israel earlier said it found the body of another hostage in a building adjacent to Gaza City’s Shifa Hospital. The hospital has been the focus of clashing narratives over who is to blame for the widespread suffering of Palestinian civilians during the war between Israel and Hamas. (AFP)

TALLINN, Estonia (TIP): A Russian court on Thursday convicted an artist and musician for swapping supermarket price tags with antiwar messages, sentencing her to seven years in prison in one of the highest-profile cases involving the recent crackdown on free speech.
Sasha Skochilenko was arrested in her native St. Petersburg in April 2022 and charged with spreading false information about the military after replacing price tags with ones that decried Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
“The Russian army bombed an arts schools in Mariupol. Some 400 people were hiding in it from the shelling,” one read. Another said, “Russian conscripts are being sent to Ukraine. Lives of our children are the price of this war.”
A customer at the supermarket who found the slogans reported them to authorities.
Skochilenko’s arrest came about a month after authorities adopted a law effectively criminalizing any public expression about the war that deviates from the official Kremlin line. The legislation has been used in a widespread crackdown on opposition politicians, human rights activists and ordinary citizens critical of the Kremlin, with many receiving lengthy prison terms. Skochilenko, 33, has not denied replacing the price tags but rejected the accusation of spreading knowingly false information.
She did not intend to disparage the military, but rather wanted to stop the fighting, her lawyer Yana Nepovinnova told The Associated Press last week.
“She is a very empathetic, peace-loving person. To her, in general, the word ‘war’ is the most terrible thing imaginable, as is the suffering of people,” Nepovinnova said.
Russian independent news site Mediazona quoted Skochilenko as saying in her final statement in court Thursday that the case against her was “weird and ridiculous” — so much so that officials in the facility where she is detained “open their eyes widely and exclaim: ‘Is this really what people are being imprisoned for now?’”
She also alleged that an investigator working on her case even quit his job, telling one of her lawyers that he “didn’t join the Investigative Committee to work on cases like (the one) against Sasha Skochilenko.”
Addressing the judge in a courtroom full of supporters, Skochilenko said: “Everyone sees and knows that it’s not a terrorist you’re trying. You’re not trying an extremist. You’re not trying an political activist, either. You’re trying a pacifist.”
Her supporters applauded, Mediazona reported, adding that after the verdict was announced and Skochilenko was led away, they gathered in a hallway, chanting her name.
Skochilenko has been held for nearly 19 months before her trial, meaning that her overall term will be reduced by more than two years, since every day served in a pre-trial detention center counts as 1.5 days of time served in a regular penal colony.
But she has struggled while in custody due to health problems, including a congenital heart defect, bipolar disorder and celiac disease, requiring a gluten-free diet, her lawyers and her partner have said. (AP)

TAIYUAN (TIP): Twenty-five people have died and dozens sent to hospital after a fire tore through a building in northern China’s Shanxi province on November 16, AFP reported quoting state media. The fire broke out Thursday morning at a building of a coal mine company in north China’s Shanxi Province, the Shanxi branch of the National Mine Safety Administration was cited as saying by the Chinese news agency Xinhua.
The fire broke out at 6:50 a.m. at the four-story Yongju Coal Industry Joint Building in China’s top coal-producing hub of Shanxi, Reuters quoted the state broadcaster China Central Television as reporting. The cause of the fire was still under investigation, it added.
The fire ripped through the second floor of the five-story building located in Lishi District of Lyuliang City. Rescue efforts are underway, according to local authorities Xinhua said
The building belongs to the private Yongju coal mine company, which has a production capacity of 120 tonnes a year, the report added. (AFP)