International
One million people displaced in Lebanon in recent days by Israeli attacks
About a million people have left their homes in recent days in Lebanon due to the campaign of unprecedented attacks that Israel maintains against the south and east of the country, and the suburbs of Beirut, announced the Lebanese Prime Minister, Najib Mikati.
“The number is large, it is estimated that one million people were forced to move from one place to another during the last few days. It is considered the largest displacement operation in Lebanon in all of history,” the leader said at a press conference.
“The management of this displacement not only depends on finding shelter and food for these people, but there are other things such as guaranteeing a health service in these reception centers to prevent the spread of diseases or the problem of garbage accumulation,” Mikati explained.
Lebanon, with an estimated population of less than 6 million inhabitants, has been forced to open hundreds of shelters for displaced people since last Monday Israel began to intensely bomb the main strongholds of the Shiite group Hezbula.
According to the latest situation report published this Sunday by the presidency of the Council of Ministers, 116,100 of the internally displaced are housed in 777 centers and schools enabled by the authorities, of which more than 500 have reached their maximum capacity.
Various NGOs have denounced the lack of basic services in the shelters and a lack of space that in some cases forces several families to be accommodated in the same classroom.
Mikati explained that they have ordered the customs department to raise taxes on humanitarian aid and donations from abroad so that the supplies “reach directly to the State,” and facilitate the entry of much-needed products.
Mikati: “We have no choice but diplomacy”
The Lebanese Prime Minister considers that diplomacy is the only way out amid the unprecedented Israeli attacks against Lebanon and advocated seeking solutions to the conflict through international forums.
“We have no other option than diplomacy, from the beginning we have asked for the full implementation of resolution 1701 (of the UN Security Council) and the Government is committed to it (…) If the war is prolonged in the end we will return to resolution 1701,” he said at a press conference.
“Lebanon has faith in the international community, in international legitimacy and in the UN, and does not believe in the law of the strongest,” he added.
More than a thousand dead and 6,000 injured
In the last two weeks, Israel has launched a series of unprecedented attacks against the main strongholds of the Lebanese Shiite group Hezbula, which have already left more than a thousand dead, 6,000 injured and about a million internally displaced, according to official data.
One of them killed the top leader of the formation, Hassan Nasrala, on Friday on the outskirts of Beirut.
Mikati recalled that his government has been calling for a ceasefire in Gaza and Lebanon for “seven or eight months”, since long before the clashes that began almost a year ago between Hezbula and Israel recently led to a wave of violence unprecedented in decades.
“The ceasefire in Gaza would lead to a ceasefire in Lebanon and the inhabitants would return to their homes in northern Israel, and everything would return to normal while we take time to implement resolution 1701,” the prime minister reiterated.
Hezbula insisted in recent months that he would only stop his fight against the Jewish state when the Gaza war ended, while the international community advocated the implementation of the UN Security Council resolution that ended the 2006 war between the parties.
International
Austrian man arrested in Croatia with deceased woman as passenger in his car
A 65-year-old Austrian citizen was arrested at a border checkpoint in Croatia after attempting to enter the country in his car with a deceased woman sitting as a passenger, police announced on Tuesday.
The man was detained in a routine check in late November in Gunja, a border area separating Bosnia from Croatia, the police told AFP. Suspicious because they saw “no consciousness or movement” from the passenger, Croatian officers called a doctor, who confirmed the death of the 83-year-old woman, also Austrian, according to her identification.
The woman’s relationship to the suspect is unknown. She had died in Bosnia, and the man intended to repatriate her body to Austria to “avoid the formalities related to transporting a corpse,” according to the police. Croatian media reported that the man was her legal guardian.
Once her death was confirmed, a funeral service took charge of the body.
International
Colombian nationals arrested for human trafficking and disappearance of migrant boat
Colombian authorities arrested two nationals accused of the illegal trafficking of migrants to the United States and of endangering lives due to the disappearance of a boat with 40 people aboard, U.S. Department of Justice officials reported on Tuesday.
Hernando Manuel de la Cruz Rivera Orjuela, 52, and Luis Enrique Linero Pinto, 40, both Colombian citizens, were arrested on December 13 in Colombia at the request of the United States for their alleged involvement in a “transnational human trafficking operation,” the department said in a statement.
According to the charges, the detainees were transporting migrants to San Andrés Island in the Caribbean, where they would then be taken by boat to Nicaragua. The goal was to reach the United States through Central America and Mexico.
The accused are said to have advised the migrants on how to reach San Andrés Island, where they personally received them, arranged accommodations, and “took them to the boats that transported them to Nicaragua so they could enter the United States illegally,” the statement reads.
“These defendants put several migrants on the boat that disappeared off the coast of Nicaragua in 2023,” said Deputy Attorney General Nicole M. Argentieri, head of the U.S. Department of Justice’s Criminal Division, as cited in the statement.
Both men are “directly and personally responsible for the illicit trafficking of migrants on that vessel,” according to the indictment dated October 23.
International
Homemade landmine explosion in Michoacán kills two soldiers, injures five
Two soldiers were killed and five others were injured by the explosion of homemade landmines planted by a criminal group in a mountainous area of the Mexican state of Michoacán (west), the Secretary of Defense reported on Tuesday.
The attack occurred on Monday morning in the municipality of Cotija, a border area between Michoacán and the state of Jalisco, when the military was conducting a reconnaissance mission after receiving information about an armed camp in the area, explained Secretary General Ricardo Trevilla.
“At that moment, an improvised explosive device detonated. Unfortunately, two soldiers lost their lives, and five others were injured,” the military leader detailed. The affected soldiers were airlifted to hospitals in the region by a military helicopter, while the rest of the team continued with the reconnaissance of the area.
Trevilla stated that before the explosion, the military unit had located the dismembered bodies of three people, and upon continuing the mission, they confirmed the camp was abandoned.
Asked about the individuals responsible for placing the explosives, the general suggested they could be criminals linked to the local group Cárteles Unidos, which operates in Michoacán and uses these tactics in their territorial dispute with the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, one of the most powerful criminal organizations in the country.
Austrian man arrested in Croatia with deceased woman as passenger in his car
Colombian nationals arrested for human trafficking and disappearance of migrant boat
Homemade landmine explosion in Michoacán kills two soldiers, injures five
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