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GENEVA: There have been 473 verified attacks on health care in Ukraine since Russia invaded six months ago, which have killed nearly 100 people, the WHO said Wednesday.
The World Health Organization’s Europe chief Hans Kluge branded the attacks “unconscionable.”
As well as the 98 people known to have been killed in verified attacks on health care, at least 134 others were wounded, the WHO’s figures showed.
Nearly 400 of the attacks hit health facilities. Dozens of attacks struck transport, including ambulances, while warehouses, supplies, personnel and patients were also damaged.
Jarno Habicht, the WHO’s representative in Ukraine, said the number of attacks on health care was unprecedented.
“These attacks are not only a violation of international law, they are also a barrier for many who need health care during the war,” he told reporters in Geneva, via video-link from a bunker in Dnipro.
Although the war had had a devastating impact on the health and lives of Ukraine’s people, the health system had not collapsed, said WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.
“But no system can deliver optimum health to its people under the stress of war, which is why we continue to call on the Russian Federation to end this war,” Tedros added.
These types of attacks in Ukraine had killed and maimed civilians and health providers alike, as well as denying treatment to those who need it the most, said the WHO.
Kluge paid tribute to the “heroic efforts of health providers… despite their own personal suffering.”
Yevheniia Filipenko, Ukraine’s ambassador to the UN in Geneva, said that 19 out of 20 missiles that have struck the country in the past six months had hit civilian targets.
“It’s not only the health institutions but residential buildings (that) have been targeted,” she added.
“The level of damage and destruction is unbelievable.”
Education facilities, private homes and cultural sites had all been destroyed or damaged, she said.
LONDON: Hundreds of passengers were evacuated from a Eurotunnel train under the Channel between Britain and France after a technical problem, its operators said on Tuesday.
Getlink, which runs the rail link between Coquelles in northern France and Folkestone in southeast England, said some 400 people had to abandon their vehicles on Tuesday.
An alarm on board forced crowds of people to have to leave the train for the adjoining concrete service tunnel, which is normally used by maintenance workers.
One passenger, Sarah Fellows, 37, called the experience “terrifying”.
“There was a woman crying in the tunnel, another woman having a panic attack who was travelling alone.”
Another traveller, Michael Kent, said passengers spent several hours in the train before it was evacuated as staff tried to solve the problem.
Passengers said they were eventually transferred to a replacement train but spent almost five hours in the undersea tunnel.
The incident affected a train leaving Calais at 3:50 pm (1450 GMT) on Tuesday, Later trains from France were delayed by up to six hours.
John Keefe, from operators Getlink, said passengers were taken to Folkestone while the original shuttle was brought out and they rejoined their vehicles.
“Operations like this do take time, but they are for the safety of everyone and must be conducted carefully,” he told AFP.
By 6:00 am Wednesday, “everyone who was caught up in the incident had been carried across, diversions removed, and we are now back to normal services”, he added.
The Channel Tunnel opened in 1994 and is composed of two single-track tunnels and a service tunnel each 50 kilometres (31 miles) long.
The undersea section covers 38km and is the longest in the world.
Since opening, it has carried more than 80 million vehicles on shuttle trains that are nearly 800 metres long.
Last month, Eurotunnel reduced the number of trains through the Channel Tunnel due to the effects of nationwide rail strikes in Britain, although its staff did not join the protest.
LIVERPOOL: Police in Liverpool, northwest England, on Wednesday urged criminals to give up a gunman after a nine-year-old girl was shot dead in the crossfire of a suspected gang war.
Olivia Pratt-Korbel was killed on Monday night when the shooter’s intended target, a 35-year-old man, burst into her house to try to escape his attacker.
Merseyside Police said the man was arrested for breaching the terms of his early release from prison.
The force said he was detained in hospital where he was being treated for gunshot wounds and would be questioned about the young girl’s murder.
He will then be returned to prison to serve the rest of his sentence.
Chief Constable Serena Kennedy called the killing “shocking” and appealed to the “criminal fraternity” for information about the gunman.
“This is not the time for anyone who knows who was responsible to stay silent,” added Detective Chief Superintendent Mark Kameen.
Locals in the Dovecot area of Liverpool have blamed rival gangs for the shooting.
Olivia’s death was the third fatal shooting in the nearby area in a week and follows growing concern about gun crime in the city.
It happened on the 15th anniversary of the death of an 11-year-old boy, who was shot dead on the way home from football practice in nearby Croxteth.
Gun crime in England and Wales fell by 14 percent in the year ending March 31, with 5,709 recorded offenses. Of those, 35 were homicides, according to a parliamentary research paper published this month.
Concern is high about knife crime, particularly in London, where on August 16, an 87-year-old man was stabbed to death on his mobility scooter.
Detectives said Olivia was standing behind her mother who had opened the door of their home after hearing gunshots in the street outside.
Her mother, Cheryl, tried to close the door when the intended victim forced his way in pursued by his attacker, who then opened fire at the man.
Cheryl was hit in the wrist and Olivia in the chest. As the young girl lay dying, friends picked up the man and took him to hospital for treatment to gunshot wounds to his upper body.
KARACHI: Pakistan has urged the international community to help with relief efforts as it struggles to cope with the aftermath of torrential rains that triggered massive floods last month, killing more than 800 people, officials said.
Funding and reconstruction efforts will be a challenge for cash-strapped Pakistan, which is having to cut spending to ensure the International Monetary Fund approves the release of much-needed bailout money.
July’s national rainfall was almost 200 percent above average, Sardar Sarfaraz, a senior official at the metrological office said on Wednesday, making it the wettest July since 1961.
“No question of the provinces or Islamabad being able to cope with this magnitude of climate catastrophe on their own. Lives r at risk, thousands homeless. Int’l partners need to mobilize assistance,” said Sherry Rehman, Federal Minister for Climate Change in a tweet.
According to the United Nations Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), heavy monsoon rainfall and floods have affected some 2.3 million people in Pakistan since mid-June, destroying at least 95,350 houses and damaging a further 224,100.
Sindh in the country’s south east and Balochistan in the south west are the two most affected provinces. More than 504,000 livestock have been killed, nearly all of them in Balochistan, while damage to nearly 3,000 km of roads and 129 bridges has impeded movement around flood-affected areas.
The main supply route from the port city of Karachi has been cut for more than a week after a bridge linking it to Balochistan was swept away, while dozens of small dams in the province were overwhelmed.
“Federal government has also appealed to the international development partners for assistance, so reconstruction of infrastructure destroyed by the flooding can be started once the water recedes,” Ahsan Iqbal, Minister of Planning, Development and Special Initiatives said in a twitter post.
In Sindh, the government closed all educational institutions in anticipation of fresh rain forecast for Wednesday and Thursday and an airport in the Nawabshah district remains closed with the airfield almost fully submerged.
“It is a climate catastrophe of epic scale, bringing in its wake the humanitarian crisis that could well match the magnitude of the big flood that was witnessed in 2010,” said Rehman.
ISTANBUL: The United States promised on Wednesday to expand its visa processing capacity in Turkey, moving to defuse a dispute that has threatened to further strain already difficult relations between the NATO allies.
US visa applicants in Turkey have been facing enormous delays, with wait times for an appointment extending up to 15 months. It is part of a global bottleneck in US visa services after Washington halted almost all visa processing worldwide in March 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
But Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu on Tuesday accused the United States and also some European nations of intentionally drawing out their visa application process, calling it an effort to embarrass President Tayyip Erdogan’s ruling AK Party ahead of elections in Turkey next year.
“We see that they are doing it deliberately. This is how our people see it too. We consider these as the steps taken to put the AK Party government in a difficult situation before the election,” he told Turkish broadcaster Haber Global.
The US State Department indicated that Washington did not want the issue to escalate.
“I don’t believe in COVID, personnel excuses….If they wanted to, they could solve it very easily,” Cavusoglu said.
“We have no desire for this to be an irritant in our bilateral relationship,” a State Department official said in an emailed response to Reuters’ questions.
With the opening of a new US embassy compound in Ankara, Washington will be resuming routine non-immigrant visa appointments there, the official added.
“Mission Turkiye has been working very hard to overcome delays, and we are very pleased that the newly completed US Embassy compound in Ankara will enable us to expand our visa processing capacity,” the official said.
Asked about the comments, the State Department official said: “We accept FM Cavusoglu’s expression of concern that this is an issue of frustration for Turkiye.”
Cavusoglu threatened to impose counter-measures against Western countries soon if the visa issue remains unresolved.
“At the beginning of September, our colleagues will call the ambassadors of these Western countries to the ministry, and they will make the necessary warnings. If it does not improve after that, we will also take counter, restrictive measures,” he said.
Cavusoglu raised the visa issue with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken in May in New York. They discussed the matter again by phone this month.
Before the pandemic in 2019, the United States issued more than 85,000 non-immigrant visas in Turkey but that figure had dropped to below 20,000 in 2021.
The US official said wait times might decrease with the planned addition of new processing capacity.
“Applicants should monitor our website to view current visa wait times… Those with existing appointments may reschedule them through the website if an earlier appointment is available.”
LONDON: Albanian people-smuggling gangs are organizing free minibus trips from southern Europe to the northern French coast as thousands continue to illegally cross the English Channel.
Gang members are advertising the journeys as “100 percent secure” on social media site TikTok, promoting links where migrants can sign up for journeys to Britain, the Telegraph reported.
If they take them up on the deal, migrants are taken to the French coast and offloaded to Channel-crossing people smuggling gangs, often run by Iraqi Kurds. The migrants can expect to pay thousands of dollars per person to get a place on a small boat to cross the 22-mile stretch of water.
On Monday, a record-breaking 1,295 migrants crossed the Channel, beating the previous daily high by more than 100. British intelligence reports on the crossings suggest that as many as two-fifths of the migrants are from Albania.
Monday’s total took the number of migrants in small boats reaching Britain so far this year past 22,500, which is more than double the total seen at the same point in 2021.
On Tuesday, approximately 200 more migrants reached British shores, bringing August’s arrivals to 6,500, the second-highest monthly total, below the 6,878 recorded in November. If current arrival rates remain, it is likely that this month will top the record.
The crisis has also exacerbated the tense relationship between British and French immigration officials, with the French side demanding millions of euros to cover the cost of 800 officers and air surveillance assets that have been deployed to prevent migrants launching boats from the beaches.
The Hauts-de-France prefecture told the Telegraph that it was now preventing 60 percent of attempted crossings. But it warned that the rising violence and “flash mobs” of up to 200 migrants threatened to disrupt efforts to limit the gangs.
Traffickers from Iraqi Kurdish backgrounds continue to offer “bargain” prices on their social media adverts for Channel crossings, telling prospective migrants that they have “never been cheaper.”
TikTok adverts offered a drive from Shkoder, a town famed for its criminality in northern Albania, to Dunkirk. “Shkoder to Dunkirk everyday trips. For more info DM,” one advert seen by the Telegraph said. “Journey every day. 100 percent secure,” another said.
“Boys just started the journey to Dunkirk. Thanx boys. God helps you. Hurry up. Can get info DM,” a third, depicting a car speeding down a road, said.
An Albanian immigration source told the newspaper: “The Albanian gangs provide the people and link up with the Kurds, who provide the boats and the logistics.
“The Albanians are coming for economic reasons. There is huge poverty in Albania, and they want to get to the UK for a better life and good employment. Most end up working in the black market, especially in construction.
“Some of them – especially the younger boys – get involved in criminality, working in cannabis farms in order to pay off the £5,000 ($5,900) they have paid for the crossing.”
British Home Secretary Priti Patel said: “Social media posts used by criminal people smugglers promoting illegal crossings are totally unacceptable. This government is already tackling this deceitful online propaganda with law enforcement, social media companies, and overseas governments.”
She added that no one should doubt the determination of the British government to break the people-smugglers’ business model and “relocate those who are making dangerous, unnecessary, and illegal journeys into the UK.”

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