The Washington Post - USA (2022-05-08)

A22 EZ RE THE WASHINGTON POST.SUNDAY, MAY 8 , 2022

The World

NORTHERN IRELAND

Sinn Fein’s victory

filled with symbolism

Sinn Fein on Saturday became
the first nationalist party to
dominate Northern Ireland’s
elections. It won the largest
number of seats in the Northern
Ireland assembly, official results
showed — and along with that
the power to name its leader
Michelle O’Neill as first minister
in the regional power-sharing
government.
By 10 p.m., Sinn Fein had won
27 of the assembly’s 90 seats. The
Democratic Unionist Party won
24 while the Alliance Party
claimed 17. There were still two
seats left to declare. The win was
a historic first for the party —
once the political wing of the
Irish Republican Army.
The party benefited from
demographic shifts and has
expanded its appeal by focusing
on bread-and-butter issues while
downplaying its long-term
aspirations for the unification of
Ireland.
Coming in first means Sinn

Fein will get to appoint the

assembly’s first minister, but

whether the new power-sharing

executive will actually come

together remains in question.

The DUP has been boycotting.

“Sinn Fein will be there on

Monday, ready to form an

executive. Other parties need to

do the same. No excuses. No

nonsense. No time-wasting,”

O’Neill told The Washington

Post. “People struggling with the

cost of living are relying on us to

get on with things and do our

jobs.”

— Amanda Ferguson

and Karla Adam

NORTH KOREA

Missile believed to be

launched from sub

North Korea fired a suspected

submarine-launched ballistic

missile off its east coast on

Saturday, authorities in Seoul

and Tokyo said, as North Korean

leader Kim Jong Un ramps up

military tensions days before a

new president takes office in

South Korea.

South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of

Staff said the probable ballistic

missile was launched from

waters near the port city of

Sinpo, where North Korea has its

largest submarine bases. The

missile was fired at 2:07 p.m.

Saturday, and flew about 370

miles and achieved an altitude of

about 37 miles, South Korea

said.

Saturday’s launch comes three

days before the inauguration of

South Korea’s next president,

Yoon Suk-yeol, who has vowed to

take a tougher line on North

Korean threats. President Biden

is to visit Seoul this month and

meet with Yoon.

The North Korean

propaganda outlet

Uriminzokkiri in recent days

slammed the incoming South

Korean president as “pro-U.S.”

and having a “confrontational”

attitude toward the North.

— Min Joo Kim

Death toll from hotel blast in

Cuba rises to 26: Cuban rescue

workers on Saturday picked

through rubble for bodies and

possible survivors after a

Havana boutique hotel was

devastated by what authorities

said was a gas explosion, leaving

at least 26 dead. Local

authorities said 50 adults and 14

children were injured in the

blast at the Hotel Saratoga. Four

of the dead were children, they

said, providing few details.

At least 11 killed in militant

attack in Egypt: One officer and

10 Egyptian soldiers were killed

in Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula when

militants attacked a checkpoint

at a water pumping station, an

army spokesman and security

sources said. The attack

occurred on Saturday morning

on the road leading east from

the Suez Canal to Hasanah in the

center of northern Sinai, two

security sources said. Militants

attacked with an explosives-

rigged vehicle and fired heavy

weapons installed on pickup

trucks before military

reinforcements fought them off

and gave chase.

Airstrikes carried out in

eastern Syria: Unidentified

aircraft struck oil-rich areas in

eastern Syria held by

government and Iran-aligned

groups, an opposition war

monitor said. The Britain-based

Syrian Observatory for Human

Rights said there were no

casualties or material losses in

the attack, the second within a

week in the province of Deir al-

Zour. Iran-backed militia groups

and regime forces control the

area and have often been the

target of Israeli war planes in

previous strikes. Israel has

staged hundreds of strikes on

targets in Syria over the years

but rarely acknowledges or

discusses such operations.

3 American tourists fall ill, die

in Bahamas: Three U.S. tourists

have died at a resort in the

Bahamas after falling ill, officials

of the Atlantic island nation

confirmed, and another was

airlifted to a hospital for

treatment. Acting prime

minister Chester Cooper issued a

statement Friday saying that

police are investigating and that

the cause of death was unknown,

though foul play “is not

suspected.” Their identities had

not been made public. The

health minister, Michael

Darville, told Eyewitness News

Bahamas that some hotel guests

went to a clinic Thursday with

nausea and vomiting, were

treated and left. Three were later

found dead. A fourth was flown

to a hospital in New Providence.

Israeli troops attacked as house

is demolished: Israeli troops

demolished the home of a

Palestinian man who killed a

Jewish seminary student in a

shooting ambush in the

occupied West Bank five months

ago, the military said. The

demolition took place around

dawn in the village of Silat al-

Khartiyeh, with troops swinging

sledgehammers to break walls

and setting off explosives.

Residents threw stones and

firebombs at soldiers, who fired

live rounds, the army said.

Palestinian medics said three

Palestinians were injured by live

fire and others by tear gas

inhalation. Such demolitions

have been denounced by rights

groups as collective punishment.

— From news services

DIGEST

BY SARAH DADOUCH

AND SUZAN HAIDAMOUS

tripoli, lebanon — For more
than two hours, Ahmad Ta leb
kept shouting his pregnant sis-
ter’s name. The 17-year-old des-
perately hoped she had survived
after the small boat they boarded
to flee Lebanon capsized and
sank late last month.
His voice shook with anger as
he recounted, a week later, that a
bigger vessel rammed their boat,
which passengers said was carry-
ing some 75 people trying to
escape crushing poverty in this
northern Lebanese city. Taleb
watched silhouettes grasp at the
dark water’s surface and felt his
clothes grow heavier, as he
searched for his sister.
She never appeared. “I didn’t
want to live anymore,” he said.
The boats carrying economic
migrants leave often these days
from Tripoli, a place long aban-
doned by political leaders and all
the more desperate of late as the
country suffers through the worst
financial crisis anyone can re-
member.
Since 2019, Lebanon has been
assailed by calamities that have
upended every facet of life, in-
cluding a financial collapse that
obliterated the value of its curren-
cy and the explosion at the Beirut
port in 2020 that destroyed much
of the capital’s center and killed
more than 200 people.
As Lebanon’s leaders have not
addressed what the World Bank
called one of the world’s worst
economic crises, the population
has given up relying on the gov-
ernment for services. Instead, the
country has been carved into
spheres of influence, with resi-
dents turning to political factions
and leaders in lieu of a central-
ized, functional state.
But Tripoli, Lebanon’s second-
largest and poorest city, seems
bereft of a patron, despite its
large size and the fact that it is
home to some of the country’s
wealthiest and best-known politi-
cal figures — including the coun-
try’s prime minister.
So when the boat, which was
headed to Europe, sank on April
23, amid allegations it had been
rammed by a vessel carrying Leb-
anese military personnel, the
tragedy unleashed a flood of long-
simmering complaints in Tripoli
about marginalization, govern-
ment incompetence and the
yawning gap between Lebanon’s
wealthiest citizens and its vast
and growing underclass.
Seven bodies were recovered
from the water. Around 20 people
are believed to be missing. Their
relatives were told that govern-
ment divers could not reach the
boat. Enraged family members
blocked roads in Tripoli last week,
threatening to do the same again
later this month, when voting in
parliamentary elections will be
held, unless bodies were recov-
ered.
Ahmad al-Hamwi, whose
brother died on the boat along
with his two children, had one,
plaintive demand: that religious
leaders pressure the prime minis-
ter to do whatever was necessary
to recover the victims’ bodies.
“Send us submarines so we can
take out the bodies and honor
them with burials,” he said.
Before he boarded the boat,
Ta leb had every reason to leave

and threw Molotov cocktails in-

side the building.

With no money for repairs,

Riad Yamak, Tripoli’s mayor, has

been forced to work from the

relatively untouched second

floor. Asked why Tripoli had suf-

fered more than other parts of

Lebanon, he blamed the disparity

on a lack of investment.

“The businessman is a coward:

He goes to wherever there is

stability,” he said.

When reconstruction began af-

ter the civil war ended in 1990,

would-be investors such as Rafiq

al-Hariri, who was assassinated

in 2005 after serving twice as

prime minister, were apprehen-

sive about committing to Tripoli,

Yamak said — in part because the

Syrian government, which was

heavily involved in Lebanon’s p ol-

itics in decades past, exerted es-

pecially heavy influence in Tripo-

li, including with its security forc-

es.

The violent spillover from the

Syrian war in 2011 produced oth-

er threats in Tripoli, including

recruitment by the Islamic State

militant group. In the past few

years, the pandemic cut off what

little employment the city had to

offer.

“The problems we have need a

plan by the government to be

fixed,” he said. “There are whole

families whose members are un-

employed.” His city has no money

to provide even the most basic

services: During heavy rainfall,

sewage floods streets and houses

because of failing infrastructure.

Adding insult to hardship, the

city’s heritage is being looted, he

said, with large chunks of Tripoli’s

grand hilltop citadel being car-

ried off by thieves and reappear-

ing on tony mansions elsewhere

in Lebanon.

Yamak described his city as a

perennial afterthought: Some

neighborhoods still clearly bear

the marks of the civil war. Build-

ing facades are riddled with bul-

let holes or cavities caused by

heavier weapons; some of the

cavities are so large that pigeons

nest inside them.

The city feels suspended in

time. The streets are crowded

with 1970 s-era Mercedes-Benz

cars that are held together with

tape and rope. Neighborhoods

are a crisscross of wires, deliver-

ing electricity to the city via tan-

gled webs. Near a roundabout

where protesters used to gather,

one wall is spray-painted with

big, block letters that read,

“COPE.”

“I don’t h ope for anything from

the government,” said Ibrahim, a

45-year-old shopkeeper who sells

cotton textiles and spoke on the

condition he be identified only by

his first name. “I’m not waiting

for anything, and they can’t

change anything, because it’s a

mafia country ... but legalized.”

“Our prime minister is from

here,” he said, referring to Najib

Mikati, a billionaire tycoon serv-

ing his third time as Lebanon’s

premier. “What has he done?”

After passengers accused uni-

formed soldiers of being on a

vessel that they say repeatedly

rammed the migrant boat, the

army launched an investigation.

Mikati publicly supported the in-

vestigation but appeared to side

squarely with the military, say-

ing: “Our trust in the army’s

wisdom and leadership is strong.”

After the deaths at sea, men

spray-painted graffiti on what lo-

cal television channels identified

as Mikati’s apartment in Tripoli.

“This billionaire’s wealth was

gathered from the blood of the

people,” it read.

Residents in Tripoli were also

dismissive of a plan announced

by parliament to develop north-

ern Lebanon — the latest in a

string of empty promises, they

said.

“I’m worried about my kids,”

said Ibrahim, the shopkeeper.

“There’s humiliation everywhere:

There’s no electricity. There’s no

water. We grew up in the war:

Nothing has changed. It’s worse.”

Haidamous reported from

Washington.

Tragedy at sea piles more pain onto Lebanon’s poorest city

At least seven people died last month after a boat carrying 75 migrants trying to escape Tripoli’s vast underclass capsized and sank

the country. Like many of his

peers, he dropped out of school to

make ends meet. Available jobs

paid a pittance — about 30,000

Lebanese pounds a day, or slight-

ly more than a U.S. dollar at the

current black market rate, most

of which went to public transpor-

tation to get to and from work.

He collected tin cans from gar-

bage bins and resold them for a

bit of cash. Lately, though, the

city’s surging population of des-

perate people has stripped the

bins clean. “Now you jump in a

garbage bin and can’t even find a

single can,” he said.

“How can I live off this?” he

said. “We’re suffocating; I swear

we’re suffocating,” he said. “I

don’t have to live like this. I need

to leave, even if I die.”

Like many in Tripoli, and

across Lebanon these days, he

reserved a special hatred for the

country’s political class. “They

didn’t lose anything,” he said.

“They have the best drink, the

best food, the best of everything,”

he continued. “We are the least of

their concerns.”

The walls and columns of

Tripoli’s municipal building are

still black from a fire more than a

year ago that started when pro-

testers, fed up with the lack of

work during coronavirus lock-

downs, clashed with the army

PHOTOS BY HASSAN AMMAR/ASSOCIATED PRESS

FROM TOP: Mourners in

Tripoli, Lebanon, carry the

bodies of a girl and woman

who died when their boat

capsized in April. Women

watch a funeral procession for

seven people who died in the

capsizing of a migrant boat.

Lebanese soldiers try to calm

a relative of a man who has

been missing since the boat

carrying migrants capsized.