Parents of Syrians Missing In Greece Boat Tragedy 'Pray Day And Night'

Survivors of the shipwreck wait inside a warehouse at the port of Kalamata
Angelos TZORTZINIS - AFP
Survivors of the shipwreck wait inside a warehouse at the port of Kalamata Angelos TZORTZINIS - AFP
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Parents of Syrians Missing In Greece Boat Tragedy 'Pray Day And Night'

Survivors of the shipwreck wait inside a warehouse at the port of Kalamata
Angelos TZORTZINIS - AFP
Survivors of the shipwreck wait inside a warehouse at the port of Kalamata Angelos TZORTZINIS - AFP

In war-torn Syria, parents of teenagers missing in a shipwreck off the Greek coast are clinging onto hope their children might be alive, days after the tragedy.

A fishing boat overloaded with migrants capsized and sank off Greece's Peloponnese peninsula on Wednesday, killing at least 78 people.

While the exact number of passengers on the rusty trawler is unknown, hundreds are feared missing, and relatives and activists have told AFP at least 141 Syrians were aboard.

Iyad from Jassem in the southern province of Daraa, the cradle of Syria's 12-year civil war, said his 19-year-old son Ali was still unaccounted for.

"I have had no news of my son. I haven't spoken to him. I haven't heard his voice," said Iyad, who works at a school and declined to provide his surname.

"His mother hasn't stopped crying for three days."

The 47-year-old said he had heard of two Greek reports -- one listing his son among the survivors and another among the dead.

"I still have hope that he will be among the survivors," Iyad told AFP by telephone on Saturday. "We are praying to God day and night."

The teenager was looking for a better life in Libya, his father said, and had travelled there by plane from Damascus.

"He told us he wanted to work in a restaurant" and had planned to send money to help the family, Iyad added.

"We didn't know he wanted to take a boat," he said. "If we'd known, we wouldn't have allowed him to go."

Activists at the Daraa Martyrs Documentation Office told AFP on Saturday that 106 people aboard the trawler were from the country's south, mainly from Daraa province, where they said "living and security situation... is absolutely unbearable".

Only 34 so far were known to have survived, they added.

A blind 15-year-old boy and his 28-year-old sister from Daraa province were also among those missing, their uncle told AFP on Friday, declining to be identified for security reasons.

Daraa province was the cradle of the 2011 uprising against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, but it returned to regime control in 2018.

Iyad said Ali's uncle in Germany had travelled to Greece to search for the boy, but "it's like looking for a needle in a haystack".

"For us, he is missing. We have not mourned and we will not mourn until we are sure what has happened," he said.

"If he is found alive, we'll bring him back to Syria. I don't want my son to be far away from me... not even for one more second.

"We borrowed a large amount of money to send him to Libya to work -- not to die."

In Kobane in Syria's Kurdish-held north, Mohammed Mohammed said he too was awaiting news of the fate of his 15-year-old son Diyar.

"Every day, hope is fading of seeing my son again," Mohammed, a tyre repairman, told AFP by telephone late Friday.

Diyar "left because the situation here is terrible", the 48-year-old said.

Kobane became a symbol of symbol of victory over ISIS group, after US-backed Kurdish forces drove the jihadists out in 2015.

But the city, also known as Ain al-Arab, is in the crosshairs of Ankara, which wants Kurdish forces to withdraw from frontier areas.

Türkiye has carried out deadly raids in the area and threatened a new ground offensive.

Mohammed said the family lived less than one kilometre (little more than half a mile) from the Turkish border.

Diyar's "dream was to go to Germany to be with my brother who lives there", he said.

"Everyone wants to leave," he said, adding Diyar had been with four friends.

At least 35 people aboard the boat were from Kurdish-held areas in Syria's north, a relative told AFP on Friday.

Mohammed said his brother had travelled to Greece in the hope of finding Diyar, but was denied entry to hospitals where he had hoped to speak to survivors.

"People are fleeing death, but finding death" along the way, he said.



People Returning to Sudan’s Capital: Khartoum is Not Habitable

Destroyed combat vehicles stand on a street at the Sharg Elnil area, which was recently liberated by the Sudanese army, in Khartoum, Sudan March 15, 2025. REUTERS/El Tayeb Siddig
Destroyed combat vehicles stand on a street at the Sharg Elnil area, which was recently liberated by the Sudanese army, in Khartoum, Sudan March 15, 2025. REUTERS/El Tayeb Siddig
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People Returning to Sudan’s Capital: Khartoum is Not Habitable

Destroyed combat vehicles stand on a street at the Sharg Elnil area, which was recently liberated by the Sudanese army, in Khartoum, Sudan March 15, 2025. REUTERS/El Tayeb Siddig
Destroyed combat vehicles stand on a street at the Sharg Elnil area, which was recently liberated by the Sudanese army, in Khartoum, Sudan March 15, 2025. REUTERS/El Tayeb Siddig

Destroyed bridges, blackouts, empty water stations and looted hospitals across Sudan bear witness to the devastating impact on infrastructure from two years of war.

Authorities estimate hundreds of billions of dollars' worth of reconstruction would be needed. Yet there is little chance of that in the short-term given continued fighting and drone attacks on power stations, dams and fuel depots.

Not to mention a world becoming more averse to foreign aid where the biggest donor, the US, has slashed assistance.

The Sudanese army and Rapid Support Forces (RSF) have been battling since April 2023, with tens of thousands of people killed or injured and about 13 million uprooted in what aid groups call the world's worst humanitarian crisis.

Residents of the capital Khartoum have to endure weeks-long power outages, unclean water and overcrowded hospitals. Their airport is burnt out with shells of planes on the runway.

Most of the main buildings in downtown Khartoum are charred and once-wealthy neighborhoods are ghost towns with destroyed cars and unexploded shells dotting the streets.

"Khartoum is not habitable. The war has destroyed our life and our country and we feel homeless even though the army is back in control," said Tariq Ahmed, 56.

He returned briefly to his looted home in the capital before leaving it again, after the army recently pushed the RSF out of Khartoum.

One consequence of the infrastructure breakdown can be seen in a rapid cholera outbreak that has claimed 172 deaths out of 2,729 cases over the past week alone mainly in Khartoum.

Other parts of central and western Sudan, including the Darfur region, are similarly ravaged by fighting, while the extensive damage in Khartoum, once the center of service provision, reverberates across the country.

Sudanese authorities estimate reconstruction needs at $300 billion for Khartoum and $700 billion for the rest of Sudan.

The UN is doing its own estimates.

Sudan's oil production has more than halved to 24,000 barrels-per-day and its refining capabilities ceased as the main al-Jaili oil refinery sustained $3 billion in damages during battles, Oil and Energy Minister Mohieddine Naeem told Reuters.

Without refining capacity, Sudan now exports all its crude and relies on imports, he said. It also struggles to maintain pipelines needed by South Sudan for its own exports.

Earlier this month, drones targeted fuel depots and the airport at the country's main port city.

All of Khartoum's power stations have been destroyed, Naeem said. The national electrical company recently announced a plan to increase supply from Egypt to northern Sudan and said earlier in the year that repeated drone attacks to stations outside Khartoum were stretching its ability to keep the grid going.

LOOTED COPPER

Government forces re-took Khartoum earlier this year and as people return to houses turned upside down by looters, one distinctive feature has been deep holes drilled into walls and roads to uncover valuable copper wire.

On Sudan's Nile Street, once its busiest throughway, there is a ditch about one meter (three feet) deep and 4 km (2.5 miles) long, stripped of wiring and with traces of burning.

Khartoum's two main water stations went out of commission early in the war as RSF soldiers looted machinery and used fuel oil to power vehicles, according to Khartoum state spokesperson Altayeb Saadeddine.

Those who have remained in Khartoum resort to drinking water from the Nile or long-forgotten wells, exposing them to waterborne illnesses. But there are few hospitals equipped to treat them.

"There has been systematic sabotage by militias against hospitals, and most medical equipment has been looted and what remains has been deliberately destroyed," said Health Minister Haitham Mohamed Ibrahim, putting losses to the health system at $11 billion.

With two or three million people looking at returning to Khartoum, interventions were needed to avoid further humanitarian emergencies like the cholera outbreak, said United Nations Development Program resident representative Luca Renda.

But continued war and limited budget means a full-scale reconstruction plan is not in the works.

"What we can do ... with the capacity we have on the ground, is to look at smaller-scale infrastructure rehabilitation," he said, like solar-power water pumps, hospitals, and schools.

In that way, he said, the war may provide an opportunity for decentralizing services away from Khartoum, and pursuing greener energy sources.