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Tripoli Prepares to Implement Full Curfew during Eid

Tripoli Prepares to Implement Full Curfew during Eid
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Tripoli Prepares to Implement Full Curfew during Eid

Tripoli Prepares to Implement Full Curfew during Eid

The Libyan capital, Tripoli, is preparing to implement a full curfew during Eid al-Fitr holiday to fight the coronavirus pandemic.

The Presidential Council (PC) has made a decision to extend the partial curfew for a further ten days, beginning from Monday, but insisted on imposing a 24-hour curfew throughout the Eid.

The Supreme Committee to Combat the Coronavirus Epidemic (SCCCE) recommended these measures to reduce the risks of a further outbreak.

Meanwhile, Libyans rushed to the markets to buy food and new clothes for children, as they complained of a hike in prices.

Libya has recorded 65 coronavirus infections, including three deaths since the first case was detected in March.

Many citizens stranded abroad due to measures stopping the spread of the virus have recently returned to Libya.

Director of the International Health Supervision Agency at the Ras Ajdir land border Mukhtar al-Mansouri said 47 citizens returned from Tunisia, while Misrata International Airport received 342 citizens from Germany and some other European countries.

Medical services in eastern Libya started testing illegal migrants in deportation centers and shelters.

This step, according to the Medical Advisory Committee, is part of a plan set to conduct random tests throughout residential areas.

It comes in light of warnings by the United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund (UNICEF) and the World Health Organization (WHO) against the coronavirus effect on infants in Libya.

“UNICEF and WHO are raising the alarm over severe vaccine shortages in Libya that are putting more than 250,000 children under one year of age at severe risk,” the UNICEF office in Libya announced in a statement on Tuesday.

“The situation is made worse by the continued armed conflict, the COVID-19 pandemic, disrupted health care services, regular power cuts, shortages of safe water supplies and the closure of schools and child-friendly spaces.”

“Immunization is one of the most effective public health interventions and when routine vaccinations are missed, there is a high chance of a resurgence of a measles outbreak, other preventable diseases, and fatalities among children”, it quoted its Special Representative Abdel-Rahman Ghandour as warning.

“There is an urgent need to ensure an uninterrupted flow of funds for vaccine procurement to cater for the current shortfall,” Ghandour stressed.

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Displaced Syrians Who Have Returned Home Face a Fragile Future, Says UN Refugees Chief

A handout picture released by the official Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) shows Syria's interim Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shaibani (R) meeting with United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi in the Syrian capital Damascus on June 20, 2025. (SANA / AFP)
A handout picture released by the official Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) shows Syria's interim Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shaibani (R) meeting with United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi in the Syrian capital Damascus on June 20, 2025. (SANA / AFP)
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Displaced Syrians Who Have Returned Home Face a Fragile Future, Says UN Refugees Chief

A handout picture released by the official Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) shows Syria's interim Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shaibani (R) meeting with United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi in the Syrian capital Damascus on June 20, 2025. (SANA / AFP)
A handout picture released by the official Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) shows Syria's interim Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shaibani (R) meeting with United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi in the Syrian capital Damascus on June 20, 2025. (SANA / AFP)

UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi said Friday that more than two million Syrian refugees and internally displaced people have returned home since the fall of the government of Bashar al-Assad in December.

Speaking during a visit to Damascus that coincided with World Refugee Day, Grandi described the situation in Syria as “fragile and hopeful” and warned that the returnees may not remain if Syria does not get more international assistance to rebuild its war-battered infrastructure.

“How can we make sure that the return of the Syrian displaced or refugees is sustainable, that people don’t move again because they don’t have a house or they don’t have a job or they don’t have electricity?” Grandi asked a small group of journalists after the visit, during which he met with Syrian Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shaibani and spoke with returning refugees.

“What is needed for people to return, electricity but also schools, also health centers, also safety and security,” he said.

Syria’s near 14-year civil war, which ended last December with the ouster of Assad in a lightning opposition offensive, killed nearly half a million people and displaced half the country’s pre-war population of 23 million.

Grandi said that 600,000 Syrians have returned to the country since Assad’s fall, and about another 1.5 million internally displaced people returned to their homes in the same period.

However, there is little aid available for the returnees, with multiple crises in the region -- including the new Israel-Iran war -- and shrinking support from donors. The UNHCR has reduced programs for Syrian refugees in neighboring countries, including healthcare, education and cash support for hundreds of thousands in Lebanon.

“The United States suspended all foreign assistance, and we were very much impacted, like others, and also other donors in Europe are reducing foreign assistance,” Grandi said, adding: “I tell the Europeans in particular, be careful. Remember 2015, 2016 when they cut food assistance to the Syrian refugees in Lebanon and Jordan, the Syrians moved toward Europe.”

Some have also fled for security reasons since Assad's fall. While the situation has stabilized since then, particularly in Damascus, the new government has struggled to extend its control over all areas of the country and to bring a patchwork of former opposition groups together into a national army.

Grandi said the UNHCR has been in talks with the Lebanese government, which halted official registration of new refugees in 2015, to register the new refugees and “provide them with basic assistance.”

“This is a complex community, of course, for whom the chances of return are not so strong right now,” he said. He said he had urged the Syrian authorities to make sure that measures taken in response to the attacks on civilians “are very strong and to prevent further episodes of violence.”

The Israel-Iran war has thrown further fuel on the flames in a region already dealing with multiple crises. Grandi noted that Iran is hosting millions of refugees from Afghanistan who may now be displaced again.

The UN does not yet have a sense of how many people have fled the conflict between Iran and Israel, he said.

“We know that some Iranians have gone to neighboring countries, like Azerbaijan or Armenia, but we have very little information. No country has asked for help yet,” he said. “And we have very little sense of the internal displacement, because my colleagues who are in Iran - they’re working out of bunkers because of the bombs.”