Syrians Help German Authorities Catch Bomb-Plot Suspect
With the aid of a group of Syrians, German police captured a Syrian refugee suspected of plotting a bomb attack after a two-day manhunt.
Jaber al-Bakr, a 22-year-old Syrian who came to Germany and was granted asylum last year, escaped a police raid on his apartment in the eastern city of Chemnitz on October 9.
The authorities discovered 3.3lb (1.5kg) of the homemade explosive TATP, and said Bakr was planning an attack in Germany and may have links to the so-called Islamic State group.
Amid the ensuing manhunt, Bakr asked a group of Syrians at a train station in Leipzig for a place to stay.
They took Bakr home, before later recognizing him from wanted posters, upon which they tied him up and went to the police. “The suspect was handed over to us bound,” a local police official said.
France Urges U.K. to Honor ‘Moral Duty’ to Calais Children
France called on the U.K. to take in children who have relatives in Britain but remain stuck in a migrant camp in Calais slated for imminent closure.
“I solemnly ask Britain to live up to its moral duty,” French interior minister Bernard Cazeneuve said before meeting his British counterpart on October 10.
The Red Cross says 178 unaccompanied children who have a right to claim asylum in the U.K. due to family ties have instead been left to fend for themselves in the squalid “Jungle” camp in Calais.
“Children, who could be rebuilding their lives in safety with their only surviving relatives, are instead being left to fend for themselves in conditions unimaginable to most adults,” Alex Fraser, director of refugee support at the Red Cross, said in a statement.
Some 10,000 people live in the makeshift settlement in the port city, which Paris has vowed to close by the end of the year. Fourteen migrants have been killed in Calais this year trying to reach the U.K., including an Eritrean man fatally struck by a car on October 9.
Jordan Says Aid to Border Refugees Will Be Dropped by Crane
Jordan bolstered hopes that aid will soon reach 70,000 Syrians stranded in an encampment at the border, but added to uncertainty about how it will be delivered.
The U.N. has been negotiating with Jordan over the delivery of supplies to the camp, after two months without aid. Jordan closed the border – an area known as the “berm” – in June following a militant attack.
Jordanian government spokesman Mohamed Momani told Agence France-Presse that aid deliveries would resume “in the coming weeks.”
But he said a provisional deal for a new aid distribution point further from the border was no longer under consideration. Instead, Momani said, the aid would be dropped across the border by crane, as with the last delivery in early August.
Aid officials told the Associated Press that no agreement has yet been finalized.
Recommended Reads:
- Reuters: U.N. Report Slams Nauru for Failure to Protect Refugee Children
- Norwegian Refugee Council: Dadaab’s Broken Promise
- IRIN: Egypt Boat Disaster Shines Light on New Migration Trend
- TIME: Portraits of South Sudanese Refugees
- Agence France-Presse: Syrian Refugee Paintings Snapped Up in Greek Auction