Carlos Camilo Clavijoolarte, born to a Catholic family in Honduras, had a chance encounter with a family friend who was a Muslim convert and who introduced him to writings of famed mystic Mevlana Jalaluddin Rumi.

Now known as “İbrahim” Carlos, he recounted his journey towards Islam and how he ended up working at the Turkish Red Crescent as the charity’s delegation head in Pakistan, thousands of miles away from Panama, his second home.

Clavijoolarte migrated to Panama when he was 15 with his devoutly Catholic family. He grew more distant to his faith while in Panama. “I was particularly baffled by the confession rituals. I was feeling like I fell into a void in terms of spiritual existence. I stopped attending church and sought God’s help to fill the void in my heart,” he told Anadolu Agency (AA) in an interview on Sunday.

He was in Spain for work in 2004 and continued to drift from the church. “I was praying to God day and night before I came across signs (for conversion).” A Spanish family friend, Muslim convert Fatih Alvaro Samper, paved the way for Clavijoolarte’s gradual conversion to Islam.

“His good behavior, kindness and charitable work impressed me. He gave me a book of poems by Mevlana Jalaluddin Rumi. I have fallen in love with the book. Rumi’s words were holding secrets (of faith) for me,” he recounted.

Samper introduced him to other Muslims. “I asked him if he had any other Muslim friends. He told me he did not have any; he had Muslim ‘brothers and sisters’.”

A visit to a restaurant run by a Muslim in Spain’s Granada was the final step for his conversion.

“I saw Muslims coming from different cities working there to help him, for free. It was strange. But I wanted to help him too. I was hearing voices in my head, one telling me to stop and ask to get paid, and the other telling me to keep helping others. It was so loud, I thought a disembodied voice was talking to me and I was about to die. The voice told me to come to him and I was feeling blessed,” he recalled his experience.

After his conversion to Islam, Clavijoolarte sought a place where he could learn more about the religion. Upon the recommendation of his friends in Spain, he traveled to Turkey.

“This is a country where you can best learn Islam’s history and culture. Living in Turkey opened a new window into my life. I was impressed by people’s charity here,” Clavijoolarte, who first worked at Turkish Diyanet Foundation (TDV), a charity group active across the world, said.

“I have seen the greatness of Turkish civilization. I have seen they helped others regardless of their race and religion,” he said. Since 2018 he has served as head of the Turkish Red Crescent’s delegation in Islamabad.

As for his religious family, Ibrahim Carlos says he encountered opposition from them.

“I had a fiance who broke up with me when she found out that I converted to Islam. I was very close to my sister and when she found out, she told me that I was now dead to her,” he recalled.

For one year, his family did not speak to him, but Clavijoolarte says he now made amends with them./agencies

Turkish nationals who were held by putschist Gen. Khalifa Haftar's forces in Libya's east said they clung to life with hope of being rescued one day, as they remembered being exposed to physical and psychological violence during their captivity.

Earlier on Sunday, a statement by Turkey's Foreign Ministry said the Turkish nationals were brought back to the country safely thanks to joint efforts by Turkish and Qatari intelligence agencies.

The Turkish Embassy in Tripoli and the National Intelligence Organization followed the case closely and cooperated with concerned units to ensure their safe return, it added.

The Turkish nationals, who were living in Libya and then were held on bogus allegations, were rescued in a joint operation by Turkish and Qatari intelligence agencies. They spoke to Anadolu Agency (AA) about their ordeal and the happiness of returning to their homeland.

Ahmet Selvi, 45, who had lived in Libya for about 13 years, stated that in November 2019, while visiting the family of his Libyan wife, their car was stopped at a checkpoint controlled by Haftar's forces.

"They got us out of the car just because we were Turkish," said Selvi, a mechanical engineer who had a firm in Libya.

"After that, they took me to prison, where I couldn't see anyone for two years, even my family," he added.

Selvi said when they were detained, the armed forces assured them they would be released after the necessary investigations were completed.

"Then they handcuffed my hands behind my back, put something on my head, and took off my clothes," he recalled. "After that, they persecuted us a lot. The next day, we were taken to their prison in Benghazi."

Explaining that they were exposed to violence in Benghazi and all of their links with the outside were cut throughout this process, Selvi said: "Once they picked me up from where I was staying. Four soldiers, one with a baseball bat, another with a cable, and yet another with a water pipe. They had attempted to beat us to death there. My body was pitch dark from my knees to my back. I couldn't sit for a month and a half, it was such a distressing situation."

Selvi also recalled that he was held in a place where Libyan prisoners were held for a while.

"They were putting all kinds of psychological pressure, all kinds of cruelty on us," he explained. "Every time the door was opened, we were worried about whether they would beat us or not. We died every day, but we never lost our hope, as we knew they (the Turkish government) would save us."

Noting that the place where they were held was not a regular prison, but a military prison, Selvi said: "They only served food through a small opening (area) at a certain time. The door doesn't open, you don't even see the sun. We didn't go out in the sun properly for three-four months."

‘We haven't slept in 3 days'

When six sailors were rescued following Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's statement, Selvi recalled: "We thought they would release us too."

He added: "Indeed, we went through many challenges, but after these difficulties, we are very happy now," referring to their never-ending hope of being rescued one day.

"I talked to my wife, as well as my family, including my mother, father, and siblings. Believe me, we haven't slept in three days because of the joy of release," he also said.

‘To be free is indescribable feeling'

Ilker Sağlık, a 43-year-old sweets-maker and baklava expert who has lived in Libya for almost 10 years, is another Turkish national who has been rescued.

"We asked why we were detained, they just said, 'You are Turkish'," Sağlık recalled, adding that he was detained during a raid on their workplace.

The father of a three-year-old daughter, Sağlık could not see his wife or child during his detention.

Pointing out that being free again is an indescribable feeling, Sağlık said: "We are very happy to return to our own land and to reunite with our family."

He thanked Turkish President Erdoğan and intelligence head Hakan Fidan as well as other officials for their efforts to rescue them.

‘We were confident we would be rescued'

Halil Gözel, a 53-year-old restaurant owner, said he visited Libya for the first time in 2008 and has been going back and forth since then.

He also mentioned that they were subjected to physical and psychological torture in prison after being detained by Haftar's forces in 2020 and that they had a very difficult time.

Gözel said they had always believed that Turkey would come to their rescue. "We were sure that we would be rescued there, knowing that the Turkish state would not leave even one of its citizens alone in the world."

He also said the Turkish president also called them after they were rescued.

"Let it be known in the world and in Turkey that the Republic of Turkey is strong," he said, praising the Turkish president as well as the intelligence chief.

Nurettin Çalık and Doğan Kissa also thanked those who helped them.

Libya's civil war, which continued since the ouster and killing of strongman Moammar Gadhafi in 2011, was exacerbated in 2019 when warlord Khalifa Haftar carried out a military onslaught to topple the Tripoli-based internationally recognized government for control of the North African country.

In April 2019, Haftar, who commanded forces loyal to the United Nations-recognized government based in eastern Libya, launched a wide-ranging campaign to take the capital, but his forces failed to achieve their primary goal, although they captured several strategic towns and cities in the vicinity.

In March this year, an elected transitional authority comprising of a unity government and a presidential council assumed its duties to lead the country to elections.

Amid efforts for Libya to move forward, putschist Gen. Haftar is still acting independently of the legitimate government and leads an armed militia that controls many areas. He calls himself the "commander-in-chief of the Libyan National Army," contesting the presidential council's powers./aa

48 people were arrested Sunday after a second night of violent riots over coronavirus measures in the Netherlands, Dutch police said.

Prosecutors meanwhile updated to four the number of people shot when police opened fire during an "orgy of violence" in the port city of Rotterdam on Friday night.

The two nights of unrest in a number of cities came a week after the Dutch government went into a partial lockdown over a surge in cases.

In The Hague on Saturday night, officers in riot gear charged demonstrators who set fire to bicycles and an electric moped piled in the middle of a busy intersection.

"The police were also pelted with heavy fireworks and stones thrown from roofs," police said in a statement, adding that water cannon was used to put out the fire.

"Officers made a total of 19 arrests for, among other things, insult."

Five police officers were injured during the unrest while a rock thrown by rioters smashed the window of a passing ambulance carrying a patient, police said.

Thirteen people were arrested in separate riots in the towns of Stein and Roermond in southern Limburg province after fireworks were thrown at officers, police said.

Police also made 16 arrests during clashes in the "Bible Belt" town of Urk, where vaccination rates are very low due to conservative Protestant beliefs, local media said, quoting police.

'Going wild'

Municipal workers surveyed the damage in The Hague's working-class Schilderswijk district on Sunday including a security camera toppled by the rioters and a patch of burned road where the pile of bikes was torched.

Local residents blamed the riots on frustrated youths and uncertainty over whether the government will introduce so-called "2G measures" that would let cafes and bars decide whether to turn away the unvaccinated.

"They don't know (if 2G will be introduced) and so they don't know what to do... They think that is the way to make themselves heard," Mustafa Toprak, 31, told Agence France-Presse (AFP).

"It's a bad way to do it, but hey it's the young people who are going wild."

"They are young people and they have had few freedoms because of Covid-19 for almost two years now so yes I understand somehow – only I can't approve," said Claudia van der Wijngaard, 60.

"No, I don't really see a solution as long as the government continues to work with sanitary measures, I don't see a solution coming and I'm afraid there will be more (riots)."

'Hit by bullets'

On Friday violence broke out in the port city of Rotterdam after a protest against coronavirus measures, during which police opened fire and 51 suspects were arrested.

"It now appears that four people have been hit by bullets," the Dutch public prosecutor's office said in a statement, blaming medical confidentiality rules for the delay in getting the correct figure.

Police had previously said three people were wounded by gunshots and were being treated in hospital.

Some of the Rotterdam rioters had links to football hooligans and "groups that often have ties to other forms of organized crime," Justice and Security Minister Ferd Grapperhaus told public broadcaster NPO.

The Netherlands went back into western Europe's first partial lockdown of the winter last Saturday with at least three weeks of curbs under which bars, cafes, restaurants, supermarkets and non-essential shops must shut early.

The government has said it wants to bring in the 2G option – which would bar unvaccinated people from getting coronavirus passes for some venues – after that, but there has been opposition in parliament.

In January the Netherlands suffered its worst riots in decades after the government introduced a coronavirus curfew./agencies

Sri Lanka abandoned its quest to become the world's first completely organic farming nation on Sunday, announcing it would immediately lift an import ban on pesticides and other agricultural inputs.

The island country has been in the grips of a severe economic crisis, with a lack of foreign exchange triggering shortages of food, crude oil and other essential goods.

Authorities had already walked back restrictions on fertilizer imports last month for tea, the country's main export earner.

But ahead of planned farmer protests in the capital, Sri Lanka's agricultural ministry said it would end a broader ban on all agrochemicals, including herbicides and pesticides.

"We will now allow chemical inputs that are urgently needed," ministry secretary Udith Jayasinghe told the private News First TV network.

"Considering the need to ensure food security, we have taken this decision."

Vast tracts of farmland were abandoned after the import ban, first introduced in May.

Shortages have worsened in the past week, with prices for rice, vegetables and other market staples having doubled across Sri Lanka.

Supermarkets have also rationed rice sales, allowing only 5 kilograms (11 pounds) per customer.

Farmers' organizations had planned to march on the national parliament in Colombo on Friday to demand the import of essential chemicals to protect their crops.

President Gotabaya Rajapaksa had justified the import ban by saying he wanted to make Sri Lankan farming 100% organic.

The policy was introduced after a massive hit to the cash-strapped island's economy in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, with tourism earnings and foreign worker remittances drastically falling.

Authorities attempted to save foreign exchange by last year banning a host of imported goods, including some food and spices.

Sri Lanka also shut its only oil refinery last month after running out of dollars to import crude./agencies

President Fuat Oktay strongly criticized Greece for disregarding humanity in the Aegean Sea, after footage of Greek Coast Guard units pushing and shooting at inflatable migrant boats emerged Sunday.

“Humanity has been disregarded once again in the Aegean! What a shame!” Oktay said on Twitter.

Oktay’s criticism came after Greek coast guard units prevented the progress of a migrant boat with dangerous maneuvers, hit the migrants with sticks and made attempts to sink the boat and fired into the air and around the boats, according to Turkey’s Defense Ministry.

The vice president noted that he told Vice President of the European Union Commission Margaritis Schinas that Greece’s inhumane pushbacks were unacceptable and that Turkey expects Frontex and Greek authorities to fulfill their responsibilities in this regard.

Turkey has repeatedly condemned Greece's illegal practice of pushing back asylum-seekers, saying it violates humanitarian values and international law by endangering the lives of vulnerable migrants, including women and children.

Turkey's five Aegean provinces – Çanakkale, Balıkesir, Izmir, Muğla and Aydın – are prime spots for refugees to leave Turkey for the European Union, with Greek islands lying within sight of the Turkish coast.

In recent years, hundreds of thousands have made short but perilous journeys across the Aegean to reach northern and western Europe in search of a better life.

Hundreds of people have died at sea as many boats carrying refugees sank or capsized. The Turkish Coast Guard Command has rescued thousands of others.

Turkey and Greece have been key transit points for migrants looking to cross into Europe, fleeing war and persecution to start new lives. Turkey has accused Greece of large-scale pushbacks, summary deportations and denying migrants access to asylum procedures, which is a violation of international law. Ankara also accuses the EU of turning a blind eye to this blatant abuse of human rights.

Pushbacks are considered contrary to international refugee protection agreements, which dictate that people should not be expelled or returned to a country where their life and safety might be in danger due to their race, religion, nationality or membership in a social or political group.

Last month, a joint investigation by leading European media outlets revealed that pushback operations by security forces had become systematic practices in violation of EU and international humanitarian law.

German weekly Der Spiegel also published videos on its website showing masked Greek officers intercepting and disabling refugee boats in the Aegean Sea, endangering the lives of vulnerable asylum-seekers./DS

Turkish glassmaker Şişecam has announced it will acquire 60% of Ciner Group’s soda business operations in the U.S. for a total of $450 million, including all costs.

In a statement, Şişecam said Saturday it would buy a 60% stake in Ciner Resources Corporation. The entity holds a 74% interest in Ciner Resources LP, which in turn holds 51% in Ciner Wyoming USA, a fully operational natural soda ash production facility with 2.5 million tons per year capacity.

Şişecam and Ciner Group, which are joint venture production partners in the natural soda ash business, will invest about $4 billion in total in the U.S., the statement said.

With the move, Şişecam-controlled soda ash production capacity will quadruple to 10 million metric tons, compared to the existing capacity of 2.5 million.

Şişecam said the investment would include the establishment of the largest soda ash production facility in a single location and make the company the largest natural soda ash producer in the U.S.

“With the additional capacity ... we are expected to be one of the strongest players in the field of natural soda ash, which we believe will be among the sectors of the future,” said Ahmet Kırman, Chairperson of Şişecam, citing the advantage of lower-cost production and its compatibility with sustainability.

“We anticipate strong demand growth in the coming years in the global soda ash sector, where demand has exceeded 60 million tons in 2021. We also support natural soda ash production due to our sustainability-oriented perspective, as it provides a nearly 50% decrease in carbon intensity and a more than 50% decrease in water consumption,” Kırman noted.

The new investment will see the company establishing an integrated production base in Wyoming with an annual soda ash production capacity of 8 million tons, according to the chairperson.

“This new facility will be the world’s largest integrated production base in a single location,” he said. “We will create and manage additional natural soda ash capacity in the U.S. without rediscovering America,” he added.

Of the investments the company announced, the Wyoming Plant has been carrying out production since 1962.

“We anticipate that Pacific and Atlantic investments will be gradually activated in accordance with their investment plans starting from 2025 and that the new facilities will reach full capacity in 2027,” Kırman said./aa

The World Food Programme (WFP) warned Sunday that hunger was increasing across war-torn Yemen amid continued rise in goods prices.

"Food prices and hunger continue to rise," WFP said on Twitter. "The level of need is high with families depending on WFP food assistance to survive."

The UN agency warned that the protracted Yemeni crisis “is devastating for millions of families."

The humanitarian situation in Yemen is aggravated by the depreciation of the value of the Yemeni riyal, which reached more than 1,500 riyal for US dollar in areas under the Yemeni government’s control.

Before the outbreak of conflict in 2014, the dollar price was 215 Yemeni riyals in the Yemeni local market.

Yemen has been engulfed by violence and instability, when Iran-aligned Houthi rebels captured much of the country, including the capital Sanaa.

A Saudi-led coalition aimed at reinstating the Yemeni government has worsened the situation and caused one of the world’s worst man-made humanitarian crises, with 233,000 people killed, nearly 80% or about 30 million needing humanitarian assistance and protection, and more than 13 million in danger of starvation, according to UN estimates./agencies