Some 156 refugees from Central African Republic (CAR), most of them children, have returned from Cameroon to safe areas in their country after years of exile, the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) announced Wednesday.

The returnee refugees headed to the town of Baoro and city of Berberati this weekend from Cameroon, the UNHCR in West & Central Africa tweeted.

The refugees’ return started three months ago, but it was interrupted by post-election violence in CAR, it added.

“They are returning to safe areas & received essential assistance,” it noted.

The group of returnees include 101 children who had been living in neighboring Cameroon, “some since 2014.” When their journey to their homeland was interrupted, they temporarily stayed in the transit center of Beloko at the Beloko border crossing with Cameroon, where a baby was born, according to the UNHCR’s office.

As security improved in and around their home, the refugees were able to safely return in time for the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, the UNHCR in West & Central Africa added.

According to the UN agency, roughly 5,000 refugees from CAR returned home during 2020 following years in exile in Cameroon and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DR Congo).

The situation in the landlocked African country of CAR worsened after the rejection of former President Francois Bozize’s candidacy for the December 2020 presidential election.

Hostilities between a coalition of non-state armed groups and government forces have continued over the past four months, plunging the country into a new cycle of violence./aa

Armed clashes broke out early Thursday between rival militias loyal to Libyan warlord Khalifa Haftar in the coastal city of Sirte, according to military sources. 

At least one person was killed and four others wounded during the clashes between militants from the Al-Kaniyat Brigade, the 166th Brigade and the Versefane Brigade in Sirte, General Abdulhadi Dirah, the spokesperson for the Libyan army's Sirte-Jufra Joint Operations Unit, told Anadolu Agency.

The cause of the clashes remains unclear.

On Feb. 2 this year, a clash between pro-Haftar militias occurred in Sirte as the Tariq bin Ziyad Brigade launched an attack on the main headquarters of the Al-Kaniyat Brigade.

Libya has been torn by civil war since the ouster of late ruler Muammar Gaddafi in 2011.

The war was exacerbated when Haftar, supported by several countries including the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, Russia and France, conducted a military onslaught to topple the Tripoli-based internationally recognized government for control over the country.

On Oct. 23, 2020, a cease-fire was reached under the auspices of the UN, which Haftar's militia has since violated from time to time.

On Feb. 5, Libya's rival political groups agreed during UN-mediated talks in Geneva to form an interim government to lead the country to elections this December. Libyan delegates elected Mohammad Menfi to head a three-member Presidential Council and Abdul Hamid Dbeibeh as the new prime minister./aa

The European Central Bank (ECB) is treating the matter of a digital euro with priority and will move as rapidly as possible, but the most important thing is protecting people's data, Fabio Panetta, a member of the bank’s executive board, said Wednesday. 

"The record level of participation in our public consultation and the willingness of citizens and professionals to support a digital euro are encouraging," Panetta, who is also responsible for the bank's digital currency policies, said in a statement.

He stressed that in the coming months, the bank's governing council will decide whether to start a formal investigation phase on a digital euro.

He said the analysis may take around two years.

"At the end of the investigation, the Governing Council would take a decision on the design and on whether to move to the implementation of user requirements,” he noted.

"This phase, which would take several years, would see the development of integrated services, testing and possible live experimentation of a digital euro."

Panetta underlined that the council will able to make a decision on launching a digital euro after all these phases.

He also said the most important feature of a digital euro is privacy.

"Protecting users’ personal data and ensuring a high level of confidentiality will therefore be a priority in our work."

The bank also released a report on a digital euro which was prefaced by Panetta and Christine Legarde, the head of the bank./aa

Erbil International Airport in northern Iraq was hit by an explosives-laden drone, the Kurdish Regional Government (KRG) said Wednesday.

The military section of the airport where US-led international coalition forces are deployed was targeted in the attack, the Interior Ministry said in a statement.

No casualties have been reported, although a warehouse suffered damage, it added.

Earlier in the day, KRG security officials said in a statement that the airport was hit by at least one rocket.

An explosion was also heard near the area, and an investigation into the incident has been launched, the ministry said earlier in a statement.

- 'Attack threatens Iraq's national interests at highest level'

KRG President Nechirvan Barzani condemned the attack in a Twitter post.

He noted that the attack on the airport and rocket attack on the Bashiqa military base in northern Iraq will lead to more tension and instability in the country and threaten Iraq's national interests at the highest level.

Barzani also pointed out the importance of international cooperation and coordination to combat the groups behind such attacks.

Condemning the attack on the Bashiqa military base, Aydin Maruf, the KRG's minister responsible for ethnic and religious groups, who is also an executive committee member of the Iraqi Turkmen Front, offered his condolences over the Turkish soldier who was martyred in the incident.

Noting that the recent attacks are seen as a clear threat to the region, Maruf pointed out that the illegal groups carrying them out targeted Erbil and the security and political stability of the region./aa

Coinbase on Wednesday saw shares rise as much as 71% on its first trading day on the US stock market.

The stock price of the American cryptocurrency exchange platform climbed as high as $429.02 on Nasdaq, which gave it a reference price of $250. Shares were trading around $390 at 1.50 p.m. EDT (1750GMT), giving it a market valuation of more than $100 billion.

Instead of conventional initial public offerings (IPO) seen in US markets, Coinbase preferred a direct listing on Nasdaq, which enabled a market-driven price for its stocks to be traded.

Coinbase announced last week its revenue in the first quarter soared to $1.8 billion from $190 million the same period in 2020, as cryptocurrencies have recently become popular.

Founded in 2012 as a platform for users to easily buy and sell Bitcoin, Coinbase has become the US' largest cryptocurrency exchange by trading volume with more than 56 million users.

In less than a decade, the cryptocurrency market surpassed $2 trillion valuation with Bitcoin's market cap currently around $1.1 trillion.

The world's top two cryptocurrencies, Bitcoin and Ethereum, saw new record levels on Wednesday with $64,829 and $2,400, respectively. They were less than $7,000 and $160 a year ago.

Even Dogecoin, an altcoin initially created as a joke in 2013, hit an all-time high of $0.145396 earlier Wednesday with more than a $16 billion market value./aa

While Kuwait on Tuesday recorded 1544 new infection, Health Minister Sheikh Dr Basel Al-Sabah lamented that the number of coronavirus infections and fatalities in Kuwait still high. On Monday, country had recorded 1635 new infection.

The minister warned that the situation is delicate and urged all the public to register to get the vaccine to rein in the virus.

The cabinet called on citizens and residents to adhere to social distancing rules and other coronavirus precautionary measures, particularly avoiding crowds, to stop the spread of coronavirus and maintain the safety of all. The Cabinet also approved the Health Ministry’s request to hire a fourth batch of Pakistani doctors, nurses and medical workers.

The total registered infection surged to 250,273 and the total death rose to 1,419/ agencies

At least 20 students from a nursery school were killed on Tuesday in a fire that ravaged the establishment, located in the Nigerien capital Niamey, according to local media on Wednesday.

"Twenty classes in straw huts were consumed by the fire and unfortunately 20 children were killed," Col. Sidi Mohamed, the head of the firefighters told the country's national broadcaster Tele Sahel.

Reached by Anadolu Agency, Halidou Mounkaila, the secretary-general of the National Trade Union of Contractual Agents and Civil Servants in Basic Education said: "25 out of 38 classrooms in the school were devastated by the fire," adding that "the provisional death toll is 20."

The school where the fire started is located on the southeastern outskirts of Niamey, not far from the airport.

Prime Minister Ouhoumoudou Mahamadou visited the scene and conveyed the government's "compassion" to the families of the deceased children./aa

Mental health challenges in Bangladesh remain unmet due to lack of awareness and shortage of mental health professionals, according to experts.

According to a 2018 survey on mental health jointly conducted by the government and the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), the overall prevalence of mental disorders among the population 18 years and above was 18.7%. Prevalence of disorders was highest among those 60 years and older at 20.2%.

An estimated 10,000 people die by suicide in Bangladesh on average each year, according to the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics.

A study published last month found that 14,436 people in Bangladesh had taken their own life since March 2020, 70% more than coronavirus claimed during that period.

The study said 49% of suicide victims were between 20 and 35 years of age.

“We recently provided mental health support to some 11,000 people mostly women and adolescents at the community level during the pandemic,” Rifat Sharmin, a clinical psychologist at the Community empowerment program of BRAC, a non-government group, told Anadolu Agency.

“We learnt from the field experience that it still remains a stigma and taboo especially in rural Bangladesh. And it is also a tough job to provide support to patients.”

She said the group faced immense discomfort and non-cooperation from victims’ family and the public.

“They don’t want to share their personal issue of distressed and mental problems fearing to be stigmatized in society, whereas community leaders also create barriers,” she said. “If we don’t provide proper mental health treatment and support during childhood then it would become difficult in adulthood for patients.”

Shortage of mental health professionals

Helal Uddin Ahmed, associate professor of child adolescent and family psychiatry at NIMH, one of two specialized mental hospitals in Bangladesh, said the country has a very limited number of mental health specialists.

“There are a total of 270 psychiatrists while there are not more than 500 psychologists in the country at present to serve the vast number of mental health patients. And, another major concern is; those health services are mostly urban based,” he said.

He said the country must address these shortcoming because long-term mental health ailments can reduce life expectancy by 10 years on average.

The government should make mental health care a part of its primary health care system in districts and sub-districts, Sharmin suggested.

Echoing Sharmin’s views, Ahmed said: “We need to extend the mental health care facility to general hospitals rather than establishing specialized hospitals as people feel discomfort to go to specialized mental hospitals fearing to be stigmatized. All government hospitals should run mental health departments so that people could avail treatment in general hospitals, said Ahmed.

“One of the major concerns is that the mental health is widely ignored at the Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery (MBBS) curricula since 2012 which caused a huge dearth in the country’s healthcare system,” he added.

“We must mandatory incorporate mental health courses at MBBS level because this only could help address the crisis of specialist shortage in the country,” he said.

Meanwhile, a separate program should be launched with the Health Department to provide training to existing medicine specialists and others on mental health care to extend the service to locals, said Ahmed.

Efforts to produce more specialists

A National Mental Health Policy and Mental Health Strategy Plan is in the pipeline which would ensure patients’ rights and determine policies on how the sector and system will run properly, said Ahmed, who also worked on the proposal.

A. M. Pervez Rahim, joint secretary and concerned official with the Ministry of Health, said a legal framework is a crucial thing to be established to properly deal with the service and ensure patients’ rights.

“Thus, the government rectified and replaced the 1912’s Lunacy Act, which had been enacted by British colonial rulers, with a new one, named Mental Health Act 2018. And, it is a big jump to ensure a strong mental healthcare system,” he said.

“Meanwhile, we have three tiers in the government health care system and providing mental health care was only limited to tertiary level [medical college hospitals]. Now we are working to provide the service to the primary level [sub-districts] level across the country,” he said.

“As a signatory of the SDG [Sustainable Development Goals], we are cordially working to meet universal health coverage by 2030 in the country that requires ensuring not only physical health but also mental and social health,” said Rahim.

Meanwhile, the coronavirus pandemic has had a massive impact on mental health, especially on minors and children, and has raises the suicidal tendency, according to recently studies released in the country.

“In an effort to mitigate, we are set to deploy mental health consultants to all primary and high schools across the country, run awareness programs and open hotline supports and so on,” said Rahim, who is a mental health specialist./aa

Arakanese Muslims support the revolutionary movement of the people of Myanmar against the military coup because they know very well the inhumane practices of the army, the head of a non-governmental organization said Tuesday.

"We have lost our faith in Myanmar, but still we support those against the coup," said Ustaz Rafik, chairperson of the Selangor Humanitarian Aid Association, which was founded to support Muslim Arakanese refugees in Malaysia.

Rafik said the military coup in Myanmar was not a first for them as the Arakanese and other ethnic communities had been under the oppression of the military for over 70 years.

"We have seen yet again that the army of Myanmar does not have any religious values. They say they believe in Buddhism, but what they have made us go through for years does not comply with the tenets of their religion," he said.

"They lack humanitarian values as well because they have killed thousands of civilians in Arakan including women and children, burned them alive, exposed them to torture,” he added.

Rafik said the Arakanese community was subjected to many injustices during de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi's rule.

"But our religion taught us to forgive and side with the right. So we will keep standing with the mistreated," he said.

Underlining that Myanmar's army is the greatest obstacle to achieving peace and tranquility in the county, Rafik noted that as long as the military’s power is not suppressed, the people of Myanmar will continue to suffer.

On Feb. 1, Myanmar’s military deposed Suu Kyi’s elected government. In reaction to the coup, civilian groups across the country launched a civil disobedience campaign as well as marches and sit-in protests./aa