RAFAH: Palestinians embraced at the Egyptian border with the blockaded Gaza Strip as students returned home after fleeing the eruption of violence in Sudan.
Gaza’s Crossing and Border Authority said “172 students arrived in the homeland through the Rafah border crossing, as the first batch of students coming from Sudan.”
There were hugs and tears at the southern gateway to Gaza as relatives greeted young Palestinians fleeing the fighting.
“The situation was really difficult, it hit everywhere in Khartoum,” university student Nasser Qishta said.

JEDDAH: An Iranian airplane landed at the King Abdullah Air Base on Saturday to transport 65 evacuees from Saudi Arabia back to Iran.

The people rescued, including Iranians and others of different nationalities, had arrived Saturday morning in Jeddah from Sudan on board a Saudi ship.

The plane is scheduled to transport the evacuees to Iran after they safely disembarked at the Saudi seaport.

WASHINGTON D.C.: A US-organized convoy carrying American citizens, local staff, and nationals from allied countries arrived Saturday in Port Sudan, the State Department said, as an exodus from war-torn Sudan continued.
From that Red Sea port, the statement added, “we are assisting US citizens and others who are eligible with onward travel to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia where additional US personnel are positioned to assist with consular and emergency services.”

TUNIS: The Coast Guard has retrieved 41 bodies from Tunisian waters, a national guard official said on Friday, raising the number of victims of migrant shipwrecks off the country’s coast to 210 in 10 days.

The bodies were in a decomposed state, suggesting they had been in the water for several days, said Houssem Eddine Jebabli.

The cumulative total of fatalities was unprecedented over such a short period, he said.

DUBAI: Armed private guards aboard a famous yacht once owned by the late Welsh actor Richard Burton fired on approaching ships on Friday in the Gulf of Aden, off the coast of Yemen, in an intense gunfight. The authorities said the guards mistakenly opened fire on Yemeni Coast Guard members but the ship’s manager insisted they shot at pirates.