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No catch for the day: Pakistan's tuna trade caught in US-Iran crossfire

In Iranian waters, a strange trade is taking place — Pakistani fishermen exchange subsidised Iranian fuel for high-value tuna, a barter system now under threat from escalating United States-Iran tensions. Shah Zamin Khan is among thousands of Pakistani tuna traders whose lucrative business has been at a near standstill since February, when the war between the US, Israel and Iran began. The recent targeting of Iranian seaports by Washington has made matters worse. Iran's southern ports of Konarak, Pasabandar and Beris, which border Pakistan's southwestern Balochistan province and serve as key fish trade hubs, are among the sites targeted by US airstrikes in recent weeks. "Our businesses were already affected by the war but the recent targeting of Iranian seaports have turned the region into a no-go area for us over the past one month," Khan told Anadolu. Boat owners, according to Khan, have completely stopped sending their vessels to the Iranian ports fo...
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Over 70 Rohingya dead or missing after boat capsizes off Indonesia's Aceh

More than 70 Rohingya are "presumed dead or missing" after a boat they were on capsized off the coast of Indonesia's Aceh province, while 75 have been rescued, the UNHCR refugee agency said on Friday. The UNHCR said in a joint statement with the International Organization for Migration that if the death toll was confirmed, it would be the biggest loss of life so far this year. The alert was raised on Wednesday when fishermen rescued six of the migrants. A fishing community in Aceh said they had been standing on the hull of the boat after it capsized due to high tides. For years, Rohingya have left Buddhist-majority Myanmar where they are generally regarded as foreign interlopers from South Asia, denied citizenship and subjected to abuse. More than 2,300 Rohingya arrived in Indonesia last year, UNHCR data showed, surpassing the number of arrivals in the previous four years combined. The 2023 toll of at least 569 Rohingya dead or missing while trying to flee Myanmar or Bangladesh was the highest since 2014, the UNHCR said in January. Babar Baloch, a UNHCR Asia spokesperson, told Reuters on Friday there had been 151 people on this latest boat, some 75 of whom have been evacuated by local authorities, while the rest were "presumed dead or missing". Faisal Rahman, UNHCR's protection associate in Aceh, told Reuters the surviving Rohingya were in a good condition and were staying at a Red Cross building in West Aceh. The immigration agency in Aceh did not respond to a request for comment.

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