SFAX: As dawn breaks over the Mediterranean, Tunisian coast guards intercept a flimsy craft packed with migrants, bringing their dream of reaching Europe to an end — for now.

“This is your final warning: stop!” an officer shouts.

Some two dozen migrants, wearing inflated inner tubes as makeshift life preservers, look downcast as they realize the game is up.

But Fatim, an 18-year-old from the Ivory Coast who spent a year working as a cleaner in Tunis to raise €1,250 ($1,100) in smugglers’ fees, says she will try again.

AL-MUKALLA: At least six Yemeni government troops and an unknown number of Houthis were killed in heavy clashes and exchanges of fire across the country over the past 24 hours, local military and government officials said on Saturday.

Fighting in the country has intensified as the international community tries to persuade the Iran-backed Houthis to renew the UN-brokered truce that expired last week.

CAIRO: Egypt’s Education Ministry is taking action following a spate of incidents in schools recently.

One student, Malak Mohammed, died and 15 others were injured when a staircase partially collapsed as they climbed the stairs at the Muhammadiyah Preparatory School for Girls in Giza. Authorities are investigating the incident.

Eight-year-old Mina Farag was killed after falling from a third-floor window at her school in Agouza, Giza, as she ran from a teacher who was trying to discipline her. The teacher has been arrested.

LONDON: Kuwait has postponed convening the first parliament session after elections to Oct. 18, the state news agency reported on Saturday.
“The National Assembly’s first regular session of the 17th legislative term is adjourned until Oct. 18, head of Kuwait’s Center for Government Communication and spokesman Tareq Al-Mizrem said Saturday,” KUNA said in a statement.
“This came in line with Article 106 of the constitution, Al-Mizrem wrote on CGC’s Twitter account,” it added.

BIRZEIT: Palestinian activists believe a single extremist unit in the Israeli military is responsible for an upsurge in shoot-to-kill targeted assassinations in the occupied West Bank.