Turkey to hold funerals for school shooting victims

Detroit are tuning out the naysayers who tip the Boston Celtics, New York Knicks or even fourth-seeded Cleveland to beat the top-seeded Pistons to the NBA Eastern Conference crown.

"Everybody got a right to their own opinion," guard Ausar Thompson said this week as the Pistons prepped for their playoff opener on Sunday.

"We don't really worry about that. We all believe we could not only come out the East but win it all.

"We just focus on that, focus on ourselves and let everybody on the outside say what they've got to say."

The Pistons piled up 60 wins behind an MVP-caliber season from Cade Cunningham.

They topped the East from November on, weathering a string of injuries that included Cunningham's late-season absence with a collapsed lung to finish with the third-best record in the league.

They'll open the playoffs against either Charlotte or Orlando, aiming to improve on their first-round exit at the hands of the Knicks last year.

The Pistons' rise to the top of the East continues a remarkable turnaround from a dismal 14-win 2023-24 campaign.

Their 60 wins are a 16-win improvement on last season, but plenty of pundits believe they're vulnerable, especially with the unexpected late-season return of Jayson Tatum to the Celtics after his recovery from a ruptured Achilles tendon suffered in last year's playoffs.

"Boston's obviously a good team but we're not concerned about Boston," said Pistons coach J.B. Bickerstaff, who on Friday was named the NBA Coaches Association's Coach of the Year.

"Our biggest concern is making sure we’re doing what we need to do to go out and be as good as we possibly can.

"Our guys don't live and die by other people's expectations and comments," Bickerstaff added. "Our guys show up and live and die by playing Pistons basketball."

All season Bickerstaff has touted his team's camaraderie and intensity.

They boasted the second-ranked defense in the league and the 10th-ranked offense, but some question whether they can keep the offense firing as teams make defensive adjustments over the course of post-season series.

Big man Isaiah Stewart says the pessimistic prognostications from outside the team only fuel the Pistons.

"I feel like this is what we do," Stewart said. "We've always been underdogs, and we're still hunting. We like that."

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Alejandrina Guasorna did not discover until adulthood that she had been subjected to female genital mutilation (FGM) the day she was born in a remote Indigenous community in Colombia's coffee-growing region.

In the mountains of Risaralda, home to the Embera people, dozens of babies have their clitoris cut each year in a brutal practice based on traditional beliefs about the need to control girls' sexuality.

Some bleed to death or die of infections from unhealed wounds.

"We often saw dead baby girls. We thought it was normal," said Guasorna, a 74-year-old farm worker who has helped deliver babies in her own family but herself never performed genital cutting.

Colombia is the only Latin American country where female circumcision, believed to have been passed on to Indigenous groups by descendants of African slaves, is known to be still practiced.

Nearly two centuries after Colombia, which was a major hub in the South American slave trade, abolished slavery, a landmark ban on FGM is finally being debated by Congress.

- A blade or nail -

When girls are born in the Embera Chami reserve of Pueblo Rico, a region under Indigenous jurisdiction, midwives use a blade or red-hot nail to remove part of all of their external genitalia, local women told AFP.

The practice, which has declared a human rights violation by the UN and World Health Organization but remains widespread in parts of Africa, is a taboo subject in the Embera reserve.

Many people look away or remain silent, clearly uncomfortable, when the subject comes up.

Guasorna only learned that she had undergone the procedure after hearing rumors that were eventually confirmed by her sister.

Francia Giraldo, an Embera leader, said some babies bleed to death and are never taken to hospital. Parents receive neither birth nor death certificates.

Their mothers, she said, "bury them" straight away.

The bill before Congress, which was drafted by lawmakers together with Indigenous women leaders, aims to end the practice.

It does not, however, provide for midwives who flout the ban to be punished, with Indigenous leaders arguing that the women "lack information" about the dangers of FGM.

It calls instead for a government-led awareness campaign to sensitize them to the suffering caused by the mutilation and to dispel myths about girls who are spared -- that they will grow up to be sexually promiscuous or even that their clitorises will grow into something resembling a penis.

- Pain and secrecy - 

Sexual relations are often painful for victims of FGM.

Etelbina Queragama's face is dotted with paint marks that denote her status within her community.

Speaking in Embera, translated into Spanish by one of her seven children, the 63-year-old housewife said she has "never" felt anything but pain during intercourse.

There are no official figures on the practice of genital mutilation, given the secrecy surrounding the custom.

But according to the National Health Institute, at least 204 cases were performed in Colombia between 2020 and 2025. 

Sarita Patino, a doctor at a hospital that treats FGM victims in Pueblo Rico, believes the incidence of FGM is "greatly under-reported."

Since the start of the year, she has already seen six cases.

In February, a six-month-old baby was brought in with a fever. "The baby girl had her clitoris mutilated... (it looked) like a burn," Patino said.

- Byproduct of slave trade - 

According to the United Nations, an estimated 230 million women and girls around the world are subjected to FGM every year.

In Colombia, the practice is believed to be the product of intermingling between Indigenous and Afro-Colombians who make up around 10 percent of the population but who very rarely still practice FGM.

Carolina Giraldo (no relation of Francia), a historian and Embera congresswoman who drafted the ban on FGM, said it pains her "when people call us (the Embera) murderers and ignorant" over genital cutting.

She hopes to see "women who advocate for women's rights" travel to remote areas to campaign for an end to the silent suffering of Indigenous girls.

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Shipping industry figures gave a cautious welcome Friday to Iran's announcement that it was reopening the crucial Strait of Hormuz trade route to commercial freight after nearly seven weeks closed.

Iranian forces' closure of the strait has trapped hundreds of ships in the Gulf and driven up the costs of shipping goods, with captains avoiding the region for fear of attacks or mines.

A spokesman for German transportation giant Hapag-Lloyd, which has ships stuck in the Gulf, told AFP by phone that the reopening was "in general... good news".

But he cautioned that shippers still needed details of what route vessels could take and in what order, citing fears of sea mines.

"One thousand ships cannot just go now to the entrance of the strait, that will be chaos. They (the Iranians) need to give clear orders," said the spokesman, Nils Haupt.

"We would be ready to go very soon if some of these open questions can be solved within the weekend."

Bloomberg data indicated there were about 770 vessels used for carrying commodities sending transponder signals inside the Gulf on Thursday, of which about 360 were oil and gas carriers.

Before the war, average daily crossings of the strait overall numbered about 120, according to industry journal Lloyd's List.

- 'Inaccurate' -

Afer Iran's announcement on Friday, US President Donald Trump said the Islamic republic had declared the waterway "fully open and ready for full passage".

Jakob Larsen, chief security officer of major shipping association BIMCO, said in a statement emailed to AFP that this claim was "inaccurate".

"The status of mine threats in (Iran's maritime) traffic separation scheme is unclear, and BIMCO believes shipping companies should consider avoiding the area," he said.

The secretary general of leading industry lobby the International Chamber of Shipping, Thomas Kazakos, said the announcement was "a positive step (but) there is still much uncertainty around what it means in practice".

In a statement sent to AFP, he said it offered "a cautious measure of reassurance to" shippers and the thousands of seafarers stuck in the Gulf by the Middle East war for nearly seven weeks.

"It is essential that it marks the beginning of a broader and more durable return, beyond the current ceasefire, to freedom of navigation in one of the world's most critical maritime corridors," he said.

rlp/rmb

(The Center Square) – The U.S. Senate has adopted the House’s 10-day extension of the expiring Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, leaving Republican leadership less than two weeks to win over hardliners.

House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., had spent the past week attempting to persuade enough House Republicans to reauthorize the controversial federal spy power, which was set to expire April 20.

But in a remarkable show of rebellion, 12 House Republicans helped Democrats tank a five-year extension that included minimal reforms in a series of Thursday night and Friday morning votes.

A last-ditch vote around 1:30 a.m. to advance the originally proposed clean 18-month extension failed by an even greater margin, with 20 Republicans opposing it.

Johnson could only get lawmakers to agree to a short-term extension, which passed the lower chamber by unanimous consent and then unanimously passed the Senate Friday morning.

“We were very close tonight. There’s some nuances with language and questions that need to be answered, and we’ll get it done. The extension allows us the time to do that,” Johnson told reporters after the votes.

“[W]hat we’re trying to do is thread the needle of ensuring that we have this essential tool to keep Americans safe but also safeguard our Constitutional rights and making sure that the abuses of FISA in the past are no longer possible,” he added.

“There are many different opinions on how to do it and it’s very difficult to make it perfect, but we’ll get it done.”

Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act allows federal intelligence agencies to conduct warrantless electronic surveillance on foreign nationals of suspicion.

But the electronic data of American citizens – including emails, text messages, and phone calls – are routinely collected as well.

The major controversy lies in the fact that federal intelligence agents will routinely search through that database without obtaining a warrant, which many critics view as a violation of Americans’ Fourth Amendment Rights.

Declassified government documents and oversight reports show that federal intelligence agencies have performed millions of these so-called “backdoor searches” since FISA Section 702 was created, including 57,000 in 2023 alone.

So far, Republican holdouts on reauthorizing the provision have indicated they will accept nothing less than an extension that includes a ban on backdoor searches.

“Warrantless backdoor surveillance of American citizens is happening under FISA Section 702 – and that’s wrong. We must defend Americans’ constitutional right to privacy under the Fourth Amendment and fix FISA,” Rep. Keith Self, R-Texas, posted on X Friday.

“We’ve got 10 days to do it. Let’s get it done.”

A Kanye West concert scheduled to take place in a stadium in Poland in June was cancelled by the venue on Friday, following condemnation of antisemitic remarks by the US rapper. 

"The concert by Ye (Kanye West), scheduled for 19 June 2026 at the Superauto.pl Silesian Stadium, will not take place due to formal and legal reasons," venue director Adam Strzyzewski announced in a press release on the stadium's website. 

The Polish culture ministry previously said in a statement, received by AFP, that it was seeking to bar West from performing in the country. 

"The widely discussed actions of Kanye West, linked to his promotion of Nazism, are in manifest contradiction with Poland's values," Culture Minister Marta Cienkowska said. 

She went on to express her "clearly negative position" about the June 19 concert going ahead and called on its organisers "not to make public space available to promoters of a criminal ideology". 

Quoted by the Polish Press Agency PAP, Cienkowska said that she "cannot imagine" such a concert being held in Poland, "a country where people were murdered in German Nazi extermination camps".

She condemned West -- now legally known as Ye -- as an artist who "openly declares he loves Hitler, who promotes Nazi ideology and makes money by selling T-shirts emblazoned with the swastika".

She added that Warsaw had the means to bar the entry of undesirable individuals and, if necessary, it "will resort to them".

West announced on Tuesday that a concert he had planned to give in the French city of Marseille had been postponed after authorities voiced opposition.

Last week, Britain said it has blocked West from entering the country, leading to the cancellation of a London music festival where he had been scheduled to perform over three nights in July.

The 48-year-old musician has lost fans and several sponsorships in recent years following inflammatory comments and actions. 

He has previously said "I love Nazis", sold t-shirts featuring a swastika on his website, and last year released a track titled "Heil Hitler," which was banned by main streaming platforms. 

In January this year, he took out a full-page advert in the Wall Street Journal to declare "I am not a Nazi or an antisemite" and "I love Jewish people". He attributed his controversial behaviour to a "manic episode" brought on by bipolar disorder. 

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Atletico Madrid forward Antoine Griezmann said he is soaking up all the small moments he can during his last weeks at the club, ahead of the Copa del Rey final on Saturday.

The 35-year-old French star, Atletico's all-time top goalscorer, is leaving at the end of the season to join MLS side Orlando City.

Griezmann had an option to leave in March but wants to end his time at Atletico with silverware -- either the Copa del Rey or the Champions League, or ideally both.

On Tuesday Atletico reached the Champions League semi-finals, eliminating his former club Barcelona, and in Seville they face another former side of his in Real Sociedad.

"I realise (these are my last moments), when I'm at Camp Nou playing, enjoying every tackle from a team-mate, a pass, a bit of skill, some of the chants from the fans, a message from Cholo (coach Diego Simeone) on the touchline," Griezmann told reporters at La Cartuja stadium on Friday.

"I'm soaking it all in, enjoying it a lot."

Griezmann was at Barca during Atletico's La Liga triumph in 2021, meaning his last trophies with the Rojiblancos came in 2018 -- the Europa League and UEFA Super Cup.

The veteran attacker, who won the World Cup with France in 2018 as well, said he was overjoyed to be playing in another final, in his 10th season at Atletico over two spells.

Griezmann said he was not wondering whether it would be his last final or not, with Atletico taking on Arsenal in the Champions League semis, aiming to reach the European showpiece in Budapest.

"(I'm feeling) a lot of excitement, a lot of desire, happiness... I'm really happy to be able to play a final," explained Griezmann.

"I'm not thinking about whether it will be the last one or not, just that it's a very important match, a final that very few players get to play.

"So it's a huge joy, a source of pride, and I just can't wait for tomorrow to arrive and to be able to perform at the level we all expect."

Griezmann's first club in Spain was Real Sociedad, who stand between him another trophy.

"I'm not thinking about that too much because otherwise I get very emotional, and I don't want that... but I do owe them a huge amount," said Griezmann, who played in La Real's youth academy.

"They opened doors for me that weren't opened for me in France, I owe them so much and it will definitely be a special match."

- 'Back on earth' -

Simeone said his team had their feet back on the ground after the high of knocking out five-time Champions League winners Barcelona.

"We know how beautiful it is for any athlete to play in a final. Both the Real Sociedad boys and our players have a huge dream of winning. They'll give everything to achieve it," Simeone told reporters.

"On Tuesday we played an important match, which put us in a very beautiful position, the Champions League semifinal.

"That can lift you up, but now we're back down to earth -- the earth is what counts. And we're on the ground now. And we know the difficulties we're going to face."

Atletico named midfielder Pablo Barrios in their squad for the game after a thigh injury which has kept him out since early March.

"Pablo will be with us tomorrow and we hope he can help us if the team needs him," added Simeone.

rbs/ea

A Frenchwoman who moved to the United States to marry a Vietnam war veteran she met six decades ago returned to France on Friday after she was detained by US immigration authorities, the French foreign minister said.

The 85-year-old woman, who was not being named at the family's request, "returned to France this morning, and we are pleased about that", Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot told reporters on a visit to the southern city of Montpellier.

The woman's son spoke of his "total relief" to the regional daily Ouest-France. 

Sebastien Arrouet, the mayor of the village of Orvault in western France where the woman lived, expressed "joy" at her liberation.

"Together with her son, we had opted for complete discretion to allow diplomatic channels to find a swift resolution for her release," he wrote on Facebook, adding that he was "eagerly looking forward to welcoming her back to Orvault".

The woman had travelled to Anniston, Alabama in 2025 to marry the former Air Force colonel, and was seeking a Green Card, which allows people to live and work permanently in the United States.

The couple first met some 60 years earlier when she was working as a bilingual secretary and he was a soldier stationed at a NATO base, reportedly in Saint-Nazaire, western France, but both ended up marrying other people.

Decades later, after they were both widowed, they reconnected.

According to the New York Times, the woman gave up her life in the village near the French city of Nantes and moved to Alabama, where the couple married in April 2025.

But the American died suddenly in January at the age of 85, throwing her immigration status into uncertainty and leading to her detention by the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE) in Louisiana.

US media reports said his death also ignited an inheritance dispute between the woman and his son.

The US Department of Homeland Security told AFP on Tuesday that the woman had been detained on April 1. 

- 'Handcuffed and shackled' - 

She had entered the United States in June 2025 on a tourist visa that allowed her to stay for 90 days. However, she was still in the United States "seven months later", according to US authorities.

Citing accounts from US neighbours, her son told AFP that his mother was arrested, "handcuffed and shackled".

The ICE agency is regarded as the strong arm of US President Donald Trump's fierce anti-immigration campaign. It has faced nationwide criticism in America over its aggressive tactics against documented and undocumented immigrants, and for the shooting deaths of two US citizens this year.

As soon as news of the Frenchwoman's arrest broke, a diplomatic source had told AFP that the French Consulate General in Atlanta was "closely monitoring the situation" and providing her with "consular protection".

When asked about ICE's approach, Barrot criticised methods being used by US authorities without referring specifically to the Frenchwoman's case.

"There have been instances of violence that have raised our concern. But the main thing is that she is back in France, and that fully satisfies us," he said.

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France and Britain said Friday they will lead a multinational mission ensure freedom of navigation in the Strait of Hormuz, while emphasising the force would be entirely defensive -- and only deployed once a peace in the region was agreed.

"I can confirm that, along with France, the UK will lead a multinational mission to protect freedom of navigation as soon as conditions allow," British Prime Minister Starmer said after co-chairing a meeting in Paris on the issue alongside French President Emmanuel Macron.

The event brought together over 30 other heads of state and government, most of them mainly attending by video link. Neither the United States nor Iran participated.

"This will be strictly peaceful and defensive as a mission to reassure commercial shipping and support mine clearance," said Starmer, adding that "over a dozen countries have already offered to contribute assets".

As the Paris talks were being held, Iran announced that the key shipping route would be open to commercial vessels as long as a ceasefire in the Middle East lasts. 

US President Donald Trump responded by saying his navy's blockade just outside the Strait of Hormuz of ships going to or from Iranian ports remains "in full force and effect".

Iran imposed its blockade on the Strait of Hormuz -- a critical shipping bottleneck through which 20 percent of the world's oil passes in peacetime -- immediately after the US and Israel launched their war against the Islamic republic on February 28.

Trump followed up with his US Navy blockade of vessels visiting Iranian ports after April 11-12 talks aimed at failed to yield any breakthrough.

The Paris talks' participants welcomed Tehran's announcement of the strait's reopening, but urged a "full, unconditional reopening by all the parties", Macron said.

He said the announcement made the multinational mission "all the more important because it is what will allow these announcements to be consolidated in the short term and, above all, to have a chance of lasting."

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, who also attended the meeting in person, emphasised that such a force would need to await a "cessation of hostilities" but added: "Italy is ready to participate".

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said in Paris it would be "desirable" to have US participation in any mission.

Merz said Germany would "take part in the further military planning discussions that are taking place, and we would also welcome, if possible, the participation of the United States of America".

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(The Center Square) – Republican efforts to impeach lead Democrats in Minnesota ran aground this week following a partisan deadlock in committee.

The House Rules and Legislative Administration Committee split along party lines, preventing the resolutions from advancing and effectively halting a push to investigate Gov. Tim Walz and Attorney General Keith Ellison over alleged failures to address the state’s alleged widespread fraud.

House Republican Floor Leader Harry Niska, R-Ramsey, who co-chairs the committee, said the push for impeachment was driven by reports that there have been billions of taxpayers dollars lost to fraud in state-administered programs during Walz’s time in office.

“What most Minnesotans are demanding, especially today on tax day, is accountability for the multi-billion-dollar fraud scandal that’s embarrassing our state,” Niska said. “In any well-functioning business, a multi-billion-dollar fraud scandal would result in the CEO either resigning in disgrace or being fired.”

Niska argued impeachment is the legislature’s primary tool to hold top officials accountable.

Rep. Ben Davis, R-Merrifield, who sponsored the resolution targeting Ellison, said the scale of alleged fraud warrants an extraordinary response.

“We have an historic amount of fraud taking place in our state; historic actions are warranted,” Davis said.

The resolutions called for the House Fraud Prevention and State Agency Oversight Policy Committee to conduct impeachment investigations into “state officers” and report back by May 1 with potential articles of impeachment or other recommendations.

Walz’s impeachment resolution centered around allegations that Walz failed to act on warnings about fraud in state programs, allowed misuse of taxpayer funds to continue, and placed political considerations above enforcement of the law.

A separate resolution against Ellison accused the attorney general of “corrupt conduct in office and for crimes and misdemeanors,” including failing to impartially enforce the law, undermining protections for religious liberty, and suggesting political or financial support could influence official actions.

Democrats sharply criticized the impeachment efforts, calling them unserious and politically motivated.

Rep. Sydney Jordan, DFL-Minneapolis, described the resolutions as a “simple, stupid distraction,” “garbage,” and a “political circus,” arguing lawmakers should instead focus on preventing fraud going forward.

“Have there been crimes, charges and convictions for our executives? No,” Jordan said. “Do we impeach Minnesota’s elected officials just because we don’t like them? No.”

Jordan added that while fraud has occurred, the legislature should prioritize policy solutions rather than impeachment.

“We could be working on those instead of doing this and listening to people just air grievances against Keith Ellison and Tim Walz,” she said.

Other Democrats echoed that sentiment.

Rep. Michael Howard, DFL-Richfield, said it is “tough to take this seriously,” while Rep. Nathan Coulter, DFL-Bloomington, called the resolution “the most harebrained thing I think I have ever seen.”

Republicans pushed back on that characterization.

“Holding people accountable for $9 billion of fraud I don’t see as harebrained and I don’t think the people of Minnesota do either,” said Rep. Peggy Scott, R-Andover. “The people of this state want accountability.”

Despite Republican control of the House Fraud Prevention and State Agency Oversight Policy Committee, the resolutions had to first clear the Rules Committee—where Democrats had the votes to block them. With the tie vote on Wednesday, the impeachment push is effectively stalled.

In an exclusive interview with state Rep. Kristin Robbins, R-Maple Grove and chair of the House Fraud Prevention and State Agency Oversight Committee in the Minnesota legislature, she explained that the full scope of potential government knowledge of the fraud at the state level remains unclear.

“The real answer is, I don’t know,” she said when asked how deep potential wrongdoing might go.

Robbins said an ongoing lack of responsiveness from state agencies has only deepened those concerns.

“We have put out dozens of data requests that we have not gotten answers to,” she said. “I definitely think it’s beyond just mistakes . . . there is willful neglect and malfeasance.”

When seaman Rex Pereira saw missiles flying above his vessel in the Gulf, it sparked in him one desperate wish: to get back home to India.

Stranded by the Middle East war, like thousands of other seafarers, he feared for his life as he saw bombardments in the distance in Iran.

When he demanded to be repatriated from his supply vessel docked in Iraq, he did not expect the process would take him weeks and cost him hundreds of dollars.

Besides the perils of the US-Israeli war with Iran, he and many of the 20,000 other seafarers stuck in the region struggled with the shipping industry's poorly regulated working conditions.

"Whatever I have earned (on the ship), I think I paid the entire amount in travelling, so I didn't get anything in return. All of my savings are gone," the 28-year-old told AFP by phone from his home in Mumbai.

"The experience was really bad, so I don't think I will be going back to the sea."

- Passport struggle -

When the bombs started flying as the war broke out, Pereira contacted unions in India on March 3 for help to get home.

The owner of his vessel had his passport and was refusing to give it back.

The unions contacted the Indian embassy in Iraq, which made visa requests and pressed Iraqi immigration officers to force the owner to return Pereira's documents.

In the meantime, his ship was running out of food and water.

He and his crewmates had to boil water to drink, and collected water dripping from air conditioning units to shower and wash their clothes.

– Long journey home –

When he finally got his necessary visas a month later, on April 2, a long and expensive journey home began.

"An immigration officer came to pick me up on April 5 and dropped me at the Kuwait border. After that, I was alone," he said.

He took a bus and three taxis, travelling for 17 hours to reach Riyadh airport in Saudi Arabia, where he took a flight to Mumbai early on April 7 -- two full days after he had left his vessel in Iraq.

He spent $1,350 in total to get home: $200 for part of the plane ticket -- the rest was paid for by his company -- $450 for the taxis and $700 for visas.

He said he hoped to get reimbursed by the Indian recruitment agency that got him the job, but had not heard back from it since he got home.

– 'Logistical nightmare' –

"This type of situation is unfortunately very, very recurrent," says Mohamed Arrachedi, Network Coordinator for the Arab World and Iran at the International Transport Workers' Federation (ITF).

The off-duty captain of one vessel which was stuck off Qatar told AFP that replacing seafarers in the Gulf amid the war was a "logistical nightmare" and could cost up to twice as much as in non-war times.

Because of this, many ship owners were reluctant to let their crew sign off, said Manoj Yadav, the General Secretary of the Forward Seamen's Union of India.

Even when seafarers are authorised to leave, the process is "delayed because processing of visas taking longer than usual, and because very few flights are available", Yadav told AFP.

He said more than 200 Indian seafarers had asked his union for help with bringing them home.

Some of them had to travel "nearly 1,800 kilometres (1,100 miles) by road from Iran to Azerbaijan to catch a flight to India".

- Fear on board -

Shivendra Chaurasiya's journey home lasted three days. He reached his village in Uttar Pradesh, India on April 6.

After joining the crew of a bulk carrier in December, he was stuck while it was anchored at Bandar Abbas, Iran, from late February.

He described the fear he felt on board, seeing ships hit by strikes.

"My life was at risk. I used to think, which meal might be my last one? Maybe today's breakfast is my last."

Unlike Pereira's, his employer paid for his entire trip home.

Doing so is a legal requirement for companies whose ships are covered by the International Bargaining Forum (IBF)'s labour agreements -- around 15,000 vessels worldwide, according to the IBF.

– $300 salary –

Seafarers wishing to leave vessels with no such agreements in place either have to pay for their own way home or are left stranded.

One 21-year-old seafarer, who asked to be identified only as Manish, said he could not afford to get home.

"I have not received my salary of 300 dollars a month," he said.

He spoke on Monday to AFP from the cargo vessel he joined nine months ago, stuck in Iran since the start of the war.

His contract had ended but he said the vessel's owner was refusing to pay for his return home despite a clause in his contract -- seen by AFP –- that explicitly stated the owner had to.

"We have no provisions, no food, and too many problems", he told AFP. "Please, tell someone who can help with a ticket to go back to my homeland."

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