Australian fire services called on residents of nine rural neighborhoods in the eastern state of Victoria to evacuate their homes for fear of forest fires, while calling on citizens of seven other neighborhoods to take shelter immediately, explaining that it is too late to leave their places.
Firefighters in the state of Victoria, eastern Australia, on Tuesday asked residents to leave or take shelter if they were not able to flee, after strong winds fanned fires that officers had "difficulty" in extinguishing.
Jason Heffernan, an official with the state fire authority, said that about 650 firefighters were fighting fires burning in an area of 17,000 hectares (42,000 acres).
Heffernan told Australian Public Radio: "We are seeing sporadic fires and firefighters are doing everything they can to try to contain this fire, but they are facing difficulty."
Rain may help put out the fire by late afternoon, Heffernan said.
Reports of wind gusts reaching speeds of up to 80 kilometers per hour were confirmed around the East Gippsland region, about 250 kilometers east of Melbourne.
Emergency services ordered the evacuation of nine rural neighborhoods, saying the fires "threaten homes and lives."
She appealed to people who had not yet left from seven other neighborhoods to take shelter immediately because "it is too late to leave the area safely."
Experts expect that the upcoming Australian summer will bring the most powerful forest fire season since 2019-2020. When forest fires broke out along the eastern coast of Australia, they destroyed vast areas of forests, killed millions of animals, and covered cities in smoke.
A former minister demands the return of the “Tunisian Sahara” from Algeria
Tunisia : Former Tunisian Foreign Minister Ahmed Ouness called for the restoration of the “Tunisian Sahara” from Algeria.
Wanis said in a radio statement, “Tunisia has sought to regain its desert from Algeria since the French occupation, but former French President Charles de Gaulle refused to do so.”
He added, “We signed an agreement with the Algerian government after independence to recover the Sahara, as was the case in the Algerian-Moroccan agreement, but the military coup in the late sixties overthrew the agreement.”
Wanis continued, saying, “Algerian President Ahmed Ben Bella agreed to return the Tunisian Sahara (which includes a large area of the eastern regions currently in Algeria) in the presence of Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser.” But after the military coup in Algeria, the agreement with Tunisia was withdrawn, and they wanted to do that with Morocco, but the latter rejected this matter.”
He accused President Habib Bourguiba of “ceding” the Tunisian Sahara to Algeria, adding, “I am not happy about this, and we will regain our rights one day.”
A number of Tunisian politicians have previously called for a reconsideration of the “ unequal relationship ” with Algeria, considering that Tunisian diplomacy has abandoned its neutral position on some regional and international issues, under pressure from Algeria.
Australian firefighters urged residents in Victoria to evacuate due to severe forest fires driven by strong winds, threatening homes and lives, with rain expected to help later.
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