A mass grave containing two dozen unidentified bodies was discovered in the coastal city of Sirte, once controlled by ISIS, a Libyan government agency said July 15. The National Authority for Searching & Identifying Missing People, a body of the internationally recognized government in Tripoli, said its team is recovering the 24 bodies found under destroyed buildings in the district of al-Kambo. No details were provided on a potential date when the bodies were interred. However, Sirte was a stronghold for ISIS from February 2015 to December 2016, when the militants were driven out by US-backed forces loyal to the Tripoli government. (AP) A mass grave was similarly uncovered in the city in October 2022.

Lawyers for some of approximately 60 Sri Lankan Tamil asylum-seekers stranded on the British-held island of Diego Garcia have appealed to the UK's new Foreign Minister David Lammy to intervene after the US blocked them from visiting the island for a hearing set to take place this week. The US runs a secretive military facility on the island, and issued the decision to bar the legal team on a "confidential" basis, citing "national security." The lawyers are accusing the island's government—the British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT) administration—of illegally detaining their clients, who have been confined to a small camp for nearly three years after fleeing Sri Lanka and India by boat. The BIOT administration claims to have no role in negotiating permission for the visit, but lawyers for the asylum-seekers say the administration has a duty to persuade the US to allow the hearing to take place and ensure the rule of law on the remote British territory.

Immediately upon taking office, Panama's new President José Raúl Mulino struck a deal with the United States to shut down the migration route through the Darién Gap, which sees thousands annually making the perilous jungle trek while seeking to reach North America. The US has committed to cover the cost of repatriation of migrants who illegally enter Panama and to deploy Homeland Security teams on the route. Last year, a record 520,000 migrants risked their lives, often at the hands of human traffickers, to traverse the Darién Gap, an expanse of roadless jungle stretching some 100 kilometers from Panama's border with Colombia. (TNH, The Guardian)

Sweden's armed forces on June 15 issued a statement charging that a Russian military aircraft violated the country's airspace the previous day, calling the act "unacceptable."  The Russian SU-24 fighter plane reportedly entered Swedish airspace just east of the island of Gotland in the Baltic Sea, approximately 150 miles south of Stockholm. A Swedish JAS-39 Gripen jet was sent to intercept the Russian plane after a verbal call to retreat by the Swedish air command was ignored. The Swedish military said that the last violations of the Nordic country's airspace airspace by Russia were in 2022, when two Russian SU-27s and two SU-24s simiarly approached Gotland.

The UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) reported June 13 that a record number of 117.3 million people around the world were forcibly displaced as of the end of 2023. The agency expects this number to rise to over 120 million cases by the end of this year, especially noting the situations in Sudan, Burma and Palestine. The conflict in Sudan that began in April 2023 has led to 6 million becoming internally displaced persons (IDPs) with 1.2 million people forced into neighboring countries as refugees. In Burma, conflict since the military coup of 2021 has resulted in 1.2 million IDPs, while over 75% of the population in Gaza was displaced between October and December amid the ongoing Israeli bombardment of the enclave.

President Joe Biden signed an executive order June 4 barring asylum claims from anyone who crosses the US-Mexico border illegally. The ban will be suspended if border agents observe a seven-day average of fewer than 1,500 "encounters," which include apprehensions of undocumented migrants within 100 miles of the border or entry refusals at US-Mexico land border crossings. However, if border authorities record a seven-day average of 2,500 or more encounters, the restriction will be reinstated.

The results are in from Mexico's June 2 presidential election and Claudia Sheinbaum of the ruling left-populist National Regeneration Movement (MORENA) has won by some 60%, handily defeating a rival backed by an alliance of the country's more traditional political parties. The former mayor of Mexico City as well as an environmental scientist with a PhD in energy engineering from UC Berkeley, Sheinbaum was a researcher with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) when it earned a Nobel Peace Prize in 2007. Despite this prestigious and somewhat technocratic background, her status as the chosen hier of incumbent populist Andrés Manuel López Obrador has caused her victory to be viewed with suspicion if not panic in elite quarters. Both the peso and Mexican stock exchange slided on the news.

Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) are preparing to sue the European Commission over the 7.4-billion-euro aid package extended to Egypt in March, aimed at stopping migration. The deal—similar to others the EU has pursued in recent years—has been criticized for ignoring human rights concerns. "Throwing money at dictators is not migration policy," one MEP said. On May 2, the EU announced a 1-billion-euro aid package for Lebanon, also aimed at stemming migration.