The Flying Hospital Bringing Ukraine’s Wounded West

On board a Boeing 737 medevac plane, Poland, March 29, 2023 (AFP) –

You can see the pain held just in check in the faces of Ukraine’s war wounded as they are evacuated in a flying hospital.

“It’s the first time I’ve taken a plane,” says 22-year-old Mykola Fedirko, who was hit by a shell holding off Russian troops in a trench in the Donetsk region.

“I would have loved to be going to Denmark for a holiday and not to hospital because of my wound,” says the 22-year-old salesman-turned-soldier, whose lower leg is held in place by metal pins.

Fedirko is one of around 2,000 wounded who have been evacuated from Ukraine to hospitals across Europe since the war started more than a year ago.

Most have been injured in fighting, but some are critically ill civilians.

AFP is the first international media outlet allowed on one of the medical evacuation (medevac) flights carried out by Norway in collaboration with the European Union in a specially adapted Boeing 737.

“We established this scheme at the request of Ukraine… to alleviate the burden on the Ukrainian hospitals,” says Juan Escalante of the EU’s Emergency Response Coordination Centre.

The project is “unprecedented at the continental level” and was set up “in record time”, he adds.

Some 859 health facilities in Ukraine have been attacked since the Russian invasion, according to the World Health Organization.

Bombings of hospitals, maternity wards and medical storage units mean almost half a million people a month are deprived of medical care, the Norwegian authorities estimate.

Wounded and weapons cross

The flying hospital, a transformed passenger plane owned by Scandinavian carrier SAS, lands at Rzeszow airport in southeastern Poland, 70 kilometers from the Ukrainian border, to pick up the injured before flying them over two days to Amsterdam, Copenhagen, Berlin, Cologne and Oslo.

A hub for delivering arms to Ukraine, Rzeszow airport has dozens of anti-air missiles and several large cargo aircraft unloading pallets of ammunition just a few feet away from where the war wounded are loaded onto the medevac plane.

The crew of the medevac flight are civilians, but the medical staff are from the Norwegian military.

In an odd semblance of normality, a stewardess hands out pizzas, snacks and soft drinks.

Oleksiy Radzyvil, 28, who has injuries to both legs, devours his Margherita pizza and washes it down with a Coke.

With his wild mane and perpetual smile, Radyzvil sticks out in the grim surroundings.

He was even smiling in December when he regained consciousness after a Russian shell destroyed his vehicle, sending him several meters into the air in Bakhmut, the epicenter of fighting in eastern Ukraine.

“I smiled because I was alive,” he recalls.

Since then, he’s been treated in six hospitals in Ukraine.

“I hope that I will get better… that European doctors in the Netherlands will help.”

‘Fight against Putin’

In Europe, the patient transfers are seen as a way of helping the war effort.

They are “another way to fight against Putin”, Spanish Defense Minister Margarita Robles said as she visited a military hospital in Zaragoza last year.

The modified Boeing is equipped with 20 hospital beds, monitors, ventilators, blood transfusion equipment and countless vials of antibiotics.

It’s “like a small intensive care unit in the air”, says Hakon Asak, a lieutenant-colonel from the Norwegian military’s medical service.

“We’ve had no deaths onboard so far. Thank God for that,” he adds, a blue-and-yellow “Free Ukraine” bracelet looped around his wrist.

Most of the patients may look well, he says, “but they are still in severe condition, and we know that some who have been medevacked to different countries have not survived.”

Suffering children

In the cockpit of the plane is Arve Thomassen, a seasoned veteran.

In his previous career at the twilight of the Cold War, Thomassen was a fighter pilot intercepting Soviet planes in the Arctic.

Now aged 60, this larger-than-life Norwegian says he was happy to wrap up his career with a good cause.

“When you fly passengers down to the Mediterranean for sunbathing that’s normal business. I wouldn’t say boring but it’s very common,” he says.

But with these flights, “we take pride in doing this and we do it with a very humble attitude,” he adds.

They will never forget some of the people they’ve transported: the severe burn victims; the man so disfigured he looked like he’d come from the World War I trenches, or the three-year-old suffering from leukemia.

“It’s one thing to have wounded soldiers but children who suffer… that always makes a strong impression on people,” Thomassen tells AFP.

For some passengers, a nap provides a few minutes of respite from the pain.

But Vladyslav Shakhov can’t sleep.

The 24-year-old was hit by shrapnel in the back of the neck and now suffers from quadriparesis — muscle weakness in all four limbs.

“I’m not happy about leaving my country,” says entrepreneur-turned-armored car driver, who is heading to Germany.

“I hope they will get me back on my feet quickly so I can get back.”

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Pirates Boarded Danish Ship in Gulf of Guinea

Pirates boarded a Danish-owned Liberian-flagged oil tanker in the Gulf of Guinea over the weekend, the owner said Tuesday, adding that contact with the 16 crew members had been lost.

The 135-meter Monjasa Reformer “experienced an emergency situation” on Saturday around 260 kilometers west of Port Pointe-Noire in the Republic of Congo, owner Monjasa said.

The ship owner said the crew had sought refuge in the tanker’s secure room when the pirates boarded, “in accordance with the onboard anti-piracy emergency protocol.”

“Onboard communications channels are currently down, and we are working with the local authorities to establish communication to understand the situation on board and provide all the support needed by the crew to overcome these dreadful events,” Monjasa said.

It said “the vessel was sitting idle” when the incident took place.

Monjasa declined to give information on the nationalities of the crew members when asked by AFP.

According to an official at the port of Pointe-Noire, the ship had arrived in Congolese waters on March 18 and left on March 22, and was in international waters when it was attacked.

“Three men took control of the ship and since then the crew can no longer be reached,” the official told AFP.

Noel Choong of the International Maritime Bureau’s piracy reporting center told AFP a “missing vessel broadcast had been issued for passing ships to report to us if they come across it.”

Pirates have long been a risk in the Gulf of Guinea — a major shipping route stretching 5,700 kilometers from Senegal to Angola, with Nigerian gangs carrying out most attacks.

But since 2021, shippers say pirates have been raiding farther out in international waters.

Their violence and sophisticated tactics prompted pleas from shippers for a more robust foreign naval presence like the mission to curb attacks from Somali pirates a decade ago.

Many of the attacks in recent years have been carried out by Nigerian criminal gangs who strike out in speed boats from hideouts in the Delta region to raid vessels.

Some gangs have captured larger fishing vessels which they use as a “mothership” base to raid further out to sea.

Lull in attacks

But the region, which sees a lot of traffic from oil tankers, has also seen a lull in activity recently.

According to a report by The Maritime Information Cooperation and Awareness Center (MICA), three ships were attacked in the area in 2022 compared to 26 in 2019.

The sharp decline in Gulf of Guinea attacks contributed to 2022 recording the lowest number of incidents of piracy and armed robbery worldwide with 132 cases, according to the annual report from the International Maritime Bureau.

Two other attacks were recorded in the region in 2023 so far.

Denmark, home to shipping giant Maersk, sent a naval frigate in 2021 to patrol the waters, after the country had pushed for a stronger international naval presence.

The Absalon-class Danish frigate Esbern Snare — equipped with a helicopter and around 175 marines onboard — was sent to patrol the waters between November 2021 and March 2022, a period when the risk of attacks was higher.

Skirmishes and solutions

The Danish Shipping association said the latest incident shows “problems with piracy off the west coast of Africa are far from solved.”

With the war in Ukraine, “We fully understand… Denmark’s naval military capacity is needed elsewhere,” the group said.

But it suggested “navy vessels from several countries in the area… particularly the EU countries should coordinate their presence” to provide the best cover.

The gulf has periods of calmer seas when it is easier for pirates to race out from hidden bases on the Nigeria coast to raid commercial vessels offshore and kidnap crew.

In November 2021, sailors from the frigate were involved in a firefight resulting in the deaths of five suspected pirates.

A suspected Nigerian pirate was transferred to Denmark to receive medical care after the skirmish.

After needing to have his leg amputated the man, who has also applied for asylum in Denmark, was put on trial for and convicted of endangering the lives of the Danish sailors.

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Q&A: Prosecutor Discusses How US Punishes Russian Sanctions Violators 

More than a year after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, a Justice Department task force set up to enforce U.S. sanctions on Russia continues to seize and forfeit assets owned by Russian oligarchs.

To date, the effort has resulted in roughly $1 billion worth of assets that have been seized and are subject to forfeiture.

But in the longer term, said Task Force KleptoCapture director Andrew Adams, the “more impactful” cases would target third-party actors involved in helping Russia dodge sanctions: money laundering facilitators, professional sanctions evaders and export control evasion networks.

In an interview with VOA’s Ukrainian Service, Adams, who is also acting deputy assistant attorney general in the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York, discusses his team’s major accomplishments, as well as efforts to use proceeds of seized Russian assets for Ukrainian reconstruction, using newly granted congressional authority.

The following transcript has been edited for clarity and length.

VOA: In March of last year, Attorney General Merrick Garland launched KleptoCapture and appointed you as the director of this task force. Could you talk about your goals and achievements during this first year?

Andrew Adams, Task Force KleptoCapture director: The task force kicked off immediately after the full-scale invasion. By early March we had set up a group of attorneys, prosecutors, agents, analysts, specialists from around the U.S. government to focus on two key priorities. The first was a short-term rush for seizure and the beginning of forfeiture proceedings aimed at large expensive and movable assets, the yachts, the airplanes and the like.

At the same time, we knew that over the long term, the more impactful cases would ultimately be aimed at money laundering facilitators, professional sanctions evaders and export control, evasion networks.

VOA: In December when talking to VOA, you addressed the total approximate amount of foreign seized funds, both domestically and internationally. It was up to $40 billion. What portion of that is attributable to KleptoCapture?

Adams: So, to focus on what the Department of Justice brings to the table here, which is seizure and forfeiture pursuant to judicial warrants, pursuant to forfeiture actions in court, that number is roughly $1 billion worth of assets. There are warrants that are executed on airplanes. We’re talking about the yachts that have been seized. We’re talking about real property in the form of condos and luxury property around the United States, as well as bank accounts, securities holdings and the like.

Beyond that, you are getting into the realm of what our Treasury Department, our State Department, our Commerce Department and our foreign partners can do with their blocking powers, which can go significantly beyond what the Department of Justice can seize and forfeit.

VOA: In February, a New York judge ruled that U.S. prosecutors may forfeit $5.4 million belonging to sanctioned Russian oligarch Konstantin Malofeyev, and these funds may be used to help rebuild Ukraine. But recently, a U.S.-based Russian lawyer filed a claim against these funds. Do you expect the transfer to go through despite the legal challenges?

Adams: The funds that are now authorized to be transferred are $5.4 million. The period for putting in a claim passed without incident. And now those are free and clear to be given to the Department of State following the period for an appeal to pass. We fully expect that it will occur. And at that point the Department of State, working with our friends in Ukraine, will determine the best place for those funds to go. It is an example, I think, of a real success story from the last year, although $5.4 million is a drop in the bucket of the amount of harm that this war has caused Ukraine and the Ukrainian people. It’s a symbol of what can be done through judicial processes that respect due process, that respect third-party rights, that are in full conformity with our Constitution, and with international law.

VOA: And how many cases are close to adjudication?

Adams: The number of investigations that we have going at any given point is in the dozens. The way that we approach all of those is to think about the forfeiture possibilities. At this point, we have filed the Malofeyev action, which is essentially finished — it’s on appeal. There are roughly a half dozen different criminal cases that we filed in the late part of last year, as well as a civil forfeiture action against a set of real property, targeting about $75 million worth of property tied to Viktor Vekselberg.

VOA: Could you shed light on the role of international cooperation?

Adams: In terms of international cooperation, we operate in almost every case with significant international support. We’ve executed arrests in Estonia and Latvia, in Germany, in Italy, in Spain and elsewhere. We’ve made seizures in a number of countries around the world, including in some jurisdictions that are not traditionally viewed as the closest allies of the United States.

VOA: In December, Congress passed legislation giving the DOJ authority to direct the forfeited funds to the State Department for the purpose of providing aid to Ukraine. Could you talk about the importance of that decision?

Adams: It’s an incredibly important piece of legislation. As a legal matter it paves the way for us to make these transfers in a way that we can’t do very easily without this new authority. So, that was critically important – that the driving motivation for all of these cases at the end of the day is to give assistance to Ukraine. As a symbolic matter, it demonstrates both at home but also to our partners in Europe and elsewhere that there are means and mechanisms for providing exactly this kind of assistance to Ukraine through forfeiture.

VOA: The task force and broader international sanctions regime imposed a certain level of discomfort for some Kremlin-aligned oligarchs. Do you believe those sanctioned oligarchs’ voices matter to the Kremlin?

Adams: In addition to some public outcry even from people formerly close to the Kremlin, there are effects that go far beyond the specific oligarchs that come from the sanctions regimes and come from vigorous enforcement of the sanctions regimes. The effect that this has on financial institutions, on insurance companies, on aviation or maritime companies — in a way that has a material effect on the Russian war machine and the Kremlin’s ability to fund this war.

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Center in Poland Collects Ukrainian Accounts of Russian War Crimes

In response to reports of military actions against civilians during Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the Pilecki Institute in Warsaw, Poland, has established a center that collects and preserves evidence of potential war crimes and crimes against humanity. Lesia Bakalets has a story from Warsaw.

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Clashes as French Protesters Rally Against Macron’s Pension Bill

Black-clad groups set fire to garbage cans and threw projectiles at police in Paris, who charged at them and threw tear gas in confrontations on the fringes of a march against President Emmanuel Macron and his deeply unpopular pension bill. 

Clashes also erupted on Tuesday at similar rallies in other cities including Rennes, Bordeaux and Toulouse, with a bank branch and cars set ablaze in Nantes.  

However, while public frustration has evolved into broader anti-Macron sentiment, there was less violence than last week and rallies were otherwise largely peaceful. 

Earlier in the day, the government rejected unions’ demand to suspend and rethink the pension bill, which raises retirement age by two years to 64, infuriating labor leaders who said the government must find a way out of the crisis. 

The government said it was more than willing to talk to unions, but on other topics, and repeated it would stand firm on pensions. Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne has offered to meet unions on Monday and Tuesday next week. 

Millions of people have been demonstrating and joining strike action since mid-January to show their opposition to the bill. Unions said the next nationwide day of protests would be on April 6. 

The protests have intensified since the government used special powers to push the bill through parliament without a vote.  

One protester in Paris captured the mood, brandishing a banner that read: “France is angry.” 

“The bill has acted as a catalyst for anger over Macron’s policies,” said Fanny Charier, 31, who works for the Pole Emploi office for job seekers. 

Macron, who promised pension reform in both of his presidential campaigns, says change is needed to keep the country’s finances in balance. Unions and opposition parties say there are other ways to do that. 

“We have proposed a way out … and it’s intolerable that we are being stonewalled again,” the head of the CFDT union, Laurent Berger, told reporters at the Paris rally. 

Car fires 

In the previous big day of protests on Thursday, “Black Bloc” anarchists smashed shop windows, demolished bus stops and ransacked a McDonald’s restaurant in Paris, with similar acts in other cities. 

That was some of the worst street violence in years in France, reminiscent of protests of the yellow-vest movement during Macron’s first term. 

On Tuesday, rallies were more peaceful, despite some clashes. 

In the western city of Nantes, the boarded-up front of a BNP Paribas bank branch was set on fire. A car was set on fire in the margins of the rally, while some shot fireworks at police. 

Also in western France, protesters blocked the Rennes ring road and set an abandoned car on fire. In Paris and in Marseille, protesters blocked train tracks for a while. 

Rolling strikes in the transport, aviation and energy sectors continued to disrupt travel. 

However, in a move bringing some relief for Parisians and tourists alike, city garbage collectors said they were suspending a weeks-long strike that has left the roads around famous landmarks strewn with piles of trash. 

There were also fewer teachers on strike than on previous days. Union leaders said high inflation made it harder for workers to sacrifice a day’s pay on the picket line. 

The Interior Ministry said 740,000 people had protested across the country on Tuesday, well below the record 1.09 million seen at the March 23 rally. The numbers in Paris were also below last week’s record but higher or equal to earlier demonstrations since January. 

Nonetheless, about 17% of all fuel stations in France were missing at least one product as of Monday night, France’s petroleum association UFIP said, citing energy ministry data. 

Charles de Courson, from the opposition Liot party, said French authorities should learn from the situation in Israel, where the government just hit pause on a controversial justice overhaul. 

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Amnesty Cites ‘Double Standards’ in Global Response to Russia’s War on Ukraine

The global response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine should act as a blueprint for addressing mass human rights violations, according to Amnesty International in its annual report released Tuesday. However, the organization accuses the West of ignoring other human rights violations.   

Ukraine invasion 

Amnesty International says Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 unleashed “military destruction on a people and country at peace.” 

“Within months, civilian infrastructure had been destroyed, thousands killed and many more injured,” the report says. “Russia’s action accelerated a global energy crisis and helped weaken food production and distribution systems, leading to a global food crisis that continues to affect poorer nations and racialized people disproportionately.”

A strong global response began within days of the invasion, according to Philip Luther, a research and advocacy director for Amnesty International, in an interview with VOA this week.

“We saw the U.N. General Assembly vote to condemn Russia’s invasion. That was good. The International Criminal Court opened an investigation into war crimes and Western countries opened up their borders to Ukrainian refugees. For us, these measures were really a blueprint you could say for how to address mass human rights violations,” Luther noted.

Russia denies committing atrocities or targeting civilians in Ukraine, despite widespread evidence documented by United Nations investigators and other human rights groups. 

Amnesty criticism 

Amnesty International was widely criticized last year when it accused Ukrainian forces of endangering civilians by stationing its military in residential areas. Amnesty’s director in Ukraine quit her post, accusing the organization of parroting Kremlin propaganda, while Ukraine’s president said the group had tried to “shift the responsibility from the aggressor to the victim.” 

Amnesty said Tuesday it would continue to highlight human rights abuses by all sides.

“It is extremely clear to all of us that the violations committed by the Russian forces are far more important and lethal than anything else that the Ukrainian militaries may do. That being said, our mandate, our mission is to protect civilians. And for that reason, we will continue to expose violations committed by the Ukrainian military forces,” Amnesty International Secretary-General Agnes Callamard told a press conference Tuesday in Paris. 

‘Double standards’

Amnesty says the strong international response to Moscow’s invasion exposes the double standards of many countries, which condemned Russia but fail to act on other human rights crises. 

“Solidarity is owed to the Ukrainian people, but it is also owed to the people of Palestine, to the people of Eritrea, to the people of Myanmar. And that did not happen in 2022,” Callamard told The Associated Press on Tuesday. 

European nations have taken in about 8 million Ukrainian refugees since the invasion. Amnesty says policies toward other nationalities seeking asylum have hardened. 

“They didn’t exhibit the same or show the same treatment to those fleeing war and aggression in other places — war in Syria or in Afghanistan, or violence in Haiti when it came to the U.S.,” Amnesty’s Philip Luther told VOA.

Deadly conflicts 

2022 saw the outbreak of new wars, while existing conflicts became deadlier, according to the Amnesty report. 

It highlights the war in Ethiopia, which has killed hundreds of thousands of people according to some estimates. “Much of this carnage was hidden from view, meted out in a largely invisible campaign of ethnic cleansing against Tigrayans in western Tigray,” the report says. 

Amnesty says 2022 was the deadliest year in a decade for Palestinians in the West Bank, with at least 151 people, including dozens of children, killed by Israeli forces. Israel claims it is targeting terrorists and says 23 of its citizens were killed in terror attacks last year. 

Amnesty also highlights Myanmar’s continuing oppression of the Karen and Karenni minorities, with hundreds killed and at least 150,000 displaced. 

“The people of Haiti, Mali, Venezuela, Yemen, and many other places too, were plagued by armed conflicts or systemic violence and associated human rights violations,” the report adds.

In Iran, anti-government protests erupted in September following the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini while in police custody. Amnesty says security forces fired live ammunition to crush the demonstrations, killing hundreds of men, women and children and injuring thousands more.

China’s coercion

Amnesty accuses China of using coercion to silence international criticism of its human rights abuses against Uyghur Muslims. The U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights concluded in August that China had committed “serious human rights violations” against Uyghur and other predominantly Muslim communities, accusations Beijing denies.

“The U.N. Human Rights Council failed to order follow-up action because essentially China was allowed to use its strong-arm tactics to prevent further scrutiny or accountability,” said Amnesty’s Luther.

The report says human rights protections have advanced in some countries, in areas such as women’s rights and the abolition of the death penalty. “The Central African Republic, Kazakhstan, Papua New Guinea and Sierra Leone all fully abolished the death penalty last year,” Luther said.

Turning point 

2023 is the 75th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights — adopted by the United Nations in the wake of World War II. In its report, Amnesty says this year must be a turning point for upholding human rights.

“We’ve witnessed iconic acts of defiance, including Afghan women taking to the streets to protest Taliban rule and Iranian women posting videos of themselves cutting their hair in protest against the country’s abusive and forced veiling laws,” the report says.

“We can take some comfort in knowing that in the face of such repression, thousands of people still came together to write letters, sign petitions, and take to the streets. It should be a reminder to those in power that our rights to demand change, and to come together freely and collectively, cannot be taken away,” it states. 

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Polish, Romanian PMs Ask EU for Mechanism to Trace Ukraine Grain Exports

Romania and Poland are in talks with the European Commission over export tracing mechanisms for Ukrainian grains to ensure local farmers are not hurt by a flood of cheap imports, the Polish and Romanian prime ministers said on Tuesday. 

Ukraine, one of the world’s largest grain exporters, has seen its Black Sea ports blocked since Russia invaded more than a year ago and has been forced to find alternative shipping routes through European Union states Poland and Romania. 

But logistical bottlenecks mean that large quantities of Ukrainian grains, which are cheaper than those produced in the European Union, have ended up in central European states, hurting prices and sales of local farmers. 

Romanian and Polish Prime Ministers Nicolae Ciuca and Mateusz Morawiecki told a business conference in Bucharest their governments were working on solutions with the EU. 

“Together we are engaged in a process to discuss with the European Commission about what the mechanisms should be to enforce the traceability of Ukrainian exports and final destinations,” Ciuca said. 

Morawiecki said they “are fighting together for this grain to leave our countries, for the European Union to effectively help us in the implementation of trade policy, which is in the best strategic interest of Ukraine and Central Europe, but also in the best economic interest of Poland and Romania.” 

Earlier this month, Romanian Agriculture Minister Petre Daea said the European Commission has estimated farmers from Poland, Romania, Hungary, Bulgaria and Slovakia have lost $451.15 million overall from the inflows of cheaper Ukrainian grains on their markets. 

Daea also said the Commission aimed to hand out compensation worth 56.3 million euros to Polish, Bulgarian and Romanian farmers, with a final decision expected on March 30. 

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Portugal: 2 Dead, Several Injured in Muslim Center Stabbing

Portuguese police shot and injured a man suspected of stabbing two women to death Tuesday at an Ismaili Muslim center in Lisbon, authorities said. 

The women were Portuguese staff members at the center, Ismaili community leader Narzim Ahmad told Portuguese TV channel S.I.C. 

Police were called to the center late Tuesday morning where they encountered a suspect “armed with a large knife,” a police statement said. 

Police ordered him to surrender but he advanced toward them and was “neutralized,” the statement said. The suspect was taken to a Lisbon hospital where he was in police custody. 

Several other people were wounded, according to the statement, but it provided no further details. 

Prime Minister António Costa said police shot the suspect and told reporters the attack was “a criminal act.” 

“Everything points to this being an isolated incident,” Costa said, without elaborating. 

There was no immediate word on the identity of those killed. 

Armed police from a special operations unit could be seen forming a perimeter outside the building. 

Costa said police were investigating the attack and it was too soon to speculate about a motive. 

The Shia Imami Ismaili Muslims, generally known as the Ismailis, belong to the Shia branch of Islam. The Ismaili Muslims are a culturally diverse community living in more than 25 countries around the world.

Portugal hasn’t recorded any significant terror attacks in recent decades, and religious violence is virtually unheard of. 

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