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Barham Salih has known torture and the wrenching loss of exile. Four decades after his own ordeal, he has taken the helm of the UN refugee agency as it grapples with a funding shortfall and ever-rising needs.A former Iraqi president, Salih, 65, became the first former head of state to run the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) at the start of the year. “It is a profound moral and legal responsibility,” Salih told AFP during his first trip in the new role — to Kakuma refugee camp in Kenya.”I know the pain of losing a home, losing your friends,” he said.The Kakuma refugee camp, which Salih visited on Sunday, is east Africa’s second largest, hosting roughly 300,000 people from South Sudan, Somalia, Uganda and Burundi. It has been in place since 1992. The world “should not allow this to continue”, Salih said, praising a new initiative by Kenya to turn its camps into economic hubs. “We should not only protect refugees… but also enable them to have more durable solutions,” he said, while adding: “The better way is to have peace established in their own countries… nowhere is nicer than home.”- ‘Electric shocks, beating’ -The son of a judge and a women’s rights activist, Salih was born in 1960 in Sulaymaniyah, a stronghold of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), which sought self-determination for Iraq’s Kurds.He went into exile in Iran in 1974, spending a year at a school for refugees. As a teenager in 1979, back in Iraq and already a member of the PUK, he was arrested twice by former dictator Saddam Hussein’s regime.”I was released after 43 days after having suffered torture, electric shocks, beating,” he said.Upon release, he still managed to rank among Iraq’s top three high school students, according to a former colleague, before fleeing with his family to Britain where he earned a degree in computer engineering and a doctorate.Salih has “real experience of exile… He brings a personal perspective of displacement, which is very important,” Filippo Grandi, his predecessor at UNHCR, told AFP last month.Salih went on to a successful career in Iraqi Kurdistan and Iraq’s federal government after Hussein’s overthrow in 2003, holding the largely ceremonial role of president from 2018 to 2022. – ‘Serious budget cuts’ -Refugee numbers have doubled to 117 million in the past decade, the UNHCR said in June, but funding has dropped sharply, especially since Donald Trump returned to the White House.UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres recently praised Salih’s experience as a “crisis negotiator and architect of national reforms” at a time when the agency faces “very serious challenges”.”We have had very serious budget cuts last year. A lot of staff have been reduced,” Salih told AFP. “But we have to understand, we have to adapt,” he said, calling for “more efficiency and accountability” while also insisting the international community meets its “legal and moral obligations to help”. burs-jcp/mnk/er/kjm

US President Donald Trump said Sunday that Iran’s leadership had called him seeking “to negotiate” after he repeatedly threatened to intervene militarily if Tehran killed protesters.For two weeks, Iran has been rocked by a protest movement that has swelled in spite of a crackdown rights groups warn has become a “massacre”.Initially sparked by anger over the rising cost of living, the demonstrations have evolved into a serious challenge of the theocratic system in place since the 1979 revolution.Information has continued to trickle out of Iran despite a days-long internet shutdown, with videos filtering out of capital Tehran and other cities over the past three nights showing large demonstrations.As reports emerge of a growing protest death toll, and images show bodies piled outside a morgue, Trump said Tehran indicated its willingness to talk. “The leaders of Iran called” yesterday, Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One, adding that “a meeting is being set up… They want to negotiate.”He added, however, that “we may have to act before a meeting”.The US-based Center for Human Rights in Iran (CHRI) said it had received “eyewitness accounts and credible reports indicating that hundreds of protesters have been killed across Iran during the current internet shutdown”. “A massacre is unfolding,” it said. The Norway-based NGO Iran Human Rights (IHR) said it confirmed the killing of at least 192 protesters but that the actual toll could be much higher.”Unverified reports indicate that at least several hundreds, and according to some sources, more than 2,000 people may have been killed,” said IHR.More than 2,600 protesters have been arrested, IHR estimates.A video circulating on Sunday showed dozens of bodies accumulating outside a morgue south of Tehran.The footage, geolocated by AFP to Kahrizak, showed bodies wrapped in black bags, with what appeared to be grieving relatives searching for loved ones.- Near paralysis -In Tehran, an AFP journalist described a city in a state of near paralysis. The price of meat has nearly doubled since the start of the protests, and many shops are closed. Those that do open must close at around 4:00 or 5:00 pm, when security forces deploy en masse.There were fewer videos showing protests on social media Sunday, but it was not clear to what extent that was due to the internet shutdown.One widely shared video showed protesters again gathering in the Pounak district of Tehran shouting slogans in favour of the ousted monarchy.The protests have become one of the biggest challenges to the rule of supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, 86, coming in the wake of Israel’s 12-day war against the Islamic republic in June, which was backed by the United States.State TV has aired images of burning buildings, including a mosque, as well as funeral processions for security personnel. But after three days of mass actions, state outlets were at pains to present a picture of calm returning, broadcasting images of smooth-flowing traffic on Sunday. Tehran Governor Mohammad-Sadegh Motamedian insisted in televised comments that “the number of protests is decreasing”. The Iranian government on Sunday declared three days of national mourning for “martyrs” including members of the security forces killed.President Masoud Pezeshkian also urged Iranians to join a “national resistance march” Monday to denounce the violence.In response to Trump’s repeated threats to intervene, Iran’s parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf said Iran would hit back, calling US military and shipping “legitimate targets” in comments broadcast by state TV. – ‘Stand with the people’ -Reza Pahlavi, the US-based son of Iran’s ousted shah, who has emerged as an anti-government figurehead, said he was prepared to return to the country and lead a democratic transition. “I’m already planning on that,” he told Fox News on Sunday. He later urged Iran’s security forces and government workers to join the demonstrators.”Employees of state institutions, as well as members of the armed and security forces, have a choice: stand with the people and become allies of the nation, or choose complicity with the murderers of the people,” he said in a social media post.He also urged protesters to replace the flags outside of Iranian embassies. “The time has come for them to be adorned with Iran’s national flag,” he said. The ceremonial, pre-revolution flag has become an emblem of the global rallies that have mushroomed in support of Iran’s demonstrators. In London, protesters managed over the weekend to swap out the Iranian embassy flag, hoisting in its place the tri-colored banner used under the last shah.  burs/lb/tc