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Middle East crisis live: Trump calls on China, France, UK and others to send ships to keep strait of Hormuz open

US citizens should leave Iraq immediately, the US embassy in Baghdad said in an updated security alert on Saturday, following an overnight missile attack on the embassy’s building. “Americans face a risk of kidnapping, and US individuals have been directly targeted. Iran-aligned terrorist militias may hinder the Iraqi authorities’ ability to respond effectively in emergencies,” the embassy said. “US citizens should leave Iraq immediately. US citizens who choose to remain in Iraq are encouraged to reconsider their decision given the significant threat posed by Iran-aligned terrorist militias.”

Trump urges other countries to deploy ships to help reopen strait of Hormuz

Donald Trump has called on other countries to send ships to help reopen the strait of Hormuz, the critical chokepoint for global oil supplies which Iran has closed to almost all shipping in retaliation for the joint US-Israeli offensive launched two weeks ago. In the latest flurry of social media posts, Trump wrote on Saturday on Truth Social that “many countries, especially those who are affected by Iran’s attempted closure of the Hormuz Strait, will be sending War Ships, in conjunction with the United States of America, to keep the Strait open and safe.” The US president, seemingly in an attempt to bolster domestic and international support for the war, added: “Hopefully China, France, Japan, South Korea, the UK, and others, that are affected by this artificial constraint, will send Ships to the area.” Almost no maritime traffic is passing through the strait of Hormuz, which usually carries a fifth of global supplies of crude oil and liquefied fossil gas. On Friday Trump said that US forces “obliterated” military targets in a raid on the island of Kharg in Iran and warned that crucial oil infrastructure there could be next. “For reasons of decency, I have chosen NOT to wipe out the Oil Infrastructure on the Island,” Trump wrote on social media. “However, should Iran, or anyone else, do anything to interfere with the Free and Safe Passage of Ships through the strait of Hormuz, I will immediately reconsider this decision.” The flow of oil and gas from Iran and the Gulf has moved centre stage in the ongoing conflict in recent days. Kharg lies about 15 miles (25km) off Iran’s coastline and is the main facility for exporting the country’s oil. Iran has effectively closed the narrow strait of Hormuz, sending oil prices surging and raising the prospect of major damage to economies worldwide. The US president’s comments prompted a defiant response from Iran, where senior military officials reiterated a threat to attack any US-linked oil and energy facilities across the Middle East if its oil infrastructure was hit. Iran has so far responded to the joint US-Israeli offensive, which is entering its third week, with daily attacks on oil and other infrastructure around the Gulf region, as well as against Israel. Ebrahim Zolfaghari, spokesperson for Iran’s joint military command, warned of attacks on “all oil, economic and energy infrastructures belonging to oil companies across the region that have American shares or cooperate with America”. Iran on Saturday urged the evacuation of three major ports in the United Arab Emirates that Tehran said were “legitimate targets” because the US military used them for attacks. There was no independent confirmation of the claim. Nine ballistic missiles and 33 drones were fired on Saturday toward the UAE, the defence ministry said. Since war broke out, 1,600 drones, 294 ballistic missiles and 15 cruise missiles have been fired and launched by Iran at the UAE. The attacks have killed six people and wounded 141 others, officials there said. More than 1,400 people are reported to have been killed in Iran, where residents report relentless bombing. Thirteen have been killed in Israel, and about 20 in total in the Gulf. In his first public comments, Iran’s new supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, last week vowed to keep the strait of Hormuz shut and urged neighbouring countries to close US bases on their territory or risk being attacked themselves. No images have been released of Khamenei since an Israeli strike at the start of the war that killed much of his family, including his father and wife. Iran says the new supreme leader was wounded, but an official said on Friday he was not “impaired”. Trump meanwhile declined to publicly give an end date for the conflict, telling reporters: “It’ll be as long as it’s necessary.” Analysts have suggested that Trump will seek to end the conflict soon to prevent a deep global economic crisis. The US president’s comments on Saturday marked the first time he has publicly suggested the US may not be able to reopen the strait of Hormuz on its own, and without international support. Experts told the Guardian earlier this week that military actions directed toward Kharg would lead to a further dramatic increase in oil prices, already surging since the war began on 28 February. “We may see the $120 (£90) a barrel price we saw on Monday heading to $150 if Kharg were attacked,” said Neil Quilliam of the Chatham House thinktank. “It’s too vital for global energy markets.” Last week, Trump called the radical Islamist leaders of Iran “deranged scumbags” and said it was an honour to kill them. Pete Hegseth, the US defence secretary, told a press conference in Washington that Iranian leaders were “desperate and hiding, they’ve gone underground”. Hegseth also said that Mojtaba Khamenei was wounded and probably disfigured. On Saturday, multiple alarms sounded in Israel, warning of incoming missiles and drones launched by Iran and Hezbollah, the Tehran-backed militant Islamist movement in Lebanon. In Lebanon, the humanitarian crisis deepened, with more than 800 people killed and 850,000 displaced, as Israel launched waves of strikes against Hezbollah and warned there would be no letup. Lebanon’s health ministry says 31 paramedics have been killed by Israeli strikes. Israeli officials accused Hezbollah of using civilian ambulances to transport weapons and fighters, without credible evidence. Concerns that the US may seize Kharg rose when officials in Washington said that 2,500 more marines and the amphibious assault ship USS Tripoli had been ordered to the Middle East. Marine expeditionary units are able to conduct amphibious landings, but they also specialise in bolstering security at embassies, evacuating civilians and disaster relief. The deployment does not necessarily indicate that a ground operation is imminent or will take place. US forces have suffered casualties, including the deaths of all six crew members aboard a refuelling aircraft that crashed in western Iraq.

Jürgen Habermas, German philosopher and sociologist, dies aged 96

The influential German philosopher and sociologist Jürgen Habermas has died at the age of 96, his publisher has said. Habermas, a towering figure in the intellectual history of postwar Germany, is best known for his theory of political consensus-building. Widely considered one of most influential philosophers of the 20th century, he also helped to shape the discourse around European integration and the formation of the EU. In spite of his background in the neo-Marxist Frankfurt school and his reputation as a court philosopher of the Social Democratic party, his influence cut across party lines. German chancellor, Friedrich Merz, of the conservative Christian Democratic Union, described him as “one of the most significant thinkers of our time”. “His analytical acuity shaped democratic discourse far beyond our country’s borders and served as a beacon in a stormy sea,” Merz said in a statement. “His voice will be missed”. Habermas’ career, which spanned seven decades, focused on the foundations of social theory, democracy and the rule of law. His belief that the formation of public opinion was vital for democracies to survive explains why Habermas continued to write books and newspaper articles deep into old age. In a 2015 interview with the Guardian, he criticised the then chancellor Angela Merkel for “gambling away” Germany’s postwar reputation with her government’s hardline stance during the Greek debt crisis. More recently, such interventions invited criticism from younger intellectuals. In 2022, he criticised Germany’s then Green party foreign minister, Annalena Baerbock, for her “aggressively self-confident” and “shrill” condemnations of Russia’s war of aggression in Ukraine. His pronouncement that Israel’s war on Gaza following the 7 October Hamas attacks was “justified in principle” was met with disbelief by many philosophers following in the footsteps of the Frankfurt school’s “critical theory”, who published a condemnatory letter. His most recent work, Things Needed to Get Better, was published in December last year. In it, he refuses to “let defeatism have the last word”, arguing it is possible to “confront the crises of the present aggressively and finally overcome them after all”. His publisher, Suhrkamp Verlag, said he died on Saturday in Starnberg, near Munich. He is survived by two of his three children. Born on 18 June 1929 to a bourgeois family in Dusseldorf, Habermas underwent two surgeries after birth and in early childhood for a cleft palate, which resulted in a speech impediment. This impediment is often cited as having influenced his work on communication. Habermas said he had experienced the importance of spoken language as “a layer of commonality without which we as individuals cannot exist” and recalled struggling to make himself understood. He was raised in a staunchly Protestant household. His father, an economist who headed the local chamber of commerce, joined the Nazi party in 1933 but was no more than a “passive sympathiser“, Habermas said. He himself joined the Hitler Youth at the age of 10, like most German boys at the time. At 15, as the second world war was drawing to a close, he managed to avoid being drafted into the military by hiding from military police. Later, he said he wouldn’t have found his way into philosophy and social theory if he hadn’t experienced confronting the reality of Nazi crimes as a young man. He recalled that “you saw suddenly that it was a politically criminal system in which you had lived”. Educated at the University of Bonn, where he met his wife, Ute, he first rose to prominence as a journalist and an academic in the 1950s. He belonged to the second generation of the Frankfurt school of intellectuals, following in the footsteps of Marxist thinkers like Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer. In the 1980s, Habermas was a prominent figure in the historikerstreit, or historians’ dispute, an intellectual debate where conservative historians, most prominently Ernst Nolte, argued that the atrocities of Nazi Germany were not unique and similar crimes had been committed by other governments. Habermas and other opponents of this perspective contended that the conservative historians were trying to lessen the magnitude of Nazi crimes through such comparisons. Defending the uniqueness of Third Reich atrocities, Habermas believed that Vergangenheitsbewältigung, or coming to terms with the past, had to be central to Germany’s identity. His wife, Ute Habermas-Wesselhoeft, died last year. The couple had three children: Tilmann, Judith and Rebekka, who died in 2023.

Five arrested in Cuba after protest at local Communist party office

Five people have been arrested in Cuba for acts of “vandalism” after a small group of protesters broke into a provincial office of the Cuban Communist party and set fire to computers and furniture. The incident, which also affected a pharmacy and another shop, took place in the town of Moron, a little more than 300 miles (500km) east of Havana. Videos shared on social media show the protesters ransacking the office, removing documents, equipment and furniture, and burning everything in the street. A smaller group also threw stones. “What began peacefully, after an exchange with the authorities in the area, degenerated into vandalism against the headquarters of municipal committee of the Communist party,” the state-run newspaper Invasor said. It added that five people had been arrested. Although protests are rare in Cuba, the country is enduring a US oil blockade and other intense pressure from the US president, Donald Trump, who has stated openly he would like to see regime change in Havana. Recently, people have started banging pots and pans at night in the street or at home to vent their frustration and discontent over shortages of food and medicine. Residents are also suffering frequent rolling power blackouts that can last for up to 15 hours a day. Independent media and social media posts say that Havana is at the centre of these recent nightly protests, but they are spreading to other parts of the country, too. On Friday, the Cuban president, Miguel Díaz-Canel, confirmed for the first time that he was holding talks with the US government. Díaz-Canel said that no petroleum shipments have arrived in Cuba in the past three months, and blamed the US oil blockade for that. He said the island was running on a mixture of natural gas, solar power and thermoelectric plants. Trump has said Cuba will be next on his agenda after the Iran war and the US overthrow of Cuba’s top ally, Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela, in January. Cuba relied on Venezuela for oil and Trump, who says he effectively runs Caracas, has cut off the supply. The oil embargo has brought Cuba’s already troubled economy to the brink of collapse. The Republican leader has placed the impoverished island under a US oil blockade, strangling its fuel supply on the basis of what he called the “extraordinary threat” posed by Cuba to the US. This comes on top of a six-decades-old US trade embargo.

How the war in Iran and its economic fallout will lead to Trump’s defeat

Donald Trump is still high on the capture of Nicolás Maduro. The easy abduction of the Venezuelan president didn’t just grant Trump control of the nation’s oil and critical minerals resources. It allowed him to throttle the government of Cuba by denying it access to energy, raising the tantalizing prospect that he might bring down a communist regime that has annoyed Washington since 1959. Trump is confident that his joint venture with Israel in Iran will do just as well. The barrage of Iranian missiles and drones aimed at Israel and Iran’s Arab neighbors has done nothing to change Trump’s mind that he can win, regardless of how he defines “winning”. Whatever the war does to energy markets, the American economy can take it. “Short term oil prices, which will drop rapidly when the destruction of the Iranian nuclear threat is over, are a very small price to pay for U.S.A., and World, Safety and Peace,” he noted on social media. “ONLY FOOLS WOULD THINK DIFFERENTLY!” Trump’s feeling of invincibility is also due to the fact that his erratic policymaking, so far, hasn’t caused as much damage as originally feared. Despite his wall of tariffs, his dismemberment of the federal workforce, his deportation of immigrant workers and his relentless attacks on the Fed, just a few weeks ago leading economists were wondering whether the economy may achieve that most difficult of feats: a soft landing from the era of high inflation. The United States is also perhaps the best insulated of the major advanced economies against a spike in the price of energy. Imports of crude have declined significantly as domestic production surged from the early 2000s. Natural gas, whose domestic price is not as sensitive to spikes in global markets, has taken a larger role in the energy supply. Today, oil satisfies about 38% of US energy consumption, almost 10 percentage points less than during the 1973 oil crisis, when Arab oil producers stopped shipping to the US to punish it for supporting Israel in the Yom Kippur war. Natural gas’s share has meanwhile grown from 30% to 36%. European markets shuddered when Iran throttled the strait of Hormuz, through which 20% of the world’s oil shipments flow, and swooned when Qatar shut down liquefied gas facilities. On this side of the Atlantic, though, Trump’s favorite gauge of the US economy, the S&P 500 index, still hovers close to its all-time high. But however high Trump is riding, he is nonetheless facing defeat. Not military defeat against whatever is left of Iran’s armed forces. He is about to be defeated by the only power ever capable of stopping American military adventures: the opposition of the American public. The war against Iran has been deeply unpopular from the start, an unusual twist for a nation that tends to support sending the kids off to fight, even under dubious justifications. Its economic effects are not going to help its popularity going forward. And self-sufficiency in energy cannot fully insulate the United States. The price of oil is set in global markets, whether it comes from Texas or the Middle East. Regular gasoline already shot up to its highest since Trump took office, past $3.50 a gallon. The government now forecasts that retail gasoline prices will only return to their 2025 level in the fall of 2027, while the retail price of diesel will remain above its pre-war level at least until the end of next year. Trucking companies will largely pass on higher prices to customers. Farmers facing higher fuel and fertilizer prices will also slap them onto the price tag of food. Retailers and airlines will also be hit by rising fuel costs. All this will undoubtedly show up in March’s reading on inflation, which had steadied in February to a 2.4% increase compared with a year earlier. And all this will get in the way of interest rate cuts by the Federal Reserve. Meanwhile, expensive gas at the pump is likely to hit sales of Americans’ beloved SUVs. All of this will hammer Trump’s approval ratings where it hurts. The president understands these risks, which is why he is pulling out the stops to bring oil prices down. The administration unveiled a plan to insure tankers and escort them through the strait. It waived sanctions against some Russian oil exports and is considering ways to expand Venezuelan oil production, to fill any supply shortfall. But reversing the largest jump in oil prices in more than three decades will take more than that. Either the war ends or the US degrades Iran’s capabilities to the point where the country can no longer threaten oil tankers moving through Hormuz. Trump, according to his public statements, simultaneously believes that he can achieve Tehran’s “unconditional surrender” and that the war “is very complete, pretty much”. But his advisers in Washington should have learned by now that you can bomb a country to smithereens from the air and still not win the war over the long term. Neither Iran’s Revolutionary Guards nor the Basij – institutions hated by most Iranians – will simply give up their weapons and risk their lives. However much Iranian infrastructure has been destroyed, there are thousands of armed warriors on the ground able to fight back and prop up a hostile regime in Tehran. Trump could back down from demanding “unconditional surrender”, invent alternative grounds to claim victory and bring his flotilla home. But that will hardly look good. Alternatively, he could deploy ground forces, an option he has not ruled out. Or he could keep on bombing, shifting to civilian targets once he is done destroying Iran’s military infrastructure. Neither of these approaches is quick, though, which means the economic pain from this war will most likely linger. And Trump may learn that, however easy it was to capture Maduro, beheading the US’s rivals is not necessarily a winning strategy everywhere in the world.

Israeli strike kills 12 healthcare workers in southern Lebanon

Israel killed 12 medical workers in a strike on a medical centre in south Lebanon on Friday night, bringing the toll of healthcare staff killed in the country by Israel to 31 over the past 12 days. A primary healthcare facility in the town of Burj Qalaouiyah was hit by an Israeli strike late on Friday, setting it ablaze and causing the structure to collapse on top of the staff inside. The strike killed doctors, paramedics and nurses on duty, according to the Lebanese ministry of health, which said it “violated all international humanitarian laws” in a statement. Human rights groups have said that any attacks on medical workers are a war crime, regardless of their political affiliation. Israel has carried out at least 37 attacks against healthcare workers and facilities in Lebanon, including against the state civil defence and Lebanese Red Cross, since the current hostilities began, Lebanese authorities said. The war in Lebanon started on 2 March after Hezbollah launched a volley of rockets at Israel, triggering a swift Israeli bombing campaign across the country. Fighting has since escalated, with Hezbollah continuing its rocket fire and Israeli troops invading south Lebanon. At least 826 people have been killed in Lebanon by Israeli strikes, according to the ministry of health, and about 1 million have been displaced. On Saturday morning, Israeli military spokesperson Avichay Adraee accused Hezbollah of using ambulances and medical facilities for military purposes, and said that Israeli forces would “act in accordance with international law” if Hezbollah did not stop. The spokesperson gave no credible evidence for his claim. The Lebanese ministry of health denied the Israeli army’s claim that ambulances are being used for military purposes, calling it “nothing more than a justification for the crimes it is committing against humanity”, in a statement. During the 13-month Israel-Hezbollah war in 2024, Israel also accused Hezbollah of using ambulances for military purposes, again without credible evidence. It also killed 408 healthcare workers. Israel was accused of war crimes for its attacks on Gaza’s healthcare facilities during its two-year war on the strip by a UN commission of inquiry. A top prosecutor at the international criminal court said in 2024 that claims about the presence of Hamas fighters in hospitals in Gaza under siege by Israel’s military have been “grossly exaggerated”. Gaza’s healthcare system has been largely destroyed by sustained Israeli attacks. Humanitarian groups have warned the accusation by the Israeli military that Hezbollah is using healthcare centres for military purposes could be used as a justification for further attacks on such facilities in Lebanon. Under international humanitarian law, medical workers, regardless of political affiliation, are considered civilians and enjoy protected status.

‘Worst nightmare’: anger and frustration as Gulf states bear brunt of war they did not start

An eerie quiet hangs over Ras Al Khaimah’s industrial port. Usually a thriving maritime hub of the United Arab Emirates, now ships stand docked and silent. Not far out along the hazy horizon, a backlog of hundreds of tankers have lined up in recent days, halted along a waterway flooded with danger. Any vessel heading past Ras Al Khaimah out to the Arabian Sea must traverse the world’s most treacherous strip of water for shipping today: the strait of Hormuz. Just over 20 nautical miles from Ras Al Khaimah, two oil tankers heading for the strait were attacked by Iranian missiles this week, one catching fire. On Saturday, Fujairah, the UAE’s main oil port on its east coast, was targeted by a drone attack, with thick black smoke seen billowing from its terminal. It is one of the many consequences facing Gulf states as they are pulled deeper into a war that they did not start and had diplomatically tried to prevent. For decades, Bahrain, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar and Oman have allowed US military bases, infrastructure or access on their soil, and have been among the largest buyers of American weapons and technology. In return, the US has stood as the Gulf’s closest and most significant military partner and protector. But now, Gulf states have growing concerns over the relationship, analysts say, after Donald Trump was seen to wilfully torpedo peaceful diplomatic negotiations in favour of starting a war in the Middle East. “The perceived Iran threat to the Gulf only became a reality when the US declared the war – Iran did not fire first,” says Khaled Almezaini, an associate professor of politics and international relations at Zayed University, in Abu Dhabi. “There is strong condemnation of the Iranians but at the same time there’s a message to the Americans and the Israelis that, well, we have to find a way to end this. This is not our war.” In the weeks before the strikes, Gulf leaders hosted negotiations and made repeated overtures to the US president, emphasising the severe consequences for regional security if he attacked Iran. Yet Trump chose to carry out the strikes, it is widely believed, without consulting or warning Gulf allies. While the Gulf expected to be caught in the backlash, the scale of Iran’s campaign of revenge has left many shocked. Gulf states had assured Tehran that none of their bases would be used for attacks but that has not stopped Iran launching thousands of drones and missiles targeting airports, military bases, oil refineries, ports, hotels and office buildings. Aviation in the region remains highly restricted, with airlines losing billions of dollars. Bahrain is facing an economic crisis, while the UAE’s reputation as a haven for tourism and western investment has taken a significant hit. States are successfully rebuffing most Iranian missiles and drones, but the interceptors and air defence systems are costing countries like the UAE upwards of $2bn (£1.5bn). Iran’s violent blockade of the strait of Hormuz – the only sea passage linking the Gulf with the open ocean and through which a fifth of global energy supplies are carried – has led to a drastic reduction in the oil and gas exports that bankroll Gulf economies. Experts estimate that between $700m and $1.2bn is being lost every day in oil exports. “The UAE and GCC [Gulf Cooperation Council] tried to stop the United States declaring this war because they knew the implications,” says Almezaini. He pointed to the threats made by Iran’s foreign minister only months earlier about the closure of the strait. “Now that exact scenario is playing out,” he adds. The asymmetry of the Gulf’s military partnership with the US has never been more stark, says Allison Minor, the director of the Atlantic Council’s project on Middle East integration. It was only in September that Israel carried out airstrikes on Qatar, another US Gulf ally, which did not prompt any substantive action from Washington. “The most fundamental question is one of consultation,” she says. “Are the Gulf states actually achieving the kind of partnership and security support that they feel is necessary if the United States is going to engage militarily in the region?” On Thursday, the Omani foreign minister, Badr bin Hamad al Busaidi, who was the mediator in the previous Iran-US talks, gave some of his strongest comments on the conflict yet. “Oman’s view [is] that the military attacks against Iran by the United States and Israel are illegal, and that for as long as they continue to pursue hostilities, those states that launched this war are in breach of international law,” he said. Al Busaidi said the US decision to strike Iran while peaceful negotiations over Iran’s nuclear programme were making progress demonstrated the conflict was solely an attempt to reorder the Middle East in Israel’s favour. Analysts emphasise that many Gulf states find themselves in a conflicting position: trying to bring down the temperature of the war while pushing for the US to finish the job in Iran and ensure they are not left with a worst-case scenario – a weakened, wounded and volatile Islamic republic on their doorstep. “This is the Gulf’s worst nightmare,” says Sanam Vakil, the director of the Middle East and north Africa programme at Chatham House. “There’s deep anger and frustration at the United States because this is not their [the Gulf states’] war, and yet they’re bearing the brunt.” Vakil says Gulf states had long pursued a security partnership with the US similar to the one enjoyed by Israel, but had now realised “that may never happen”. Yet for all the recognition of the need to diversify their security partners, she adds, the Gulf currently has no alternative as its ultimate protector. “The Gulf is not going to move quickly, nor can they, in finding alternatives to the US. But they’re also not going to just double down with an unreliable partner,” she says. “It will likely move forward in the pursuit of strategic autonomy, which has already been on the horizon, perhaps at a more rapid pace.” For all the geopolitical ramifications, the economic effects have also trickled down to ordinary life. Standing at the boat and jetski rental firm he worked for in the marina next to Ras Al Khaimah port, Sumon, 27, says business has been throttled because none of their boats are allowed out to sea by the coastguard. “For many days, our boats and jetskis aren’t allowed to go out because of all these problems and fighting with Iran in the sea,” he says. “It’s very bad news, we don’t have customers and my boss can’t give me a salary.” Sumon points to the port opposite: “No boats are moving any more. No one knows when it will end.”

‘I won’t hide it, I’m scared’: drone strike alerts Cyprus to its inadequate bomb shelters

At 12.33pm on 2 March, Valentinos Pangalos was ordered to activate sirens at Paphos international airport in Cyprus. An emergency had been declared. A suspicious object – thought to be a drone packed with explosives – had been detected heading towards the facility. Barely 12 hours earlier, an Iranian-made, Shahed-type drone had smashed into a hangar at RAF Akrotiri, raising the alarm further. The airport needed to be evacuated immediately. “In 24 years of doing this job I’d never been asked to do anything like it,” said Pangalos, among the longest-serving officers at the island’s civil defence force. “To receive such an order, so abruptly, was intense.” But, he said, it was just the beginning. The US-led aerial bombardment of Iran, and the retaliatory attacks that have followed, has put the eastern Mediterranean island on alert – and at the forefront of security concerns – in a way not experienced since 1974, when a coup aimed at union with Greece led to Turkish forces invading and occupying its north. Officials say phones in the civil defence force’s cramped operations room have been ringing off the hook for days, amid initial reports of other attempted drone strikes from Lebanon – barely 150 miles away. “People have felt very scared. They’ve been panicking since the drone attack,” said Pangalos, now forced to spend long nights and days in the force’s shabby headquarters on the outskirts of Nicosia. Older Cypriots with memories of the invasion, and the traumatic displacement of refugees that followed, are among those most loudly voicing fears. “At all hours we’ve been receiving calls, especially from the elderly, asking where the nearest refuge is and what they should do,” Pangalos said. “Unfortunately, there aren’t many of us here because we’re so understaffed.” Behind her file-covered desk, the civil defence’s chief officer, Maria Papa, concedes that the emergency caught Cypriot authorities off guard. “This security crisis has exposed just how ill-prepared we are,” she sighed. “Improvement is needed all round, starting with shelters, our staff being increased and the building we are standing in. I’ve been requesting changes for years.” Pinboards in the foyers of apartment blocks have begun to fill with lists of nearby neighbourhood refuges, for residents to only discover that many are pokey garages or dilapidated cellars in dank, unkempt buildings. The interior minister announced this week that about 480 of the 2,480 bomb shelters listed with authorities were unsuitable, inaccessible, private or did not exist at all. Papa is leaving her post in the civil defence within days, and local media outlets claim this is directly related to the dismal state of the country’s shelters. Faced with the stark reality, President Nikos Christodoulides admitted action was overdue. “We’re not at all happy with the state of the shelters,” he told reporters after it was announced that no more than 45% of the 1 million people living in Cyprus could be accommodated in the bunkers currently available. “I’m not going to embellish the situation, especially in a country where 52 years ago we had an invasion and occupation,” he said, referring to the presence of 35,000 troops in the country’s breakaway Turkish-held north. “The first thing that should have happened was [the construction] of shelters.” Christodoulides subsequently announced that a national coordinator would be appointed “based on European standards” to more effectively respond to crisis incidents. Legislation has also been drafted to give constructors incentives to build bunkers in apartment blocks to make up for the shortfall. “To date, we’ve asked people to make shelters available out of the goodness of their heart,” Papa said. “It’s been entirely voluntary.” As cries of state incompetency have grown, so too have demands for change. In the coming weeks, Papa said Israeli civil protection experts would be visiting as authorities look towards Israel, home to some of the toughest civil defence laws in the world, and elsewhere, for best practices. Enhanced early warning systems are also being worked on. “We mustn’t forget that Cyprus is actually very safe,” said Papa. “It’s the British bases that have been targeted but we are also up against a siege mentality, the result of 1974.” Some even say that the sight of European warships and fighter jets forming a protective cordon around the island, at the request of Nicosia, has reinforced worries that the island is being dragged into the wider conflict with Iran. “I won’t hide it, I’m scared,” said Yiota Andreou, 67, who runs a pastry shop in Nicosia and lives within view of the US embassy. “Why are all these ships here, if we are as safe as they say? It’s terrible that shelters are in this state, that governments have turned a blind eye, wasted money and not cared at all about us.” Stefanos Stefanou, who heads the island’s main opposition, the leftwing AKEL, told the Guardian it was now vital there were “effective and fast solutions” to improve a civil protection system that frequently had let the country down. “It’s clearly not working,” he said, citing deadly forest fires last summer where civil defence units were also caught off-guard. “People fear what they perceive and in Paphos, and the areas around the British bases, where sirens have been sounding, there’s been a lot of panic, people rushing to supermarkets to buy food, incredible scenes. The time has come for solutions that will allow everyone to feel safe.”