killed
2 youths killed in separate road crashes in capital
Two youths were killed in separate road accidents in the capital’s Ramna and Matuail areas early Friday, police said.
In the Ramna accident, businessman Abdullah Limon, 30, sustained severe injuries when a speeding truck crashed into his motorbike near the Justice Residence around 1:45am.
Limon, from Manikganj’s Ghior upazila, was rushed to the Emergency Department at Dhaka Medical College Hospital where physicians declared him dead around 2:30am, confirmed Mujahidul Islam, sub-inspector at Ramna police station. The truck driver was detained and the vehicle was also seized soon after the accident, SI Mujahidul added.Limon's body was kept at the hospital morgue for autopsy. His paternal uncle Md Alam said Limon was returning to Narayanganj from the capital’s Mirpur after attending a wedding ceremony. He had a Navana Battery dealership in Narayanganj’s Balu Math area.
In the other fatal mishap, an unidentified youth aged around 35 was killed in what looked like a hit-and-run, but there were no witnesses. An unknown vehicle knocked him down while he was crossing the Dhaka-Chattagram Highway in the Matuail area around 3am, leaving him dead on the spot, said Mostafizur Rahman, sub-inspector at Jatrabari police station.
The body was sent to the DMCH morgue for autopsy, the SI said, adding that they were trying to identify the youth.
Biker killed as truck runs over him in Dinajpur
A 50-year-old biker was killed after police said a speeding truck ran over him in the Dosh Mile area Friday.
The deceased was identified as Anwar Hossain from the Bangibechaghat area of Dinajpur Sadar upazila, Sub-Inspector Noni Gopal of Dinajpur Highway Police said.
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"The accident occurred around 12:30pm as Anwar was on his way to a wedding. He fell on the road after being hit by a battery-run easy bike, he added. "Anwar died at the scene when the truck ran over him."
Army warrant officer killed as Kuki-Chin separatists open fire in Bandarban
A senior army warrant officer was killed and two other soldiers suffered injuries when members of the armed separatist group Kuki-Chin National Army (KNA) opened fire on a patrol team in Rowangchhari upazila of Bandarban district on Sunday.
The deceased was identified as Master Warrant Officer Nazim Uddin, son of late Shamser Ali of Ghaghatpara village of Rangpur Sadar upazila.
The injured army soldiers are being treated at a hospital, according to the ISPR.
Chief of Army Staff General SM Shafiuddin Ahmed expressed deep grief over his death.
On the occasion of National Children's Day-2023 and Independence Day, the patrol team went to remote hilly areas to ensure the security of a team that went to provide free health care to mothers and children on Sunday noon.
Around 1pm, the armed KNA members suddenly opened fire on the patrol team from an ambush vantage point, leaving the warrant officer dead on the spot and two others injured, ISPR said.
According to the ISPR, the separatist Kuki-Chin National Army, an armed terrorist group, has previously provided arms training to a militant group "Jamatul Ansar Fil Hindal Sharqiya" in Bandarban's hilly areas for money.
Besides, the terrorist group tried to stop the road construction work going on in Thanchi under the supervision of the Bangladesh Army. On failing, they kidnapped 12 workers on March 11, 2023.
Of them, a worker suffered bullet injuries and four workers are still being held hostage by the KNA.
Although the remaining seven workers were released for ransom, they threatened them not to work on the road construction project.
Earlier on February 8, 2023, KNA sent a notice to the Transport Owners Association threatening to stop vehicle movement in three upazilas of Bandarban.
On Sunday, March 12, 2023, the district administration issued an indefinite travel ban in the area due to security concerns caused by various terrorist activities of KNA members.
Israeli forces kill 3 Palestinian militants in West Bank
Israeli forces shot and killed three Palestinian militants Sunday who opened fire on troops in the occupied West Bank, the military said, the latest bloodshed in a year-long wave of violence in the region.
The Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, an armed offshoot of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah party, claimed the men killed as members.
The Palestinian Health Ministry said the men were killed by Israeli fire near the city of Nablus and identified them as Jihad Mohammed al-Shami, 24, Uday Othman al-Shami, 22 and Mohammed Raed Dabeek, 18.
The military said it confiscated three M16 rifles from the militants after the shootout and that one gunman turned himself in and was arrested.
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The deaths Sunday bring to 80 the number of Palestinians killed since the start of the year, as Israel has stepped up arrest raids in the West Bank. A spasm of Palestinian attacks against Israelis has killed 14 people in 2023.
The fresh violence follows an Israeli military raid last week on the West Bank village of Jaba, where three Palestinian militants were killed. Hours later, a Palestinian gunman opened fire on a busy Tel Aviv thoroughfare at the start of the Israeli weekend, wounding three people before being shot and killed.
The current round of violence is one of the worst between Israelis and Palestinians in the West Bank in years. It began last spring after a series of Palestinian attacks against Israelis that triggered near-nightly Israeli raids in the West Bank.
Nearly 150 Palestinians were killed in the West Bank and east Jerusalem in 2022, making it the deadliest year in those areas since 2004, according to the leading Israeli rights group B'Tselem. Palestinian attacks against Israelis during that same time killed 30 people.
The military says most of the Palestinians killed were militants. But stone-throwing youths protesting the incursions and others not involved in confrontations have also been killed.
Israel says the raids are essential to dismantle militant networks and prevent future attacks. But attacks appear to be intensifying rather than slowing down.
The Palestinians view the raids as a tightening by Israel of its 55-year, open-ended occupation of lands they seek for their future state.
Israel captured the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem in the 1967 Mideast war. The Palestinians seek those territories for their future independent state.
IS group says it killed more than 35 ‘Christians’ in Congo
The Islamic State group has issued a statement claiming responsibility for killing more than 35 people and wounding dozens in eastern Congo.
In the statement, posted Friday by Aamaq, the militants' news agency, it said it killed “Christians” with guns and knives and destroyed their property in Mukondi village in North Kivu province. It also published a photo of the houses on fire.
The announcement comes after local authorities confirmed that at least 45 people were killed last week in several attacks on different villages by rebels from the Allied Democratic Forces, a militia with links to IS.
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Conflict has been simmering in eastern Congo for decades as more than 120 armed groups fight for power, influence and resources, and some to protect their communities. The ADF has been largely active in North Kivu province but has recently extended its operations into neighboring Ituri province and to areas near the regional capital, Goma.
Efforts to stem the violence against ADF have yielded little. A nearly year-long joint operation by Uganda and Congo’s armies did not achieve the expected results of defeating or substantially weakening the group, said a report in December by a panel of U.N. experts. The ADF rebels are accused by the U.N. and rights groups of maiming, raping and abducting civilians, including children. Earlier this month the United States offered a reward of up to $5 million for information that could lead to the capture of the group’s leader, Seka Musa Baluku.
On Thursday, AP reporters saw bodies lowered into a mass grave in Mukondi. Community members shoveled dirt over the bodies against a backdrop of destroyed houses and said the government wasn't doing enough to protect them.
“As you see in Mukondi, it is always the same. ADF, which is always ill-intentioned against the Congolese," said Col. Charles Ehuta Omeonga, military administrator for Beni region. “We lost many of our brothers,” he said.
The United Nations peacekeeping mission in Congo has condemned the killings and is urging Congo’s authorities to investigate and bring those responsible to justice.
2 Italian air force planes collide mid-air, killing pilots
Two Italian air force pilots were killed Tuesday during an exercise when the light aircraft they were flying collided mid-air and crashed to the ground, Italy’s air force said in a statement.
The two U-208 aircraft crashed near the Guidonia military airport, located around 25 kilometers (15 miles) northeast of Rome. No injuries on the ground were reported.
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One of the planes crashed into a car on a narrow residential street lined with apartment buildings; the other landed in a field.
Premier Giorgia Meloni expressed her condolences to the pilots’ families and colleagues.
2 killed as pickup van hits truck in Bagerhat
Two people were killed as a pick-up van crashed into a stationary truck on Khulna-Dhaka highway at Kakdanga in Bagerhat’s Fakirhat upazila on Monday morning.
One of the deceased, Nur Hossain, 21, was the helper of the pick-up van and a resident of Khalishpur area of Khulna.
Another person who died was the helper of the truck but his identity couldn’t be confirmed.
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Mehedi Hasan, officer-in-charge of Mollahat highway police station, said the accident occurred at around 4 am when the fish-laden pickup van hit the truck, leaving the two helpers dead on the spot.
The truck driver fled the scene after the accident.
The bodies have been kept at the upazila health complex.
Stationmaster charged in Greece train crash that killed 57
A stationmaster accused of causing Greece's deadliest train disaster was charged with negligent homicide and jailed pending trial Sunday, while Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis apologized for any responsibility Greece's government may bear for the tragedy.
An examining magistrate and a prosecutor agreed that multiple counts of homicide as well as charges of causing bodily harm and endangering transportation safety should be brought against the railway employee.
At least 57 people, many of them in their teens and 20s, were killed when a northbound passenger train and a southbound freight train collided late Tuesday north of the city of Larissa, in central Greece.
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The 59-year-old stationmaster allegedly directed the two trains traveling in opposite directions onto the same track. He spent 7 1/2 hours Sunday testifying about the events leading up to the crash before he was charged and ordered held.
“My client testified truthfully, without fearing if doing so would incriminate him,” Stephanos Pantzartzidis, the stationmaster's lawyer, told reporters. “The decision (to jail him) was expected, given the importance of the case."
Pantzartzidis implied that others besides his client share blame, saying that judges should investigate whether more than one stationmaster should have been working in Larissa at the time of the collision.
"For 20 minutes, he was in charge of (train) safety in all central Greece,” the lawyer said of his client.
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Greek media have reported that the automated signaling system in the area of the crash was not functioning, making the stationmaster’s mistake possible. Stationmasters along that part of Greece’s main trunk line communicate with each other and with train drivers via two-way radios, and the switches are operated manually.
The prime minister promised a swift investigation of the collision and said the new Greek transportation minister would release a safety improvement plan. Once a new parliament is in place, a commission also will be named to investigate decades of mismanagement of the country’s railway system, Mitsotakis said.
In an initial statement Wednesday, Mitsotakis had said the crash resulted from a “tragic human error.” Opposition parties pounced on the remark, accusing the prime minister of trying to cover up the state's role and making the inexperienced stationmaster a scapegoat.
“I owe everyone, and especially the victims’ relatives, a big apology, both personal and on behalf of all who governed the country for many years," Mitsotakis wrote Sunday on Facebook. "In 2023, it is inconceivable that two trains move in different directions on the same track and no one notices. We cannot, we do not want to, and we must not hide behind the human error.”
Greece's railways long suffered from chronic mismanagement, including lavish spending on projects that were eventually abandoned or significantly delayed, Greek media have reported in several exposes. With state railway company Hellenic Railways billions of euros in debt, maintenance work was put off, according to news reports.
A retired railway union leader, Panayotis Paraskevopoulos, told Greek newspaper Kathimerini that the signaling system in the area monitored by the Larissa stationmaster malfunctioned six years ago and was never repaired.
Police and prosecutors have not identified the stationmaster, in line with Greek law. However, Hellenic Railways, also known as OSE, revealed the stationmaster's name Saturday, in an announcement suspending the company inspector who appointed him. The stationmaster also has been suspended.
Greek media have reported that the stationmaster, a former porter with the railway company, was transferred to a Ministry of Education desk job in 2011, when Greece's creditors demanded reductions in the number of public employees. The 59-year-old was transferred back to the railway company in mid-2022 and started a 5-month course to train as a stationmaster.
Upon completing the course, he was assigned to Larissa on Jan. 23, according to his own Facebook post. However, he spent the next month month rotating among other stations before returning to Larissa in late February, days before the Feb. 28 collision, Greek media reported.
On Sunday, railway unions organized a protest rally in central Athens attended by about 12,000 people according to authorities.
Five people were arrested and seven police officers were injured when a group of more than 200 masked, black-clad individuals started throwing pieces of marble, rocks, bottles and firebombs at officers, who gave chase along a central avenue in the city while using tear gas and stun grenades.
In Thessaloniki, about 3,000 people attended two protest rallies. Several of the crash victims were students at the city’s Aristotle University, Greece’s largest, with over 50,000 students..
The larger protest, organized by left-wing activists, marched to a government building. No incidents were reported at that event.
In the other, staged by Communist Party members at the White Tower, the city's signature monument, there was a brief scuffle with police when the protesters tried to place a banner on the monument.
“The Communist Party organized a symbolic protest today in front of the White Tower to denounce the crime in Tempe, because it is a premeditated crime, a crime committed by the company and the bourgeois state that supports these companies,” Giannis Delis, a communist lawmaker, told The Associated Press.
Indonesia fuel depot fire kills 19; 3 still missing
Indonesian rescuers and firefighters on Sunday searched for three people who were still missing under the rubble of charred houses and buildings, after a large fire spread from a fuel storage depot in the capital and killed at least 19 people.
The Plumpang fuel storage station, operated by state-run oil and gas company Pertamina, is near a densely populated area in the Tanah Merah neighborhood in North Jakarta. It supplies 25% of Indonesia’s fuel needs.
At least 260 firefighters and 52 fire engines extinguished the blaze just before midnight on Friday after it tore through the neighborhood for more than two hours, fire officials said.
Footage showed hundreds of people running in panic as thick plumes of black smoke and orange flames filled the sky.
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National police chief Gen. Listyo Sigit Prabowo said a preliminary investigation showed the fire was caused by a technical problem involving excess pressure as the depot received fuel from Pertamina’s Balongan Refinery in West Java province.
“It was found that a fire occurred during a filling of Pertamax fuel,” Listyo told a news conference late Saturday, referring to a type of fuel oil produced by Pertamina.
He didn’t elaborate as investigators from Pertamina and the police were still working to establish the cause of the fire, including by questioning dozens of witnesses and examining video recordings from surveillance cameras.
Residents living near the depot said they smelled a strong odor of gasoline, causing some people to vomit, after which thunder rumbled twice, followed by a huge explosion.
Sri Haryati, a mother of three, said the fire began to spread about 20 minutes later, causing panic.
“I was crying and immediately grabbed our valuable documents and ran with my husband and children,” Haryati said, adding that she heard smaller blasts that echoed across the neighborhood as orange flames jumped from the depot.
Rescuers were still searching for three people who were reported missing. About 35 people were receiving treatment in five hospitals, some of them in critical condition.
Listyo said more than 1,300 people were displaced and taking shelter in 10 government offices, a Red Cross command post and a sport stadium.
Pertamina's head Nicke Widyawati apologized and said the company would provide help to the community and cooperate in the investigation.
“We will carry out a thorough evaluation and reflection internally to prevent similar incidents from happening again,” Widyawati said in a statement, adding that the company ensured the safe supply of fuel oil.
On Saturday, grieving relatives gathered at a police hospital’s morgue in eastern Jakarta to try to identify their loved ones. Officials said the victims were burned beyond recognition and could only be identified through DNA and dental records.
In 2014, a fire at the same fuel depot engulfed at least 40 houses, but no casualties were reported.
Indonesia’s State Owned Enterprises Minister Erick Thohir told reporters that the government will remap safe zones for residential areas away from vital objects.
He said the incident showed the Plumpang area is not safe for the community, and the government is planning to move the fuel storage depot to Tanjung Priok port in northern Jakarta.
3 killed, 77 hurt in Panchagarh road crashes
Three people were killed and at least 77 hurt in separate road crashes in the Debiganj and Boda upazilas of Panchagarh, police said.
The deceased were identified as Tamij Uddin, 60, Hasibul Islam, 32, and Swapan Ali, 25, of Tentulia.
Fifteen of the 77 injured are still not out of the woods and were sent to the Rangpur Medical College and Hospital.
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"The accident in Debiganj occurred at Lakshmirhat as a truck crashed into a bus in the afternoon. The bus, full of passengers, was returning from a three-day ijtema (congregation) in the upazila town after Akheri Munajat (final prayers). It overturned in the impact of the crash," Jamal Hossain, officer-in-charge of Debiganj Police Station, said.
"One devout Muslim died at the scene and 26 others were injured. The injured were rushed to the upazila health complex. Five of them were referred to Rangpur Medical College and Hospital. However, the truck driver immediately fled the scene."
"The accident in Boda occurred at Chandanbari after the tyre of a bus burst. Two people were killed, and 51 were injured; all of them were returning from the congregation in Debiganj," Sujay Kumar Roy, officer-in-charge of Boda Police Station, said.
"The injured were taken to Boda Upazila Health Complex. Later, 10 of them were transferred to the Rangpur Medical College and Hospital."