Tag Archives: killed

In Baghdad, Guterres affirms UN will never forget staff killed in Canal Hotel attack

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António Guterres was speaking during a wreath-laying ceremony at a memorial in Baghdad to honour the victims of the 19 August 2003 Canal Hotel bombing – the worst terrorist attack in UN history.

Twenty-two people were killed, including the then UN Special Representative for Iraq, Sergio Vieira de Mello.  More than 100 others were injured, and several survivors attended the ceremony.

Families still mourning

Mr. Guterres told the audience that “22 years is a long time, but we will never forget the colleagues who were killed that day in the bombing at the Canal Hotel.”

These staff members “were sons, daughters, mothers, fathers and friends who are, to this day, mourned by those they knew and loved,” he said.

“We will always remember their leader, Sergio Vieira de Mello, who was also killed in the attack. We will stand with the survivors whose lives were changed forever,” he added.

“And we will remember the courageous colleagues and others who rushed to help on that terrible day, and in the days and weeks after — showing us the very best of the humanitarian spirit.”

A tribute and reminder

Mr. Guterres said the memorial stands as a tribute to their lives and their contributions to the people of Iraq.  It also serves as a reminder of how far the country has come since 2003.

He noted that the women and men of the United Nations have worked tirelessly together with the brave and resilient people of Iraq to support their quest for stability, development and peace.

He stressed that above all, the memorial is “a clear reminder of the vital work that our organization does around the world — and the dangers our people face in carrying out that work.”

Remembering humanitarians worldwide

Five years after the attack the UN General Assembly adopted a resolution designating 19 August as World Humanitarian Day.

This date “has been forever transformed from a day of unimaginable horror and tragedy here in Iraq into a global day of solemn remembrance for all humanitarians — inside and outside the organization,” Mr. Guterres said.

“Their bravery, dedication, and belief that a better future is possible will always inspire us. And like those whose lives were lost on 19 August 2003, their sacrifices and contributions to our world — and to our vital cause of peace — will never be forgotten.”

The UN Secretary-General meets with H.E. Mr. Mohammed Shia' Al Sudani, Prime Minister of the Republic of Iraq.

The UN Secretary-General meets with H.E. Mr. Mohammed Shia’ Al Sudani, Prime Minister of the Republic of Iraq.

Meeting with Iraqi Prime Minister

The Secretary-General was in Baghdad to attend the League of Arab States Summit. He also met with senior Iraqi officials, including Prime Minister Mohammed Shia Al-Sudani.

During talks on Sunday, they discussed developments in Iraq and the region, as well as the remaining period of the UN Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI).

The Secretary-General reaffirmed that the UN remains fully committed to continuing to support the Government and people of Iraq following the mission’s departure.

UNAMI has been in the country since 2003 and is working to conclude its mandate by the end of the year.

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Civilians killed in drone strike in eastern Ukraine: UN rights monitors

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At least nine people were killed and seven injured when a Russian drone struck a minibus near the town of Bilopillia in the Sumy region, according to local authorities.

HRMMU monitors are in the process of gathering additional information on the circumstances of the attack and its victims.

Preliminary reports suggest that the minibus was carrying civilian evacuees from an area close to the frontline, the majority of whom were women.

‘A stark reminder’

“With nine civilians reported killed, this would be the deadliest attack in weeks,” said Danielle Bell, Head of HRMMU.

“This is a stark reminder that civilians continue to be killed and injured on a daily basis across Ukraine.”

If confirmed, the strike would represent the deadliest attack since 24 April, when at least 11 civilians were killed and 81 injured in the capital, Kyiv.

HRMMU said that while the number of civilian casualties in May has been somewhat lower than in April, it continues to document daily civilian casualties, particularly along the frontline.

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Hundreds killed in Sudan’s camps for displaced people

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Violent clashes between armed militias and forces of the military Government have escalated dramatically across North Darfur in recent weeks as Sudan marked two years of civil war.

The El Fasher and Zamzam camps for internally displaced persons (IDPs) who were forced to flee their homes because of the conflict, were disproportionately affected.

“The bombs were falling on the hospital. The sick and their mothers were killed. Those of us who survived left with only our children on our backs,” said Hawa, a mother of three who was inside a hospital in the Zamzam camp during the shelling, speaking to the UN Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF).

Horror and displacement

The attacks have destroyed critical infrastructure, halted water trucking services, and led to the collapse of already fragile health services, according to the UN.

Zamzam IDP camp, which prior to the recent shelling housed at least 400,000 people, has now been nearly emptied. The UN has reported that over 332,000 people have fled the camp.

Humanitarian organisations are warning of increasing reports of sexual violence, the targeting of civilians, and forced recruitment – particularly by elements of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) militia.

Aid under strain

The sudden and massive influx of IDPs into already overwhelmed towns and host communities is increasing the strain on health services, water infrastructure, and local food systems.

While IDP camps face soaring demand for emergency shelters, clean water, food, and protection services, fuel shortages have led to the near-total suspension of water trucking operations in many areas, including El Fasher.

The sick and their mothers were killed. Those of us who survived left with only our children on our backs

In Central Darfur, health partners report rising levels of malnutrition, especially among children.

“In the past, we had three to four meals per day. For the past two years, giving [my children] one meal a day is a miracle,” Hawa recounted.

Although the UN is currently delivering life-saving food assistance in Tawila — North Darfur, an immediate scale-up in humanitarian assistance is needed to prevent tens of thousands of newly-displaced people from falling further into acute vulnerability.

UN agencies and their partners are urgently appealing for increased funding to avert further loss of life and irreversible humanitarian consequences.

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Kuwait Fire Tragedy Claims 49 Lives of Indian Migrant Workers

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The death toll from a devastating fire that engulfed a six-floor building in the al-Mangaf area has surged to 49, as reported by Kuwait’s state news agency Kuna, citing the Interior Ministry. The blaze, which erupted while residents were asleep, primarily housed migrant workers, according to local media.

Eyewitnesses recounted harrowing scenes of residents leaping from the burning building in a bid to escape. Kuwait’s Emir Meshal Al Ahmad has ordered a thorough investigation to ascertain the cause of the inferno and to hold accountable those responsible, Kuna revealed.

Interior Ministry spokesman Nasser Abu Salib emphasized that stringent actions would be taken against the building’s proprietors. Meanwhile, efforts are underway to identify the victims and probe the circumstances surrounding the tragedy.

Initial reports had estimated the death toll at over 35, with most fatalities attributed to smoke inhalation, as confirmed by a security official. The Health Ministry disclosed that 43 individuals had been hospitalized for treatment.

In response to the catastrophe, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi convened a review meeting, extending condolences to the families of the deceased and announcing ex-gratia relief of Rs 2 lakh from the Prime Minister Relief Fund for affected Indian nationals.

Modi directed swift government assistance and dispatched Minister of State (MoS) for External Affairs to Kuwait to oversee relief efforts and facilitate the repatriation of victims’ remains. Key officials including External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar and National Security Advisor Ajit Doval were present at the meeting to address the unfolding crisis.

60 Killed, 100 Injured in Moscow Terror Attack on Mall, India Condemns

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Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi extended solidarity with Russia and condemned the terrorist attack that claimed over 60 lives and injured several others. “We strongly condemn the heinous terrorist attack in Moscow. Our thoughts and prayers are with the families of the victims. India stands in solidarity with the government and the people of the Russian Federation in this hour of grief,” PM Modi stated in a post on social media.

The attack unfolded at a concert hall in Moscow on Friday, where terrorists opened fire on the crowd, resulting in more than 60 fatalities and over 100 injuries. The assailants also set fire to the venue in a brazen act of violence.

ISIS has reportedly claimed responsibility for the attack which saw the gunmen storming the Crocus City Hall in Moscow at around 8 p.m. (local time) at a concert of rock band Piknik that was about to begin.

The attackers, who had not attempted to take hostages or make any statements but shot people indiscriminately, have barricaded themselves inside the burning building. The toll is expected to go up, the Investigative Committee of Russia (ICR) was quoted by the media as saying.

The United States said it had warned earlier in March about a possible terrorist attack targeting “large gatherings” in Moscow, the White House said Friday, hours after the attack. “Earlier this month, the US government had information about a planned terrorist attack in Moscow — potentially targeting large gatherings, to include concerts” and Washington “shared this information with Russian authorities,” National Security Council spokeswoman Adrienne Watson said.

Watson said the administration of US President Joe Biden was complying with a long-standing “duty to warn” policy, in which the United States alerts nations or groups when it receives intelligence of specific threats to kidnap or kill multiple victims.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said, “The Russian Foreign Ministry is receiving phone calls with condolences from ordinary citizens from all around the globe following the horrible tragedy at the Krokus City Hall venue in Moscow. They are expressing the strongest condemnation of this bloody terrorist attack, transpiring right before the eyes of the entire world.”

 

 

Two Karnataka II PUC students drown while taking selfie

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 Sep 19 (IANS) The Karnataka Police, the Fire Force and Emergency personnel have retrieved the bodies of two students who fell into a water body on Monday in Raichur district.

The deceased students have been identified as Sujith and Vaibhav. Both students of II PUC (Class 12) in Vidya Nidhi College.

According to police, the students went for a picnic near Kalamala in Tungabhadra left bank canal. They slipped while taking selfies near the canal and drowned in the water.

Two K’taka students drown while taking selfie/Ians

The Raichur Rural police and fire force personnel had rushed to the spot and taken up operations. Further investigation is on.

6.9-magnitude quake hits Taiwan; Three-storey building collapsed

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Sep 18 (IANS):A 6.9-magnitude earthquake hit eastern Taiwan’s Hualien County at 2:44 p.m. Sunday Beijing Time, according to the China Earthquake Networks Center (CENC).

The epicenter was monitored at 23.15 degrees north latitude and 121.30 degrees east longitude, at a depth of 10 km, Xinhua news agency reported quoting the CENC.

Strong tremor was felt across the island. A three-storey building in Hualien, whose ground floor was a convenience store, collapsed, trapping some people, according to local media.

Earthquake/Ians

A train carriage was turned over by a fallen rain shed in a railway station in Hualien, but all passengers left safe. A bridge fracture left two people injured. The rescue work is underway, according to local media.

Major road accident: 27 killed, 20 injured in China bus accident

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Sep 18 (IANS) Twenty-seven people were killed and 20 others injured after a bus turned on its side in China’s Guizhou Province early Sunday morning.

The bus with 47 people on board was running on a highway section in Sandu Shui Autonomous County when the accident happened, Xinhua news agecy reported quoting the county’s public security bureau.

Bus accident in China/Ians

Details are awaited.

Six labourers killed as lift collapses in under-construction highrise building

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Ahmedabad, Sep 14 (IANS) At least six labourers were killed and one seriously injured after the lift of an under-construction building collapsed here on Wednesday.

The lift crashed from the seventh floor. The under-construction highrise building, named Aspire-II was located near the Gujarat University campus.

“At the time of the accident seven labourers were inside the lift, which was used to carry various materials. The lift crashed from the seventh floor on Wednesday morning. The labourers were working in the lift chamber,” said Mahendra, an eyewitness and labourer at the site.

Building collapsed

He told the media that all the labourers hailed from the Panchmahal district.

The Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation said the incident will be probed and action against responsible builders will be taken.

Lift crashed

Hitesh Barot, Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation Standing Committee Chairman told the media that all aspects of safety measures will be investigated, and if the builder was found responsible, suitable action will be taken against him or the company. The police were also carrying out the investigation parallely.

Toronto police officer shot dead, suspect in custody

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A Canadian police officer was killed and a suspect is in custody following two daylight shootings in Toronto, local media reported.

Police said on Twitter that a suspect has been located and is in police custody, reports Xinhua news agency.

One person has been pronounced deceased at the scene and two others have been transported to hospital, the police said.

Multiple sources have confirmed that the victim of the fatal shooting is a Toronto police officer, according to the media reports.

Police officers are seen at the scene investigating on the double shootings in Mississauga, the Greater Toronto Area, Canada, on Sept. 12, 2022.

The police issued a public alert about an active shooter on Monday afternoon and said that they were searching for a suspect who was “armed and dangerous”.

The police are investigating the shootings and there is no word yet as to what led to the shootings, said the media reports.

7 killed in Hyderabad e-bike showroom fire, some guests jumped out of window

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Seven persons were killed and several others injured in a fire that broke out in an e-bike showroom, which spread to a lodge on the upper floor in Secunderabad, police said.

The incident took place on Monday evening.

Hyderabad Police Commissioner C. V. Anand said that seven deaths were reported.

Those injured were shifted to the Gandhi and Yashoda hospitals.

Two fire tenders were battling to control the fire but the cause of the fire was not known. Many e-bikes were gutted in the fire.

Fire in Hyderabad e-bike showroom

According to eyewitnesses, heavy smoke engulfed Ruby lodge on the upper floor of the building after the fire broke out in the showroom on the ground floor. The Fire personnel managed to rescue nine persons.

The incident sent panic in the building. Some of the guests reportedly jumped out of windows to save themselves.

State Animal Husbandry Minister, T. Srinivas Yadav rushed to the spot and was monitoring the rescue and relief operation.

Massive 7.6-magnitude earthquake hits Papua New Guinea, 4 dead, several others seriously injured

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Port Moresby, Sep 12 (IANS) At least four people killed and several others seriously injured after a massive 7.6-magnitude earthquake hit Papua New Guinea (PNG), authorities said on Monday.

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs’ regional branch in the Asia-Pacific said that among the fatalities were one in the Rai Coast district of the Madang province, and three in the town of Wau of the Morobe province, reports Xinhua news agency.

All were buried in landslides.

Some other people in Morobe were injured due to falling structures or debris, and there was damage reported to health centres, homes, rural roads and highways, according to the provincial disaster management agency.

The regional power grid, Internet cables, and the regional highway were damaged, but regional commercial airports have remained in operation, said the report.

Parts of the Highlands Highway, which connects the second largest city of Lae to the Highlands provinces, were damaged.

Areas along Markham and Ramu in Eastern Highlands were espeinjuredcially affected.

Local newspaper Post-Courier reported on Monday that many shops in Lae remained closed due to their stock being damaged.

PNG Prime Minister James Marape said that national and provincial disaster agencies had begun to assess the damage done to buildings and infrastructure such as roads and power supplies.

Marape said the estimated cost of the damage would not be known until at least Tuesday but assured the public that no expense would be spared to “restore our services and our people’s livelihoods”.

PNG is one of the world’s most geologically and seismically active areas and is usually hit with more than 100 earthquakes of magnitude 5 or greater each year.

Cyrus Mistry’s Demise: What happens to SP Group’s stake in Tata Sons

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Cyrus P. Mistry, 54, a scion of the Shapoorji Pallonji Group and former Chairman of Tata Group, was killed in a road accident in Palghar on Sunday afternoon, sending shock waves across the Mumbai circle of businesses and on the future of SP Group’s stake in Tata Sons.

He is survived by his wife, two children and a sister and an elder brother.

The last rites of Mistry, 54, who was killed in a road accident in Palghar on Sunday afternoon, shall be performed at the Worli Crematorium at 11 a.m. Tuesday, the mourning family said in a statement.

“Beloved husband of Rohiqa, father of Firoz and Zahan, son of the late Pallonji Shapoorji Mistry and Patsy Mistry, son-in-law of Iqbal and Roshan Chagla, brother of Laila Rustom Jehangir, Aloo Noel Tata and Shapoor Mistry,” said the family requesting “No condolence visits.”

Cyrus Mistry

The young business tycoon Mistry’s abrupt departure left the Indian corporate world shocked and has put the spotlight again on SP group’s substantial 18.37 per cent holding in Tata Sons, the holding company of the Tata group.

The SP group had talked about separation in the past after a troubled relationship with Ratan Tata and media reports in March this year said the group was taking a Rs.15,000 crore loan against the holding in Tata Sons.

SP Group had talked about separation two years back in September 2020 before the Supreme Court, where the group pleaded that a separation from the Tata Group is necessary due to the potential impact this continuing litigation could have on livelihoods and the economy.

The SP-Tata relationship spanning over 70 years, was impacted by the ouster of Cyrus Mistry from the Chairman’s position at Tata Sons in 2016.

The boardroom coup was shrouded in mystery, forced cyrus Mistry take a long-running legal battle until the top court ruled in Tata’s favour.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi condoles the demise of Cyrus Mistry

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The Prime Minister, Shri Narendra Modi has expressed deep grief over the untimely demise of Shri Cyrus Mistry. Shri Modi has said that he was a promising business leader who believed in India’s economic prowess.

In a tweet, the Prime Minister said;

“The untimely demise of Shri Cyrus Mistry is shocking. He was a promising business leader who believed in India’s economic prowess. His passing away is a big loss to the world of commerce and industry. Condolences to his family and friends. May his soul rest in peace.”

Massive power shutdown in Tokyo as 7.3M earthquake jolts region violently (Videos)

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More than 2 million homes in Tokyo went without electricity as a powerful 7.3M earthquake jolted the Tokyo region. The quake shook large parts of eastern Japan, including the capital, where buildings were seen swayed violently during the earth quake. At least two people were killed and dozens more were injured, according to Kyodo News.

As power was snapped by the TEPCO, East Japan Railway Co. suspended most of its train services. The utility service company — Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings (TEPCO), which operates the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant where the cooling systems failed after the 2011 disaster, said workers found no abnormalities at the site, which was in the process of being decommissioned.

The Japan Meteorological Agency said the quake hit at 11:36 p.m. at a depth of 60 km below the sea. The epicentre was located off the coast of Fukushima in northern Japan. However, the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center said there was no tsunami threat.

The northern Japan witnessed a deadly 9.0 quake and tsunami 11 years ago on March 11 that caused nuclear plant meltdowns in Fukushima.

The state-owned NHK TV reported some incidents of fire and damage to buildings and falling rocks in Iitate town in Fukushima. Several residents captured the shaking inside homes and posted them on social media as seen below:

 

 

TN Honour Killing: Dalit Engineering Student Hacked to Death on Road, Video Goes Viral

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In a bizarre incident that was caught on camera and going viral all over India, a young engineering Dalit student who married an upper caste girl was hacked to death in a bazaar road in Tirupur, a city known for its knitting garment exports all over the world.

The chilling video footage shows that three men killed Shanakr, 23, in view of the public on the road and then attacked his wife Kausalya, 19, who is reportedly in critical condition and her father surrendered to the police.

The police have sent out five teams of police to catch the attackers, while they believe two more will be behind the murder that shook the entire country close on the heels of outrage over the HCU dalit student Rohith Vemula’s suicide a month ago.

The couple were married eight months ago against the wishes of the girl’s parents who belong to Thevar community, supposedly a powerful upper caste in Tamil Nadu.

Sankar, Tirupur Dalit student killed in public.

The video shows the 3rd year engineering student being dragged on to a pavement and repeatedly attacked with weapons until he rolled down on the pavement and died. Once he was not moving, then they immediately turned their attention to the girl who was shocked and stunned on the pavement. She was repeatedly attacked and left on the road.

And soon, they got on to their motorbike and sped away from the scene. It was not from any Tamil film but a real chilling incident that has shocked the entire nation and the video is going viral on YouTube.

Sankar’s father Velu Samy told media:”We thought her parents would accept them but it has ended in this bloody tragedy. We have lost him.”

Thevar community takes pride in its divine origin and zamindari traditions and was known to have practised female infanticide in the past.