Category: NEWS

QUITO – At least five people died and six others were injured in an armed attack Sunday night in west Ecuador’s coastal city of Manta, local police said Monday.

The attack occurred around 11 p.m. Sunday local time when men armed with rifles and handguns fired at a home where a family gathering was taking place in Manta, in the western province of Manabi.

Jose Erazo, head of Manta police, told the local press that the deceased were four men and an eight-year-old girl.

“One of the dead was a Colombian national who had a criminal record in the neighboring country,” Erazo said.

Erazo said videos from security cameras showed that at least six attackers aboard two vehicles and a motorcycle entered the housing complex, and suggested that the attack could be due to a dispute between two criminal organizations.

Manabi is one of the most violent provinces in Ecuador, according to police, who attribute the violence to the presence of criminal gangs vying for control of territories for illicit activities.

XINHUA

CAIRO – Sudan’s notorious paramilitary group attacked a city in the western Darfur region, killing more than 30 people, an activist group said, in the latest deadly offensive on an area that is home to hundreds of thousands of displaced people.

The Rapid Support Forces and allied militias launched an offensive on el-Fasher, the provincial capital of North Darfur province, on Sunday, the Resistance Committees in the city said. Dozens of other people were wounded in the attack, said the group, which tracks the war.

There was no immediate comment from the RSF.

El-Fasher, more than 800 kilometers (500 miles) southwest of the capital, Khartoum, is under the control of the military, which has fought the RSF since Sudan descended into civil war more than two years ago, killing more than than 24,000 people, according to the United Nations, though activists say the number is likely far higher.

The RSF has been attempting to seize el-Fasher for a year to complete its control of the entire Darfur region. Since then, it has launched many attacks on the city and two major famine-hit camps for displaced people on its outskirts.

The city is now estimated to be home to more than 1 million people, many of whom have been displaced by the ongoing war and previous bouts of violence in Darfur. The RSF grew out of the notorious Janjaweed militias, mobilized two decades ago by then-president Omar al-Bashir against populations that identify as Central or East African in Darfur. The Janjaweed were accused of mass killings, rapes and other atrocities.

The attacks on el-Fasher have intensified in recent months as the RSF suffered battlefield setbacks in Khartoum and other urban areas in the county’s east and center.

Sunday’s attack came less than a week after a two-day attack by the RSF and its allied militias on the city and the Zamzam and Abu Shouk camps killed more than 400 people, according to the United Nations.

Last week’s attack forced up to 400,000 people to flee the Zamzam camp, Sudan’s largest, which has become inaccessible to aid workers, said U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric.

AP

KYIV, Ukraine – Russian attacks during the 30-hour Easter ceasefire unilaterally declared by President Vladimir Putin over the weekend killed three people in Ukraine’s southern Kherson region, a regional official said Monday.

Oleksandr Prokudin, the head of Kherson’s administration, wrote on Telegram that the casualties occurred over the last 24 hours, adding that three others were wounded in the region, parts of which are occupied by Russia.

After Putin declared the move on Saturday, Ukraine responded by voicing readiness to reciprocate any genuine ceasefire but said the Russian attacks continued. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that Russia violated the ceasefire more than 2,900 times.

Zelenskyy said that Russian forces carried out 96 assault operations along the front line, shelled Ukrainian positions more than 1,800 times and used hundreds of drones during the course of the ceasefire. “The nature of Ukrainian actions will continue to be mirror-like: we will respond to silence with silence, and our blows will be a defense against Russian blows. Actions always speak louder than words,” he said.

The Russian Defense Ministry, for its part, listed 4,900 Ukrainian violations of the ceasefire. It charged that Moscow’s forces “strictly observed the ceasefire and remained at previously occupied lines and positions.”

Speaking Monday, Putin said that the fighting resumed after the ceasefire expired at midnight (2100 GMT). Commenting on Zelenskyy’s call for a comprehensive 30-day ceasefire or, at least, a halt on strikes on civilian facilities, the Russian leader noted that Kyiv was trying to “seize the initiative,” adding that “we must think about it, carefully assess everything and look at the results of the ceasefire.”

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Monday that Russia would inform “all the interested parties” about the Ukrainian violations of the ceasefire.

Peskov said that Russia “remains open to searching for a peaceful settlement and is continuing to work with the American side,” adding that “we certainly hope that this work will produce results.”

Overnight into Monday, the Russian forces fired three missiles at Ukraine’s southern regions of Kherson and Mykolaiv regions, as well as 96 Shahed drones targeting other parts of the country, Ukraine’s Air Force reported. It said it downed 42 drones, while 47 others were jammed mid-flight.

In the Dnipropetrovsk region, Russian drones sparked a fire at an “outbuilding” and a “food enterprise,” regional administration head Serhii Lysak wrote on Telegram. No one was injured in the attack, he said. An unspecified infrastructure object was damaged in the Cherkasy region overnight, regional head Ihor Taburets said on Telegram.

Four civilians also sustained injuries in the partially occupied Donetsk region, according to regional head Vadym Filashkin, who said that the Russian forces shelled settlements in the region five times over the last 24 hours.

AP

SANAA – Yemen’s Houthi group said on Monday that it had launched fresh attacks at two Israeli targets and two U.S. aircraft carriers, using drones and cruise missiles.

“We launched a drone attack at a vital target in the city of Ashkelon and another drone attack at a military target in the city of Eilat,” Houthi military spokesperson Yahya Sarea said in the statement aired by Houthi-run al-Masirah TV.

He didn’t identify the names of the targets in both cities in southern Israel.

“As part of confronting the American aggression … we targeted the aircraft carrier Truman and its escorting warships in the northern Red Sea, using two cruise missiles and two drones,” Sarea said, referring to the USS S. Harry Truman.

“We also targeted the aircraft carrier Vinson (the USS Carl Vinson) and its escorting warships in the Arabian Sea, using three cruise missiles and four drones,” he said.

Sarea reaffirmed that the group’s attacks “will continue” against Israel and the U.S. naval forces in the region.

According to the Houthi television, the attacks against Israel and the U.S. warships were carried out in the past 24 hours.

The Israeli defense forces have yet to comment on the Houthi claim, nor the U.S. military.

Meanwhile, the U.S. airstrikes in Yemen have been continuing. Early in the day, the Houthi television said the death toll from U.S. airstrikes on Sunday night against a popular market in the Shu’ub neighborhood in central Yemen’s capital Sanaa rose to 12, with 30 other “civilians” wounded.

Also on Sunday night, the Houthi television reported other U.S. airstrikes on several Houthi locations in the northern provinces of Al-Mahwit, Saada, and Marib.

Tensions between the Houthi group and the U.S. military have escalated since Washington resumed airstrikes on Houthi targets in Yemen on March 15 to deter the group from targeting Israel and U.S. warships.

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JERUSALEM – Israel’s military said on Monday that it carried out more than 200 airstrikes across the Gaza Strip over the past three days, killing a member of the Islamic Jihad movement.

The military said the strikes targeted militant infrastructure, militant cells, rocket launch and sniper positions, weapons depots and command centers.

It identified the killed fighter as Ahmad Mansour, who it said participated in the Hamas-led surprise attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, and later directed rocket fire during the ongoing war.

In Rafah’s Shabura and Tel al-Sultan neighborhoods, Israeli troops dismantled “terrorist infrastructure” and uncovered a cache of grenades, ammunition and other military gear.

Along the recently constructed Morag Corridor, which bisects Rafah from Khan Younis and the rest of Gaza, troops located weapons, destroyed Hamas infrastructure and killed several militants, the military said.

In northern Gaza, soldiers launched an airstrike on a building containing what was described as underground infrastructure and detected multiple militants. The army also reported dismantling Hamas sniper posts that had threatened its ground forces.

At least eight people were killed in Israeli strikes on Monday and dozens wounded, the Palestinian news agency WAFA reported.

XINHUA

WARSAW – A major wildfire has engulfed approximately 400 hectares of Biebrza National Park in northeastern Poland, local authorities confirmed Monday morning.

The fire, which began Sunday afternoon at the border of Augustow and Monki counties in Podlaskie province, has spread rapidly despite ongoing firefighting efforts.

Justyna Klusewicz, spokesperson for the Podlaskie Provincial Command of the State Fire Service, told the Polish Press Agency on Monday that roughly 180 firefighters, supported by forest services, park rangers and soldiers, are currently battling the blaze.

Overnight, drones were deployed to monitor the situation, and on Monday, additional firefighting aircraft, including helicopters, resumed operations to tackle the fire in the remote and hard-to-reach areas.

The Government Center for Security has issued emergency alerts for residents of the Augustow, Grajewo and Monki regions, advising them to stay clear of the affected areas and follow the guidance of emergency services.

The cause of the fire is still under investigation. No casualties have been reported.

Biebrza National Park, renowned for its vast marshes and unique biodiversity, is one of Poland’s most ecologically significant protected areas.

XINHUA

ROME – Pope Francis, the 266th pontiff of the Roman Catholic Church, died Monday at the age of 88, said the Vatican in a statement.

Born Jorge Mario Bergoglio on Dec. 17, 1936, in Buenos Aires, Francis was head of the Roman Catholic Church since 2013.

His death came weeks after returning home from a 38-day stay in intensive care, and followed an intense Holy Week schedule that included public appearances.

After a period of mourning, the Vatican will turn toward preparations for a gathering of the College of Cardinals to select Francis’ successor.

XINHUA

Three people died and a fourth was critically injured early Easter Sunday when a fire tore through an overcrowded home in Queens, that had no evidence of a working smoke detector and had blocked stairs and exits, fire officials said.

Makeshift walls had been erected in the Jamaica Estates home, including through the middle of the kitchen, New York Fire Department Chief John Esposito said at a news conference.

Officials also said extension cords were found throughout the two story home. The cords can overheat, especially when overloaded or improperly used, leading to fires, according to Electrical Safety Foundation International. The fire department is still determining the fire’s origin.

Firefighters arrived in less than four minutes, but the blaze in the early morning hours spread quickly to the upper floors of the house. There were reports of people jumping out of the attic window, Esposito said.

People lived on both floors of the house, as well as its cellar and attic, Esposito said.

“We are not encouraging, we’re begging all New Yorkers to have a working smoke alarm in their home, and, you know, if possible a CO2 detector as well,” New York City Fire Commissioner Robert S. Tucker said during a Sunday press conference.

About 10 to 15 people reside in the home, including its landlord, second floor resident Adham Ammar told ABC7 Eyewitness News. Ammar was not in the home when the fire happened, he said.

“Part of this, it’s because of the negligence of the landlord,” he said. Attempts by the AP to reach the landlord were unsuccessful.

Three firefighters suffered minor injuries.

AP

SEOUL – One person was killed and 11 others injured on Monday morning in what was alleged to be an apartment arson in South Korea’s capital Seoul, Yonhap news agency said, citing the fire authorities.

The fire broke out at about 8:17 a.m. local time (2317 GMT Sunday) in a 21-story apartment building. The flame was extinguished one and a half hours later.

One person was found dead, and two people were taken to a hospital after falling from the apartment. Nine others suffered minor injuries such as smoke inhalation and difficulty with breathing.

Police suspect a man started the fire on purpose, and are tracking down the suspected arsonist, according to Yonhap.

XINHUA

MOSCOW – Russia’s defence ministry said on Sunday that Ukraine had broken the Easter ceasefire declared by Russian President Vladimir Putin more than a thousand times, inflicting damages to infrastructure and causing civilian deaths.

The ministry said that Ukrainian forces had shot at Russian positions 444 times while it had counted more than 900 Ukrainian drone attacks.

It said the border districts of the Bryansk, Kursk and Belgorod regions have been attacked.

“As a result, there were deaths and injuries among the civilian population, as well as damage to civilian objects,” it said in a statement posted on the Telegram messaging app.

Reuters was not able to verify battlefield reports.

The defence ministry also said that the Russian military had gained control of Novomikhailivka in eastern Ukraine before the declaration of ceasefire.

REUTERS

GAZA – Gaza’s civil defense agency reported that Israeli air strikes since dawn on Sunday have killed at least 25 people across the Gaza Strip, including women and children.

Israel resumed its aerial and ground assault on Gaza on March 18, reigniting fighting after a two-month ceasefire that had paused more than 15 months of war in the coastal territory.

“Since dawn today, the occupation’s air strikes have killed 20 people and injured dozens more, including children and women across the Gaza Strip,” Mahmud Bassal, spokesman for the civil defense agency told AFP.

In a separate statement later, the agency reported that five people were killed in an Israeli drone strike on a group of civilians in eastern Rafah.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Saturday vowed to continue the war and bring home the remaining hostages held in Gaza without yielding to Hamas’s demands.

“We are at a critical stage of the campaign, and at this point, we need patience and determination to win,” Netanyahu said in a statement, rejecting calls from the militants to end the war and withdraw troops from Gaza.

AN-AFP

MANILA – A passenger jeepney lost its brakes and plunged into a roadside canal in Marinduque province in the Philippines, killing six and injuring 20 others, police said Sunday.

Police said the jeepney, carrying 26 holidaymakers, was heading to a river for a family outing when the crash happened past 10 a.m. local time Saturday.

Initial investigation showed the speeding jeepney was on a descending road when its brakes malfunctioned. It then plowed into cement culverts and hit a tree before falling into a canal, tossing some passengers onto the ground.

The crash’s impact shaved the vehicle’s roof and wrecked the car’s hood.

Jeepneys are the primary mode of transport for millions of Filipinos across the archipelago, especially in the countryside.

XINHUA

NEW DELHI – At least three persons, including two children, died in flash floods and landslides that hit the Ramban area of Indian-controlled Jammu and Kashmir region, officials said on Sunday.

Many houses and other properties were either washed away or greatly damaged in the natural calamity.

XINHUA

GAZA – At least seven Palestinians were killed and several others wounded on Sunday as Israeli forces continued their indiscriminate attacks on the Gaza Strip, with the latest strikes affecting Gaza City and Khan Younis, according to local sources.

In the southern Gaza Strip, an Israeli drone strike targeted a group of farmers in the town of Abasan, east of Khan Younis, killing two people and injuring others.

Meantime, civil defense teams recovered the body of a Palestinian man, Ayesh Qudeih, from the rubble of a house in the nearby town of Khuza’a, which had been bombed by Israeli forces several days ago.

Additionally, artillery shelling by Israeli forces hit the Al-Mawasi area, west of Khan Younis, killing 23-year-old Waseem Abu Mousa.

In Gaza City, two more Palestinians were killed when an Israeli drone targeted a gathering of civilians on Wadi Al-Arayes Street in the Al-Zaytoun neighborhood, southeast of the city. Two others were also killed in a separate strike on Al-Shujaiya neighborhood.

WAFA

BERLIN – A large police operation was under way in Germany on Sunday to find one or more shooters who killed two men the day before in the center of the country, police said.

The bodies of the two victims, both with gunshot wounds, were found in front of a residential address in Bad Nauheim, a town north of Frankfurt, on Saturday afternoon, Giessen city police said.

“A big force deployment” of police from uniformed, plain clothes and special forces branches have fanned out, backed by a helicopter, to find the perpetrator or perpetrators, it said.

“The current understanding is that there is no danger for inhabitants or other people,” police said.

There was no information yet about the “circumstances, or the motive of the perpetrators,” they said.

Police and prosecutors have opened an investigation.

Bad Nauheim is 25 kilometers (15 miles) north of Frankfurt and has a population of around 33,000. It was famous for being where Elvis Presley did US military service between 1958 and 1960 and where he met his future wife, Priscilla Presley.

AN-AFP

SYDNEY – A man has died after being stabbed during a fight in Melbourne, Australia.

Police said that officers were called to reports of a stabbing during an altercation in a popular nightlife district in Prahran, 5 km southeast of central Melbourne, at about 1:30 a.m. on Sunday.

The stabbing victim, a man who has not been formally identified, was taken to the hospital by emergency services and later died there.

A police statement said that no arrests were made, and detectives from the homicide squad were investigating the incident.

Local media reported that the victim was in his 20s.

Photographs from the scene published by News Corp Australia newspapers showed a large stretch of street cordoned off by police tape while forensic investigators examined bloody items of clothing and nearby vehicles.

XINHUA

Trilla, Ill. – A single-engine plane crashed in a field in central Illinois on Saturday, killing all four people on board.

Coles County Coroner Ed Schniers said the victims were two women and two men, but he could not release more details pending notification of next of kin.

The Cessna C180G airplane went down shortly after 10 a.m. near the unincorporated community of Trilla, the National Transportation Safety Board said via email. Preliminary information indicated that it struck power lines, the NTSB said.

AP

SANAA – At least three people were killed and four others wounded on Saturday night in fresh U.S. airstrikes on Yemen’s capital Sanaa, its outskirts, and other provinces, Houthi-run al-Masirah TV reported, citing health authorities.

According to the television, the U.S. military launched 21 airstrikes on Sanaa and its western outskirts, killing two people and wounding two others in the Al-Nahda neighborhood, northern Sanaa. A third one was wounded in a cemetery in the Safiah neighborhood in southern Sanaa.

In the Bani Matar district in Sanaa’s western outskirts, the airstrikes killed one person and wounded another one, said the Houthi television

The report did not specify whether the victims were civilians or Houthi operatives.

The airstrikes on the capital also targeted several other locations, including weapons depots in the Al-Hafa military camp in the Mount Nuqum in eastern Sanaa, and two military sites in northeastern Sanaa, according to Sanaa’s residents.

The roar of the fighter jets speeding at full throttle could be heard across the capital before and after the strikes hit.

Ambulances were seen in Sanaa’s streets rushing to the targeted sites as the Houthi-controlled police cordoned off the targeted areas.

Meanwhile, the U.S. fighter jets conducted 13 airstrikes against the Houthi-controlled Hodeidah Airport and the Navy Base in the Red Sea port city of Hodeidah, western Yemen, according to the Houthi television and local residents.

The other four airstrikes targeted Houthi positions in the district of Sirwah, west of Yemen’s central province of Marib. Another four airstrikes targeted a Houthi military position in the Harf Sufian district in the northern province of Amran, said the television.

The fresh airstrikes came two days after the U.S. airstrikes on the Ras Isa fuel port in the western province of Hodeidah, which killed at least 80 people and wounded 150 others, according to the latest statement by local health authorities.

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HONG KONG – An earthquake with a magnitude of 5.9 jolted 45 km SW of Malisbeng, Philippines at 1611 GMT on Saturday, the U.S. Geological Survey said.

The epicenter, with a depth of 17.9 km, was initially determined to be at 5.80 degrees north latitude and 124.11 degrees east longitude.

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NEW DELHI – At least 11 people were killed and 11 others injured Saturday after a multi-storey residential building collapsed in the Indian national capital territory of Delhi, police said.

The building collapsed in Mustafabad area of North East Delhi district in the early hours of Saturday.

Following the building collapse, teams of the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF), fire services, police and locals carried out rescue efforts at the spot to pull out survivors and the dead from the debris.

A closed-circuit television camera footage revealed that the building collapsed at 2:39 a.m. (local time) on Saturday.

Reports said 22 occupants who were asleep at that time inside the building got trapped following its collapse.

Officials of the Municipal Corporation of Delhi told local media the building was around 20 years old.

The cause of the building collapse is being ascertained.

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