World
A building fire in Johannesburg leaves at least 73 dead

A night-time fire ripped through a rundown five-story building in Johannesburg that was occupied by homeless people and squatters, leaving at least 73 people dead early Thursday, emergency services in South Africa’s biggest city said.
Some of the people living in a maze of shacks and other makeshift structures inside the derelict building threw themselves out of windows to escape the fire and might have died then, a local government official said.
A witness said he saw people throwing babies out of the burning building in an attempt to save them and that at least one man died when he jumped from a window on the third floor and hit the concrete sidewalk “head first,” Associated Press reported.
As many as 200 people may have been living in the building, witnesses said, including in the basement, which should have been used as a parking garage. Others estimated an even higher number of occupants.
Seven of the victims were children, the youngest a 1-year-old, according to an emergency services spokesperson.
City officials said 141 families were affected by the tragedy but could not say exactly how many people were in the building when the fire started. Many of the people inside were foreign nationals, the officials said.
Emergency crews expected to find more victims as they worked their way through the building, a process slowed by the conditions inside. Dozens of bodies were lined up on a nearby side road, some in body bags, and others covered with silver sheets and blankets.
Another 55 people were injured in the blaze, which broke out at about 1 a.m. in the heart of Johannesburg’s central business district, Johannesburg Emergency Services Management spokesman Robert Mulaudzi said.
“This is a tragedy for Johannesburg. Over 20 years in the service, I’ve never come across something like this,” Mulaudzi said.
A woman who asked not to be identified said she lived in the building and escaped the flames with her grown son and a 2-year-old child. She stood outside holding the toddler for hours and said she didn’t know what happened to two other children from her family.
“I just saw smoke everywhere and I just ran out with this baby only,” the woman said. “I don’t have any home, and I don’t know what to do anymore.”
Johannesburg is rated as Africa’s richest city but its center is rundown and often neglected. Abandoned and broken-down buildings are common, and people desperate for some form of accommodation often take them over. City authorities refer to the structures as “hijacked buildings.”
The building in question was reportedly owned by the city of Johannesburg and is considered a heritage site but not regulated by the local government.
World
Gunmen kill 14, kidnap 60 in attacks in northern Nigeria

Gunmen in Nigeria killed eight people on Sunday and abducted at least 60 others in two communities of northwest Zamfara state, residents and a local traditional leader said, two days after armed men kidnapped dozens from a university in the state.
Elsewhere, in the northeast of the country suspected Islamist insurgents ambushed a convoy of vehicles under military escort, killing two soldiers and four civilians, said a police source and a motorist who witnessed the attack, Reuters reported.
The attackers set fire to five vehicles and drove off with one truck, the witness said.
President Bola Tinubu is yet to spell out how he will tackle widespread insecurity. His economic reforms, including the removal of a costly fuel subsidy and freeing the naira currency, have increased the cost of leaving, angering citizens.
Residents said gunmen early on Sunday tried to attack a forward army base in a rural Magami community of Zamfara, but were repelled. Zamfara is one of the states worst affected by kidnappings for ransom by armed gangs known locally as bandits.
The gunmen in three groups attacked the army base and the communities of Magami and Kabasa, said a traditional leader who declined to be named for security reasons, read the report.
He said 60 people, mostly women and children, were kidnapped.
“The bandits rode many motorcycles with guns and other weapons (and) were shooting sporadically,” Shuaibu Haruna, a resident of Magami, told Reuters by telephone.
Four people were killed during the attack, said Haruna, who attended their burial.
Isa Mohd from Kabasa community said four people were also killed and dozens of others kidnapped.
Police and army did not respond to requests for comment, Reuters reported.
Attacks in the northwest are part of widespread insecurity in Nigeria. Islamist fighters still carry out deadly attacks in the northeast, gangs and separatists attack security forces and government buildings in the southeast, and clashes involving farmers and herders continue to claim lives.
World
Fire in shop kills 35 people in southeastern Benin

At least 35 people were killed in southeastern Benin on Saturday after a fire broke out at a shop where witnesses said gasoline was being unloaded, a justice ministry representative said.
The fire broke out at 0930 local time in Seme-Podji municipality, near the border with Nigeria, Reuters reported.
“The fire burned down the store and according to an initial assessment resulted in 35 deaths including one child,” said Prosecutor Abdoubaki Adam-Bongle in a ministry statement, adding that an investigation had been opened to determine the cause.
“According to the witnesses interviewed, the fire was probably started during the unloading of bags of gasoline.”
More than a dozen others were seriously injured and are being treated in hospital, he said.
A video shared widely on social media, purportedly of the fire, shows a tower of black smoke and flames spewing into the air above what appears to be a market place as shocked people watch from a safe distance.
Reuters was not immediately able to verify the video.
World
Polish PM tells Ukraine’s Zelenskiy ‘never to insult Poles again’

Poland’s prime minister told Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on Friday not to “insult” Poles, maintaining harsh rhetoric towards Kyiv after the Polish president had sought to defuse a simmering row over grain imports.
Poland decided last week to extend a ban on Ukrainian grain imports, shaking Kyiv’s relationship with a neighbour that has been seen as one of its staunchest allies since Russia invaded Ukraine in February last year, Reuters reported.
Zelenskiy angered his neighbours when he told the United Nations General Assembly in New York that Kyiv was working to preserve land routes for grain exports, but that the “political theatre” around grain imports was only helping Moscow.
“I… want to tell President Zelenskiy never to insult Poles again, as he did recently during his speech at the U.N.,” Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki told an election rally.
Poland holds a parliamentary election on Oct. 15, and Morawiecki’s ruling nationalist Law and Justice (PiS) party has come in for criticism from the far right for what it says is the government’s subservient attitude to Ukraine.
Analysts say this has forced PiS, which looks set to remain the biggest party but may not secure a majority, to adopt a more confrontational approach to Kyiv in the closely fought campaign.
Earlier on Friday, President Andrzej Duda, a PiS ally, had said the dispute between Poland and Ukraine over grain imports would not significantly affect good bilateral relations, in an apparent move to ease tensions.
“I have no doubt that the dispute over the supply of grain from Ukraine to the Polish market is an absolute fragment of the entire Polish-Ukrainian relations,” Duda told a business conference.
“I don’t believe that it can have a significant impact on them, so we need to solve this matter between us.”
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