World
Sixty feared dead in Ukraine school bombed by Russia
As many as 60 people were feared to have been killed in the Russian bombing of a village school in the eastern Ukrainian region of Luhansk, the regional governor said on Sunday.
Governor Serhiy Gaidai said Russian forces dropped a bomb on Saturday afternoon on the school in Bilohorivka where about 90 people were sheltering, causing a fire that engulfed the building, Reuters reported.
“The fire was extinguished after nearly four hours, then the rubble was cleared, and, unfortunately, the bodies of two people were found,” Gaidai wrote on the Telegram messaging app.
“Thirty people were evacuated from the rubble, seven of whom were injured. Sixty people were likely to have died under the rubble of buildings.”
Reuters could not immediately verify the report.
Ukraine and its Western allies have accused Russian forces of targeting civilians in the war, which Moscow denies.
In the ruined southeastern port city of Mariupol, scores of civilians have been evacuated from a sprawling steel plant in a week-long operation brokered by the United Nations and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said in an address late on Saturday that more than 300 civilians had been rescued from the Azovstal steelworks and authorities would now focus on trying to evacuate the wounded and medics. Other Ukrainian sources have cited different figures.
The Azovstal plant is a last hold-out for Ukrainian forces in a city now largely controlled by Russia, and many civilians had also taken refuges in its underground shelters. It has become a symbol of resistance to the Russian effort to capture swathes of eastern and southern Ukraine.
In the Ukrainian-controlled city of Zaporizhzhia, about 230 km (140 miles) northwest of Mariupol, dozens of people who had fled the port city and nearby occupied areas on their own or with the help of volunteers waited to be registered in a car park set up to welcome evacuees.
“There’s lots of people still in Mariupol, who want to leave but can’t,” said history teacher Viktoria Andreyeva, 46, who said she had only just reached Zaporizhzhia after leaving her bombed home in Mariupol with her family in mid-April.
“The air feels different here, free,” she said in a tent where volunteers offered food, basic supplies and toys to the new arrivals, many of whom were traveling with small children.
Israel has taken significant steps in recent weeks on allowing aid into Gaza, the U.S. special envoy for humanitarian issues said on Tuesday, but considerable work remained to be done as the risk of famine in the enclave is very high.
David Satterfield declined to say whether Washington was satisfied by Israel’s moves, weeks after U.S. President Joe Biden demanded action to alleviate the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, saying conditions could be placed on U.S. support for close ally Israel if it did not implement a series of “specific, concrete and measurable” steps.
“Israel has taken significant steps in these last two and a half weeks,” Satterfield told reporters.
“There is still considerable work to be done. But progress has been made.”
The risk of famine throughout war-devastated Gaza, especially in the north, is “very high”, he said, calling for more to be done to get aid to those in need in that part of the tiny, densely populated Palestinian territory, Reuters reported.
The United Nations has long complained of obstacles to getting aid in and distributing it throughout Gaza in the six months since Israel began an aerial and ground offensive against Gaza’s ruling Islamist militant group Hamas.
Israel’s military campaign has reduced much of the territory of 2.3 million people to a wasteland with an unfolding humanitarian disaster since October, when Hamas ignited war by storming into southern Israel.
The head of the U.N. Palestinian refugee agency (UNRWA), Philippe Lazzarini, said on Tuesday that the daily average number of trucks entering Gaza during April was 200 and that there had been a peak on Monday of 316.
There was also now a focus on garbage collection, he added, especially in southern Gaza, in a bid to avoid disease outbreaks as the warmer weather approaches.
A North Korean delegation led by the cabinet minister for international trade is visiting Iran, the North’s official media said on Wednesday in a rare public report of an exchange between the two countries believed to have secret military ties, Reuters reported.
The minister for external economic relations, Yun Jong Ho, left Pyongyang on Tuesday by air leading a ministry delegation to visit Iran, the North’s KCNA news agency said. It gave no other detail.
North Korea and Iran have long been suspected of cooperating on ballistic missile programmes, possibly exchanging technical expertise and components that went into their manufacture, read the report.
Iran has provided a large number of ballistic missiles to Russia for use in its war with Ukraine, Reuters reported in February.
North Korea is also suspected of supplying Russia with missiles and artillery, although both countries have denied the allegation.
Yun has previously worked on the country’s ties with Syria, according to South Korean government database.
Yun has been active in the country’s increasing exchanges with Russia, earlier this month leading a delegation to visit Moscow, according to KCNA.
Two Malaysian navy helicopters collided in mid-air during a rehearsal for a naval parade on Tuesday, killing all 10 crew members aboard, the navy said in a statement.
The incident occurred at the Lumut naval base in the western state of Perak at 9.32 a.m. on Tuesday morning, the navy said.
“All victims were confirmed dead at the scene and sent to the Lumut naval base military hospital for identification,” Reuters reported the navy as saying.
A video circulating on local media showed several helicopters flying in formation, when one of the choppers’ rotor clipped another before both aircraft crashed into the ground.
Local police confirmed the footage was genuine.
The navy said it would carry out an investigation into the cause of the accident, Reuters reported.
Defence Minister Mohamed Khaled Nordin said the aircraft – a maritime operations helicopter and a Fennec military chopper – were rehearsing for a parade celebrating the 90th anniversary of the Royal Malaysian Navy, due to be held on Saturday.
Efforts were underway to verify the identities of the crew members killed, all of whom were below the age of 40, Mohamed Khaled told reporters.
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