Tag Archives: casualties

Developing Story: Louisville police respond to shooting with multiple casualties; shooter neutralized

Mathew 24:12 And because lawlessness will be increased, the love of many will grow cold.

Important Takeaways:

  • Louisville police say 5 dead, 6 injured in shooting in Kentucky city’s downtown area
  • Louisville police, mayor urging public to stay out of downtown area
  • The Louisville Metropolitan Police Department says there are “multiple casualties” in the Kentucky city Monday “
  • The lone shooter in the incident – who has not been publicly identified – is “deceased,” according to police. The shooting happened around 8:30 a.m. local time at a building that houses an Old National Bank location and officers responded within minutes.
  • “Please pray for all of the families impacted and for the city of Louisville,” Gov. Andy Beshear said in a tweet, adding that he is heading there now.
  • Further details about the incident were not immediately available.

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Ukrainians Reject Russian Ultimatum as Air Raids Sound in Almost all the Regions

Revelations 6:3-4 “ when he opened the second seal, I heard the second living creature say, “Come!” 4 And out came another horse, bright red. Its rider was permitted to take peace from the earth, so that people should slay one another, and he was given a great sword.

Important Takeaways:

  • Russia-Ukraine war: Air raids sound in almost all Ukraine regions
  • Air raids sounded at the same time across Ukraine in 20 different cities on Monday afternoon.
  • A Russian ship shelled Ukrainian houses in Odessa
  • A Russian landing ship entered the Ukrainian port of Berdyansk on Monday, delivering ammunition and equipment to Russian forces in occupied Ukrainian territory
  • Berdyansk is a Ukrainian city on the coast of the Sea of Azov, west of the encircled city of Mariupol
  • Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said on Monday that Ukraine had “of course” rejected a Russian ultimatum for people in Mariupol to surrender and the situation in the besieged city was “very difficult.”
  • The UN migration agency said on Monday that nearly 6.5 million people had been displaced in Ukraine as a direct result of the war
  • The UN human rights office (OHCHR) said on Monday it had recorded 2,421 civilian casualties in Ukraine – 925 killed and 1,496 injured

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Russian MP urges a physical demonstration on the U.S.

Revelations 6:3-4 “ when he opened the second seal, I heard the second living creature say, “Come!” 4 And out came another horse, bright red. Its rider was permitted to take peace from the earth, so that people should slay one another, and he was given a great sword.

Important Takeaways:

  • Twisted Russian MP urges Putin to fire nuclear missile at US to ‘send a message’
  • Russian Duma member Yevgeny Alexeyevich Fyodorov has claimed America would not retaliate if Russia fired a ballistic missile at them, with casualties of roughly 10,000 predicted by the politician
  • Fyodorov, in an interview translated by MEMRI TV, said: “Until there is a physical demonstration of (Moscow’s) determination, America will perceive the positions of Russia and (Putin) as a bluff.
  • “So they need a demonstration. The most convincing demonstration would be the physical destruction of America’s Defense Department facilities. I’m talking about facilities, which international law grants us the right to destroy.”
  • “If we create for US territory – say, a risk of 10,000 casualties, from a strike of even a weak missile, then the US will perceive this as a threat of 10 million casualties. This is the American psychology, how they think about their country.”
  • Fyodorov, who was interviewed in January of this year, added that because of the perceived psychology, “there will be no retaliation strike”.

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1 Million Flee to Surrounding Nations as Russia’s Invasion Continues

Matthew 24:6 “And you will hear of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not alarmed, for this must take place, but the end is not yet.”

Important Takeaways:

  • Ukraine Refugee Count Hits 1 Million+ as Russia’s Invasion Rolls On
  • The surge in refugees follows the Russian capturing of the Ukrainian city of Kherson, the bombing of Kharkiv – where Russian forces have been accused of using devastating cluster bombs – as well as the ongoing siege of Kyiv and attacks across the East of Ukraine.
  • Filippo Grandi, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees released via Twitter that “in just seven days we have witnessed the exodus of one million refugees from Ukraine to neighboring countries.”
  • The U.N. informed the Associated Press more than two percent of Ukraine’s population had begun to flee the war-torn nation
  • Russia has reported nearly 500 soldiers dead alongside 1,600 casualties. The Ukrainian government however disputes this and suggests Russia has suffered as many as 9000 casualties – which presumably includes both injured and killed troops.
  • Kyiv has also suggested that Russia has lost 217 tanks, and about 60 aircraft including warplanes and helicopters, but these numbers also have not yet been independently verified.

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At least 18 people killed in lightning strikes in India

(Reuters) – At least 18 people, including seven children, were killed and 16 others injured by lightning strikes in the northwestern Indian state of Rajasthan late on Sunday, local officials said.

Eleven of those killed were tourists visiting the Amer fort on the outskirts of the state capital Jaipur, after lightning struck a watchtower near the site.

“As it started raining visitors took cover at a watchtower near the fort. Lightning struck the watchtower killing 11 people on the spot and injuring others,” Jairam, a local police officer who identified himself by only one name, told Reuters on Monday.

Most of those dead were local tourists, he said.

Seven children were killed by lightning strikes in two other incidents in the state on Sunday night, Rajasthan’s Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot said on Twitter.

There were also reports of casualties from lightning strikes in the neighboring states of Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh, but the number of those affected was not immediately known.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi expressed in a tweet his condolences to the families of the deceased.

Lightning and thunderstorms are common in the rainy season in India, which runs from June to September.

(Reporting by Sumit Khanna in Ahmedabad; Editing by Gareth Jones)

Myanmar anti-junta militia vow to take on army in a major city

(Reuters) – Myanmar security forces backed by armored vehicles clashed on Tuesday with a newly formed militia group in the second-biggest city of Mandalay resulting in at least two casualties, according to members of the group and media reports.

Since the army seized power on Feb. 1 and removed the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi, the security forces have put down protests opposing military rule. In response, groups of opponents of the coup known as people’s defense forces have sprung up across Myanmar.

Up to now, fighting involving lightly armed militias has been mainly confined to small towns and rural areas, but a group claiming to be Mandalay’s new People’s Defense Force said its members responded after the army raided one of its bases.

“The fight has started. There will be more fights,” a member of the militia identified as Captain Tun Tauk Naing said by telephone.

The sound of repeated gun fire could be heard in video footage taken by a resident of the area.

About 20 soldiers had carried out the raid on the group sparking a gun fight with the military which deployed three armored cars to the area, Myanmar Now reported.

Another official from the militia group told the Mizzima news portal that six of its members had been arrested and two soldiers had been killed.

A spokesman for the junta did not answer calls seeking comment.

The army-owned Myawaddy Television (MWD), in a report on its Telegram message channel, said security forces had raided a house and “armed terrorists” had fought back with small weapons and bombs.

It said four “terrorists” had been killed and eight arrested while some security forces were seriously hurt.

Myanmar’s military rulers have branded a shadow National Unity Government opposing the junta a terrorist group and blamed it for bombings, arson and killings.

In earlier incidents in other parts of Myanmar, the army has responded with artillery and air strikes after militia groups launched attacks on soldiers, with casualties on both sides and tens of thousands of people displaced from their homes.

The United Nations General Assembly on Friday called for a stop to the flow of arms to Myanmar and urged the military to respect the results of a November election and release political detainees, including Suu Kyi.

On Saturday, Myanmar’s foreign ministry released a statement rejecting the U.N. resolution, which it said was “based on one-sided sweeping allegations and false assumptions”.

Security forces have killed at least 873 protesters since the coup, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners activist group. The junta disputes that figure.

(Reporting by Reuters Staff; Writing by Ed Davies; Editing by Robert Birsel)

Earthquake strikes central Croatia, killing five and damaging buildings

By Antonio Bronic

SISAK, Croatia (Reuters) -An earthquake of magnitude 6.4 struck central Croatia on Tuesday, killing five people and injuring at least 20, and shook several neighboring countries, officials and residents said.

Rescuers pulled people from the rubble of collapsed buildings in the town of Petrinja and army troops were sent to the area to help.

Tremors were also felt in Croatia’s capital Zagreb and as far away as Austria’s capital Vienna. Slovenia shut its only nuclear power plant as a precaution.

It was the second quake to strike the area in two days.

The GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences said it hit at a depth of 10 km (6 miles), with the epicenter in Petrinja, 50 km south of Zagreb.

The mayor of the nearby town of Glina said four people had been killed there, Croatian state TV reported. In Petrinja, a 12-year-old child was killed, N1 news channel quoted a town official as saying.

Tomislav Fabijanic, head of emergency medical services in Sisak, said many people had been injured in Petrinja and in Sisak.

“There are fractures, there are concussions and some had to be operated on,” he said.

Prime Minister Adrej Plenkovic, who rushed to Petrinja, said: “We have information that one girl was killed.

“The army is here to help. We will have to move some people from Petrinja because it is unsafe to be here,” Plenkovic said.

The head of the hospital in Sisak said later it was treating 20 people, two with severe injuries.

N1 showed footage of rescuers in Petrinja pulling a man and a child from the debris. Both were alive.

Other footage showed a house with its roof caved in. The reporter said she did not know if anyone was inside.

N1 also said a kindergarten was destroyed in the quake but there had been no children in it. The situation was “difficult” in retirement homes in the Petrinja area, it added.

Piles of stone, bricks and tiles littered Petrinja’s streets in the aftermath of the quake, and cars parked in the road were also smashed by falling debris.

A worker who had been fixing a roof in a village outside Petrinja told N1 that the quake threw him to the ground. Nine of the 10 houses in the village were destroyed, he said.

Croatia international soccer player Dejan Lovren made his hotel in the Adriatic town of Novalja available for the 16 most affected families from Petrinja, he said on Instagram.

WRAPPED IN BLANKETS

The quake was also felt in Zagreb, where people rushed onto the streets, some of which were strewn with broken roof tiles and other debris.

Patients and medical staff were evacuated from Zagreb’s Sveti Duh Hospital, many left sitting in chairs in the street wrapped in blankets.

In Austria’s second city Graz, about 200 km (130 miles) north of Petrinja, tall buildings wobbled for about two minutes, according to broadcaster ORF. In Carinthia province, about 300 km to the northwest of Petriinja, the earth trembled for several minutes and people described how their furniture, Christmas trees and lamps wobbled.

In Slovenia, the STA news agency said the country’s sole nuclear power plant, which is 100 km (60 miles) from the epicenter, was shut down as a precaution.

Croatia’s state news agency Hina said in total the quake was felt in 12 countries.

Interior Minister Davor Bozinovic said Croatia was expecting help from the European Union as it had activated its emergency situation mechanism.

On Monday a magnitude 5.2 earthquake hit central Croatia, also near Petrinja. In March, an earthquake of magnitude 5.3 hit Zagreb causing one death and injuring 27 people.

(Reporting by Shubham Kalia in Bengaluru, Igor Ilic in Zagreb and Ivana Sekularac in Belgrade, Writing by Angus MacSwanEditing)

U.N. tallies more than 8,000 Afghan civilian casualties so far this year

FILE PHOTO: Afghan security forces inspect the site of a suicide attack in Kabul, Afghanistan September 9, 2018.REUTERS/Omar Sobhani

KABUL (Reuters) – At least 8,050 Afghan civilians were killed or wounded in the first nine months of 2018, almost half of them targeted by suicide bomb attacks and other improvised devices that may amount to war crimes, the United Nations said on Wednesday.

The number of casualties was roughly in line with the same period a year earlier, when there were 8,084 casualties, with deaths this year rising five percent to 2,798 and injuries falling three percent to 5,252, the report from the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) said.

“As there can be no military solution to the fighting in Afghanistan, the United Nations renews its call for an immediate and peaceful settlement to the conflict,” said Tadamichi Yamamoto, the top UN official in Afghanistan.

Seventeen years after U.S. forces led a campaign to overthrow the Taliban following the Sept. 11 attacks on New York and Washington, the figures underline how dire the security situation remains.

While the figures show little change in the overall trend of violence, the UN highlighted the indiscriminate use of suicide and IED attacks, which killed 1,065 civilians and wounded 2,569 in the first nine months, a total of 3,634 casualties, compared with 3,007 casualties in the same period of 2017.

“UNAMA recalls that attacks deliberately targeting civilians and the murder of civilians are serious violations of international humanitarian law that amount to war crimes,” it said in the report.

With parliamentary elections due on Oct. 20, security officials warn that attacks are likely to pick up on polling stations and other election sites, many of which are located in schools, mosques or health clinics.

A wave of suicide attacks in the eastern province of Nangarhar and in the capital Kabul this year has hit students preparing for exams, spectators at sporting events, people waiting to register for elections as well as Shi’ite mosques.

The mainly Shi’ite Hazara minority has been especially heavily targeted by attacks claimed by the local affiliate of Islamic State.

The report attributed 65 percent of casualties to the Taliban, Islamic State and other anti-government forces.

As casualties from suicide attacks and improvised explosive devices rose, casualties from ground fighting fell by 18 percent to 2,311 (605 deaths and 1,706 injured). At the same time, there was a 39 percent rise in the number of casualties from air strikes, which have risen as air operations have been ramped up, to 649 (313 deaths and 336 injured).

(Reporting by James Mackenzie; Editing by Nick Macfie)

Rescue teams searching rubble after flyover collapses in Kolkata

Firefighters and rescue workers search for victims at the site of a bridge that collapsed in Kolkata, India September 4, 2018. REUTERS/Rupak De Chowdhuri

By Subrata Nagchoudhury

KOLKATA (Reuters) – Rescue workers were working to see if anyone was trapped in the debris after a bridge collapsed on Tuesday in the eastern Indian city of Kolkata, government officials said.

Cars were seen among the rubble and a large portion of the bridge was destroyed, but as yet it was not known if there were casualties.

“We are trying to assess if there are people trapped beneath the debris,” Sovan Chatterjee, the mayor of Kolkata, who visited the accident site, told Reuters.

Mamata Banerjee, chief minister of West Bengal state, said in a televised address: “We are still assessing the gravity of the situation and we cannot talk about the deaths right now.”

All India Trinamool Congress, the West Bengal state’s ruling party, said on Twitter the bridge was 40 years old.

There were no more immediate details of the cause of the collapse.

In March 2016, another bridge collapsed in the city, killing more than two dozen people.

(Writing by Sudarshan Varadhan; Editing by Mayank Bhardwaj and Alison Williams)

Kiev and Kremlin trade blame over surge in east Ukraine fighting

Russian/Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov gives news briefing on Ukraine situation

KIEV/MOSCOW (Reuters) – Ukraine and Russia blamed each other on Tuesday for a surge in fighting in eastern Ukraine over recent days that has led to the highest casualty toll in weeks and cut off power and water to thousands of civilians on the front line.

The Ukrainian military and Russian-backed separatists accuse each other of launching offensives in the government-held industrial town of Avdiyivka and firing heavy artillery in defiance of the two-year-old Minsk ceasefire deal.

Eight Ukrainian troops have been killed and 26 wounded since fighting intensified on Sunday – the heaviest losses for the military since mid-December, according to government figures.

“The current escalation in Donbass is a clear indication of Russia’s continued blatant disregard of its commitments under the Minsk agreements with a view of preventing the stabilization of the situation and achieving any progress in the security and humanitarian spheres,” Ukraine’s foreign ministry said in a statement.

The peace deal was agreed in February 2015, but international security monitors report ceasefire violations on a daily basis, including regular gun and mortar fire.

The latest clashes mark the first significant escalation in Ukraine since the inauguration of U.S. President Donald Trump, whose call for better relations with Moscow has alarmed Kiev while the conflict remains unresolved.

Ukrainian authorities said they were prepared for a possible evacuation of Avdiyivka’s 16,000 residents, many of whom have little or no access to electricity or water after shelling from the separatist side hit supply infrastructure.

Meanwhile Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Ukrainian government troops had launched a deadly attack on pro-Russian rebels across the Avdiyivka front line on Monday.

“Such aggressive actions, supported by the armed forces of Ukraine, undermine the aims and the task of realizing the Minsk accords,” he said, accusing the Ukrainian authorities of organizing the offensive as a ruse to try to distract attention from domestic and other problems.

Close to 10,000 people have been killed since fighting between Ukrainian troops and rebels seeking independence from Kiev erupted in April 2014.

Ukraine and NATO accuse the Kremlin of supporting the rebels with troops and weapons. The United States and European Union have imposed sanctions on Russia over the conflict, as well as for its annexation of Crimea.

(Reporting by Pavel Polityuk and Natalia Zinets in Kiev, Katya Golubkova in Moscow; Writing by Alessandra Prentice in Kiev and Andrew Osborn in Moscow; Editing by Christian Lowe and Mark Trevelyan)