Tag Archives: Death

War planes knock out Aleppo hospital as Russian backed assault intensifies

Medics inspect the damage outside a field hospital after an airstrike in the rebel-held al-Maadi neighbourhood of Aleppo, Syria,

By Ellen Francis and Tom Perry

BEIRUT (Reuters) – Russian or Syrian warplanes knocked a major Aleppo hospital out of service on Wednesday, hospital workers said, and ground forces intensified an assault on the city’s besieged rebel sector, in a battle that has become a potentially decisive turning point in the civil war.

Shelling damaged at least another hospital and a bakery, killing six residents queuing up for bread under a siege that has trapped 250,000 people with food running out.

The World Health Organization said it had reports that both hospitals were now out of service.

The week-old assault has already killed hundreds of people, with bunker-busting bombs bringing down buildings on residents huddled inside. Only about 30 doctors are believed to be left inside the besieged zone, coping with hundreds of wounded a day.

“The warplane flew over us and directly started dropping its missiles … at around 4 a.m.,” Mohammad Abu Rajab, a radiologist at the M10 hospital, the largest trauma hospital in the city’s rebel-held sector, told Reuters.

“Rubble fell in on the patients in the intensive care unit.”

Medical workers at the M10 hospital said its oxygen and power generators were destroyed and patients were transferred to another hospital in the area. There were no initial reports of casualties in the hospital.

Photographs sent to Reuters by a hospital worker at the facility showed damaged storage tanks, a rubble strewn area, and the collapsed roof of what he said was a power facility.

The government of President Bashar al-Assad, backed by Russian air power, Iranian ground forces and Shi’ite militia fighters from Iran, Iraq and Lebanon, has launched a massive assault to crush the rebels’ last major urban stronghold.

Syria’s largest city before the war, Aleppo has been divided for years between government and rebel zones, and would be the biggest strategic prize of the war for Assad and his allies.

Taking full control of the city would restore near full government rule over the most important cities of western Syria, where nearly all of the population lived before the start of a conflict that has since made half of Syrians homeless, caused a refugee crisis and contributed to the rise of Islamic State.

UNPRECEDENTED BOMBING

The offensive began with unprecedented bombing last week, followed by a ground campaign this week, burying a ceasefire that had been the culmination of months of diplomacy between Washington and Moscow.

Washington says Moscow and Damascus are guilty of war crimes for targeting civilians, hospitals, rescue workers and aid deliveries, to break the will of residents and force them to surrender. Syria and Russia say they target only militants.

The Syrian army said a Nusra Front position had been destroyed in Aleppo’s old quarter, and other militant-held areas targeted in “concentrated air strikes” near the city.

Another hospital, M2, was damaged by bombardment in the al-Maadi district, where at least six people were killed while queuing for bread at a nearby bakery, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring body and residents.

Food supplies are scarce in the besieged area, and those trapped inside often queue up before dawn for food.

The collapse of the peace process leaves U.S. policy on Syria in tatters and is a personal blow to Secretary of State John Kerry, who led talks with Moscow despite scepticism from other top officials in President Barack Obama’s administration. As the ceasefire crumbled last week, U.S. Republican Senator John McCain called Kerry “intrepid but deluded”.

BATTLEFIELD VICTORY

Washington says the offensive shows Assad and Russian President Vladimir Putin have abandoned negotiations in order to seek battlefield victory, turning their backs on an earlier international consensus that no side could win by force. Assad’s Iranian and Lebanese Hezbollah allies have said in recent days the war will be won in combat.

But the rebels remain a potent military force even as they have lost control of urban areas. The collapse of peace efforts ends a proposed scheme to separate Western-backed fighters from hardened jihadists.

Colonel Fares al-Bayoush, a rebel commander, told Reuters foreign states had given the insurgents a new type of Grad surface-to-surface rockets. The rockets, with a range of 22-40 km, had arrived in “excellent quantities” and will be used on battlefronts in Aleppo, Hama and the coastal region, he said.

A video posted on YouTube on Monday showed Free Syrian Army rebels firing Grad missiles at government positions near Aleppo. Bayoush said the weapons in the video were newly supplied.

MORE GROUND ATTACKS

A senior rebel official said pro-government forces were mobilizing in apparent preparation for more ground attacks in central areas of the city.

“There have been clashes in al-Suweiqa from 5 a.m. until now. The army advanced a little bit, and the guys are now repelling it, God willing,” a fighter in the rebel Levant Front group said in a voice recording sent to Reuters, referring to an area in the city center where there was also fighting on Tuesday.

Another rebel official said government forces were also attacking the insurgent-held Handarat refugee camp a few kilometers to the north of Aleppo.

“It doesn’t seem that their operation in the old city is the primary operation, it seems like a diversionary one so that the regime consumes the people on that front and advances in the camp,” the official, Zakaria Malahifij, head of the political office of the Fastaqim group, told Reuters from Turkey.

Pope Francis urged forces to stop bombing civilians in Aleppo, warning them on Wednesday they would face God’s judgment. Speaking in St. Peter’s Square, Francis called Aleppo “this already martyred city, where everybody is dying – children, old people, sick people, young people …

“I appeal to the consciences of those responsible for the bombings, who will one day will have to account to God.”

(Reporting by Tom Perry, Ellen Francis and Philip Pullella, writing by Peter Graff, editing by Peter Millership)

NY blast kills highest ranking firefighter since Sept. 11 attacks

A New York City firefighter walks through debris after an explosion ripped through a home in the New York City borough of the Bronx, New York

By Laila Kearney

NEW YORK (Reuters) – An explosion at a home in the New York City borough of the Bronx on Tuesday killed a battalion chief, the city’s highest ranking fire official to die in the line of duty since the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, officials said.

Michael Fahy, a 17-year veteran of the fire department, died after he was struck in the head by building debris sent flying to the street, Fire Department Commissioner Daniel Nigro told reporters at New York-Presbyterian/Allen Hospital.

“We lost a hero today and our members are all saddened,” said Nigro, who was visibly emotional. “He was a star, a brave man.”

FDNY Battalion Chief Michael J. Fahy, who died September 27, 2016 after an explosion ripped through a house in the Bronx section of New York City, is seen in an undated picture released by the New York City Fire Department. New York City

FDNY Battalion Chief Michael J. Fahy, who died September 27, 2016 after an explosion ripped through a house in the Bronx section of New York City, is seen in an undated picture released by the New York City Fire Department. New York City Fire Department/Handout via Reuters

 

New York Mayor Bill de Blasio said Fahy, whose father was a fire battalion chief with the city and a contemporary of Nigro’s, leaves behind three children, ages 6, 8 and 11.

The Uniformed Firefighters Association of Greater New York said he was the highest-ranking New York fire official to die in the line of duty since the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.

The blast just after 7 a.m. EDT also injured 20 people, including nine firefighters and six police officers, many of whom were transported to the hospital, fire officials said. Their conditions were not immediately disclosed, and investigators have not determined the cause of the blast.

Without elaborating, Police Commissioner James O’Neill said detectives were investigating reports of a marijuana “grow home” in the area.

Firefighters investigated reports of a possible gas leak in the area for about an hour before the explosion tore the roof off the two-story home, Nigro said.

Fahy was directing operations, including evacuating nearby buildings, when he was struck in the head and elsewhere by the debris, the commissioner said.

Police rushed the battalion chief to the hospital, where he was pronounced dead. All of the victims were injured while in the street, Nigro said.

(Additional reporting by David Ingram and Daniel Wallis; Editing by Jeffrey Benkoe)

Death Toll from capsized migrant boat off Egypt rises to 177

An Egyptian mother reacts beside the body of her son who was on a boat carrying migrants which capsized off Egypt's coast, in Al-Beheira, Egypt, September 22, 2016.

CAIRO (Reuters) – Eight more bodies from the wreck of a boat carrying hundreds of migrants were recovered from Mediterranean waters off Egypt on Tuesday, ambulance sources said, taking the death toll to 177.

The boat capsized off Burg Rashed, a coastal village in the Nile Delta, on Sept. 21. Rescue workers and fishermen said they had rescued at least 169 people, but confusion remained over how many might still be unaccounted for.

The spokesman for the Beheira regional governor said the shipwreck had been hoisted out of the depths and was likely to contain dozens more bodies.

The International Organization for Migration (IOM) said on Tuesday it was still tracking the incident and believed that about 300 people in all were aboard the boat.

Egyptian security sources initially said there had been almost 600 migrants aboard. But a survivor whose comments appeared in an online video said the migrants had been told that about 200 people would be making the journey but traffickers had then added another 50, causing the boat to founder.

Officials said the boat was carrying Egyptian, Sudanese, Eritrean and Somali migrants, and that they believed it was heading for Italy. Four members of the crew were arrested.

The IOM says that more than 3,200 migrants have died while trying to cross the Mediterranean this year, while an estimated 298,474 have reached European shores. More than 1 million Middle Eastern, African and Asian migrants entered Europe in 2015.

(Reporting by Mohamed Abdellah in Cairo and Stephanie Nebehay in Geneva; writing by Asma Alsharif; editing by Mark Heinrich)

Air strikes pound rebel-held Aleppo districts

A destroyed neighborhood in Aleppo

BEIRUT (Reuters) – Dozens of air strikes hit rebel-held areas of the northern Syrian city of Aleppo overnight, a monitor and defense worker said, continuing a fierce air campaign by Syrian government and allied forces since a ceasefire broke down almost a week ago.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said dozens of air strikes hit the rebel-held half of the divided city, the target of a fresh offensive announced by the Syrian army on Thursday.

Aleppo has become the main battle ground of a conflict now in its sixth year. Capturing rebel districts of Syria’s largest city, where more than 250,000 civilians are trapped, would mark the biggest victory of the civil war for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s forces.

Bebars Mishal, a civil defense worker in rebel-held Aleppo, said the bombardment continued until 6 a.m. (0300 GMT).

“It’s the same situation. Especially at night, the bombardment intensifies, it becomes more violent, using all kinds of weapons, phosphorous and napalm and cluster bombs,” Mishal told Reuters.

“Now, there’s just the helicopter, and God only knows where it will bomb. God knows which building will collapse,” he said.

Another civil defense worker, Ismail al-Abdullah, said the overnight bombardment had been less intense than it had been in the past few days and the morning was relatively quiet.

The Observatory said it had documented the deaths of 237 people, including 38 children, from air strikes on Aleppo city and the surrounding countryside since last Monday when the ceasefire ended. Of those documented deaths, 162 were in rebel-held east Aleppo city.

Civil defense workers say about 400 people have died in the past week in the rebel-held parts of the city and surrounding countryside.

Rescue efforts have been severely hampered because bomb damage has made roads impassable and because civil defense centers and rescue equipment have been destroyed in raids.

Civil defense worker Ammar al Selmo said rescuers have only two fire trucks and three ambulances left in Aleppo and that three fire trucks, two ambulances and three vans had been hit in the past week.

“We are trying to respond … but we don’t know what tomorrow will bring,” Selmo said, speaking from Gaziantep, Turkey after recently leaving east Aleppo.

Brita Hagi Hassan, president of the city council for opposition-held Aleppo, said the bombardment over the past three days has been exceptional.

“The planes are not leaving the skies at all … Life in the city is paralyzed. Everyone is cooped up in their homes, sitting in the basements. These missiles are even targeting the basements and shelters that we’d set up to protect people,” he said from the Aleppo countryside. Hassan has been unable to get back into east Aleppo for several weeks because of the siege.

On Saturday a pumping station providing water for rebel-held eastern Aleppo was destroyed by bombing.

“People are now relying on water from the wells, and that water is not suitable for drinking. It was being used for other things, like washing, cleaning and so on. Now, the people are relying on it as drinking water,” Hassan said.

Selmo said eight people died on Monday in air strikes on east Aleppo and the surrounding countryside.

REBELS EVACUATED

Hundreds of thousands of people have been killed in Syria’s civil war and 11 million driven from their homes.

“I don’t know what’s going to happen in the future. But it looks like there’s more killing, more bombardment, more blood on the horizon,” Hassan said.

In Homs, a second group of Syrian rebels began to be evacuated from their last foothold in the city on Monday, state news agency SANA said.

The Observatory said around 100 fighters were in the group scheduled to leave to the northern Homs countryside.

The first batch of around 120 fighters and their families left on Thursday. The evacuations are part of the Syrian government’s attempts to conclude local agreements with rebels in besieged areas that have resulted in rebels being given safe passage to insurgent-controlled areas.

(Reporting by Lisa Barrington and Ellen Francis; Editing by Dominic Evans)

Motive sought in fatal shooting at Washington state mall after arrest

Authorities at the Cascade Mall

(Reuters) – Investigators were working to determine what led a gunman to open fire and kill five people in a department store at a Washington state mall, police said on Sunday after arresting a 20-year-old suspect in the deadly rampage.

Police took Turkish-born Arcan Cetin into custody on Saturday evening in Oak Harbor, about 30 miles (48 km) southwest of Burlington where the shooting occurred on Friday night.

Cetin’s demeanor when apprehended was “zombie like,” police said at a news conference. He was unarmed and did not run from officers, they said.

A motive for the rampage remains unclear and Cetin, who is due to appear in court on Monday, has not been charged.

The FBI said while they had no indication the attack was a “terrorism act,” it could not rule out that possibility.

Cetin, who police said is a legal, permanent resident of the United States, is accused of opening fire in the cosmetics section of a Macy’s department store at Cascade Mall, killing four women and a man.

Surveillance video showed the suspect entering the mall without a rifle but he was later spotted on video in the store brandishing a weapon, police said. The rifle was recovered at the mall.

The attack followed a series of violent outbursts at shopping centers across the United States, including the stabbing of nine people at a Minnesota center last weekend.

It comes at a time of heightened tensions in the United States after a succession of seemingly random attacks in public places, ranging from a gay night club in Orlando, Florida, to a Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado.

Investigators planned to search Cetin’s Oak Harbor residence, vehicle and interview witnesses on Sunday to collect evidence and “build as good as a case as you can,” said Sergeant Mark Francis, a spokesman for the Washington State Police.

Police have reports that Cetin’s ex-girlfriend worked at the Macy’s, Francis said. The possible connection was under investigation.

Cetin has a criminal record that includes three domestic violence charges in which his stepfather was the victim, the Seattle Times reported, citing court records.

He also was arrested for drunken driving and barred by a judge in December from possessing a firearm, the newspaper reported without providing details. Reuters was unable to confirm the reports.

Police did not identify the victims but local media said they ranged in age from mid-teens to mid-90s, and included a mother and her daughter. The Skagit County Coroner’s Office said it planned to release information about shooting victims on Monday.

(Reporting by Curtis Skinner in San Francisco and Laila Kearney in New York; Editing by Louise Heavens and Bill Trott)

Police search for gunman who killed five at Washington state mall

(Note: paragraph six contains language that may be offensive to readers)

By Matt Mills McKnight

BURLINGTON, Wash. (Reuters) – A manhunt was underway on Saturday in northwest Washington state for a gunman who opened fire with a rifle in a shopping mall and killed five people before disappearing under the cover of darkness, authorities said.

The suspect entered the Cascade Mall in Burlington, around 65 miles (105 km) north of Seattle, and began shooting at about 7 p.m. local time on Friday in the cosmetics section of a Macy’s department store, police said.

The unidentified suspect, who police described on Twitter as an Hispanic male, initially walked into the shopping center without the rifle but surveillance video later caught him brandishing the weapon, said Lt. Chris Cammock of the Mount Vernon Police Department at briefing on Saturday.

The rifle was later recovered at the mall, said Cammock, who is commander of the Skagit County Multi-Agency Response Team.

Four women were killed in the rampage, which police believe was carried out by a lone gunman. Later a man who was seriously wounded in the shooting died at a local hospital. None of the victims were identified.

Steve Sexton, the mayor of Burlington, described the shooting as a “senseless act.”

“It was the world knocking on our doorstep and it came to our little community here,” he said before acknowledging the response by law enforcement. “I know now our support goes with them to bring this son of a bitch to justice.”

Authorities offered no information about a possible motive for the attack, which followed a series of violent outbursts at shopping centers across the United States, including the stabbing of nine people at a Minnesota center last weekend.

“We have no indication that we have a terrorism act,” said Michael Knutson, assistant special agent in charge of the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Seattle office. “I can’t discount that, but I can’t conclude it either.”

After the shooting, police and rescue workers worked their way through the mall, clearing stores and evacuating shoppers, some of whom locked themselves in dressing rooms. The mall remained closed on Saturday as investigators sifted for evidence and attempted to recreate the crime scene.

Cammock said police had no clues about the identity or whereabouts of the suspect, and asked the public for help in tracking him down.

Authorities released a grainy photo of the suspect taken by a surveillance camera. It shows a young male in his late teens or mid-20s with short dark hair, dressed in dark shorts and T-shirt and carrying a rifle.

Local authorities searched through the night for the gunman and warned residents to remain indoors, though later said the area was safe.

The suspect was last seen walking toward an interstate highway that runs past the mall, which is 45 miles south of the Canadian province of British Columbia.

When asked why police had described the suspect as Hispanic, Cammock told reporters he believed those who saw the photo made the statement based on his dark complexion.

The shooting comes less than a week after a man stabbed nine people at a mall in the central Minnesota city of St. Cloud before being shot dead by an off-duty police officer. The FBI is investigating that attack as a potential act of terrorism.

(Reporting by Brendan O’Brien in Milwaukee and Jonathan Allen in New York; Writing by Frank McGurty; Editing by Meredith Mazzilli)

Flash floods in Indonesia kill 20; rescuers hunt for missing

A view of the damage caused after the Cimanuk River overflowed from heavy rains in Garut, West Java, Indonesia

GARUT, Indonesia (Reuters) – Indonesian search and rescue teams worked on Wednesday to find victims of flash floods that killed 20 people and damaged hundreds of homes, authorities said.

The floods hit the Garut area, about 200 km (125 miles) southeast of the capital, Jakarta, on Tuesday after torrential rain.

“We’ve reported that we found 20 bodies and we’ve identified 15 of them,” said Endah Trisnawati, a member of a police disaster victims identification unit.

It was not clear how many people were missing but some officials in the area said it could be up to 15. Some media reported 20 people were unaccounted for.

Authorities said search and rescue operations would go on.

Military personnel and volunteers helped evacuate about 1,000 residents of the area.

Debris floated in gradually receding floodwater in inundated villages and there appeared to be widespread damage to vehicles and buildings.

Flash floods and landslides are common in Indonesia, often caused by heavy rain at this time of year.

(Addtional reporting by Kanupriya Kapoor in Jakarta; Editing by Robert Birsel)

Typhoon kills at least 11 in China and Taiwan, another storm on the way

A car is seen under toppled trees after Typhoon Meranti swept through Xiamen, Fujian province, China,

SHANGHAI (Reuters) – The world’s strongest storm this year killed at last 10 people in China when it hit the southeast coast, the government said on Friday, as rescuers scoured flooded streets and work crews struggled to restore power to more than a million homes.

Typhoon Meranti had largely dissipated by Friday afternoon, a day after it swept in from the Pacific Ocean, clipping the southern tip of Taiwan, and making landfall near the Chinese port city of Xiamen, in Fujian province.

The storm killed seven people in Fujian and three in neighboring Zhejiang province, state media and the government said. Eleven people were missing.

More than 330,000 people were returning to their homes on Friday after being forced to flee a storm that meteorologists said was the world’s biggest this year.

The typhoon killed one person and injured 38 on Taiwan where people were on Friday preparing for another, Typhoon Malakas, which was forecast to bring heavy rain on Saturday.

Streets are seen flooded after Typhoon Meranti made landfall on southeastern China, in Fuzhou

Streets are seen flooded after Typhoon Meranti made landfall on southeastern China, in Fuzhou, Fujian province, China, September 15, 2016. REUTERS/Stringer

The Taiwan weather bureau issued land and sea warnings, urging people to be on alert for severe weather and flooding.

Meranti was the strongest typhoon to hit that part of China’s coast since 1949, the Xinhua state news agency said.

Pictures on state media showed flooded streets, fallen trees and crushed cars in Xiamen.

Three power transmission towers were blown down in the city and utility crews were trying to restore power. Across Fujian, 1.65 million homes had no electricity, Xinhua reported.

Dozens of flights and train services were canceled on Thursday, disrupting travel at the beginning of a three-day Mid-Autumn Festival holiday.

Typhoons are common at this time of year, picking up strength as they cross the warm waters of the Pacific and bringing fierce winds and rain when they hit land.

(Reporting by John Ruwitch; Editing by Robert Birsel)

Typhoon cuts power, lashes China with wind and rain before weakening

People wading through flooded street after Typhoon Meranti

BEIJING (Reuters) – Typhoon Meranti slammed into southeastern China on Thursday with strong winds and lashing rain that cut power to 1.65 million homes, but there were no reports of more casualties in what has been described as the strongest storm of the year globally.

The storm, registered as a super typhoon before losing strength after sweeping across southern Taiwan, made landfall in the early hours near the major city of Xiamen.

Dozens of flights and train services have been canceled, state television said, disrupting travel at the start of the three-day Mid-Autumn Festival holiday.

Pictures on state media showed flooded streets, fallen trees and crushed cars in Xiamen as rescuers in boats evacuated people.

About 320,000 homes were without power in Xiamen. Across the whole of Fujian province, where Xiamen is located, 1.65 million homes had no electricity, state television said.

Large sections of Xiamen also suffered water supply disruptions and some windows in tall buildings shattered, sending glass showering onto the ground below, state news agency Xinhua said.

The report said it was the strongest typhoon to hit that part of the country since the founding of Communist China in 1949 and the strongest so far this year anywhere in the world.

Tens of thousands of people had already been evacuated as the storm approached and fishing boats called back to port.

One person died and 38 were injured in Taiwan, the Central Emergency Operation Centre there said, as the typhoon hit the southern part of the island on Wednesday.

Meranti was a Category 5 typhoon, the strongest classification awarded by Tropical Storm Risk storm tracker, before it made landfall on the mainland and has since been downgraded to Category 2.

Typhoons are common at this time of year, picking up strength as they cross the warm waters of the Pacific and bringing fierce winds and rain when they hit land.

Meranti will continue to lose strength as it pushes inland and up toward China’s commercial capital of Shanghai, but will bring heavy rain.

(Reporting by Ben Blanchard; Additional reporting by Faith Hung in TAIPEI; Editing by Nick Macfie and Paul Tait)

Report details horror, heroism during San Bernardino shooting

A Memorial for those killed in the San Bernardino Shooting

(Reuters) – A report into last year’s shooting rampage by a husband and wife in San Bernardino, California, reveals how three county workers battled to stop the shooters as they sprayed bullets into a conference room full of their colleagues.

The report released on Friday describes the carnage found by rescue workers after Syed Rizwan Farook and his wife Tashfeen Malik opened fire during a Dec. 2 party and training session at the Inland Regional Center for San Bernardino County health workers, killing 14 people and wounding 24 others.

Authorities have said the couple — who were killed by police during a shootout — were inspired by Islamist militancy, and have called it the deadliest such attack on U.S. soil since Sept. 11, 2001.

The 141-page document by the Police Foundation describes how three male county workers “tried to stop the shooters by rushing one of the gunmen but all three were shot.” It did not say if the three men were among the 14 killed in the assault.

The dispatch also contains new details about the horrific scene discovered by first responders when they entered the conference room.

“It looked like a bomb had gone off. Bodies were strewn across the floor. Many had devastating wounds. Blood was everywhere. The smell of gunpowder filled their nostrils and the sprinklers sounded like they were hissing,” it said.

It revealed that the gunmen had left three pipe bombs that they planned to detonate remotely as emergency workers cared for the wounded.

“It is a frequent practice used in terrorist incidents,” the report said. The devices were detonated by a bomb squad.

Friday’s report concluded that the first response by police to the shooting was “exemplary” and likely saved lives.

“First responders acted with courage and discipline – using their training and skills to act quickly and decisively in a horrifying situation,” it said.

However, the review highlighted the challenges faced by first responders and investigators from different agencies, including overlapping responsibilities and different protocols in dealing with hundreds of witnesses and three different crime scenes.

“It is imperative to examine, analyze and learn from police-involved critical incidents in an effort to continually improve. Certainly, that is true of this incident,” wrote Jim Bueermann, the president of the foundation, in a letter introducing the report.

(Reporting by Brendan O’Brien in Milwaukee; Editing by Helen Popper)