Tag Archives: Death

Floods, landslides kill more than 800 people across South Asia

People use a boat as they try to move to safer places along a flooded street in West Midnapore district, in West Bengal

By Ruma Paul and Zarir Husain

DHAKA/GUWAHATI, India (Reuters) – Widespread floods have killed more than 800 people and displaced over a million in India, Nepal and Bangladesh, with aid workers warning of severe food shortages and water-borne diseases as rains continue to lash the affected areas.

Seasonal monsoon rains, a lifeline for farmers across South Asia, typically cause loss of life and property every year between July and September, but officials say this year’s flooding is the worst in several years.

At least 115 people have died and more than 5.7 million are affected in Bangladesh as floods submerged more than a third of the low-lying and densely populated country.

“The water level has gradually dropped. The flood situation will improve if it does not rain upstream any further,” Sazzad Hossain, executive engineer of Bangladesh’s Flood Forecasting and Warning Center, told Reuters.

Reaz Ahmed, the director general of Bangladesh’s Disaster Management Department, said there are rising concerns about food shortages and the spread of disease.

“With the flood waters receding, there is a possibility of an epidemic. We fear the outbreak of water-borne diseases if clean water is not ensured soon,” Ahmed told Reuters.

With some rivers running above danger levels, 225 bridges have been damaged in Bangladesh, disrupting food and medicine supplies to people displaced from their homes, said aid workers.

In the Indian state of Assam bordering Bangladesh, at least 180 people have been killed in the past few weeks.

“With the floods washing away everything… there is not even a trace of our small thatched hut,” said Lakshmi Das, a mother of three, living in Kaliabor, Assam.

“We do not even have a second pair of clothes to wear. The government is not providing any aid.”

Villagers use a boat as they row past partially submerged houses at a flood-affected village in Morigaon district in Assam,

Villagers use a boat as they row past partially submerged houses at a flood-affected village in Morigaon district in Assam, July 14, 2017. REUTERS/Anuwar Hazarika

Torrential rains have also hit the northeastern states of Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland and Manipur, killing at least 30 people.

Flood waters of the Brahmaputra river had earlier in July submerged the Kaziranga wildlife sanctuary in Assam. The floods have since killed more than 350 animals, including 24 endangered one-horned rhinoceros, five elephants and a tiger.

“We are facing a wildlife disaster,” Assam Forest Minister Pramila Rani Brahma told Reuters.

Meanwhile, in the eastern state of Bihar, at least 253 people lost their lives where incessant rains washed away crops, destroyed roads and disrupted power supplies.

A senior official in Bihar’s disaster management department, Anirudh Kumar, said nearly half a million people have been provided with shelter.

In Nepal, 141 people were confirmed dead, while thousands of survivors returned to their semi-destroyed homes.

“Their homes are in a state of total destruction,” said Francis Markus from International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies.

 

(Reporting by Gopal Sharma in Kathmandu, Zarir Husain in Assam, Jatindra Das in Bhubaneswar, Ruma Paul in Dhaka; Writing by Rupam Jain in New Delhi,; Editing by Tommy Wilkes and Sherry Jacob-Phillips)

 

Spain hunts for driver in van rampage, says Islamist cell dismantled

A man lights a candle at an impromptu memorial where a van crashed into pedestrians at Las Ramblas in Barcelona, Spain, August 19, 2017

By Angus Berwick and Andrés González

RIPOLL/BARCELONA, Spain (Reuters) – Police were searching on Saturday for the driver of a van that killed 13 people when it plowed into a crowd in Barcelona and were trying to determine whether two other suspected Islamist militants linked to the attack had died or were at large.

The Spanish government said it considered it had dismantled the cell behind Thursday’s Barcelona rampage and an attack early on Friday in the Catalan seaside town of Cambrils.

Police arrested four people in connection with the attacks Barcelona and Cambrils, where a woman was killed when a car rammed passersby on Friday. Five attackers wearing fake explosive belts were also shot dead in the Catalan town.

“The cell has been fully dismantled in Barcelona, after examining the people who died, the people who were arrested and carrying out identity checks,” Interior Minister Juan Ignacio Zoido told a news conference.

But authorities have yet to identify the driver of the van and his whereabouts are unclear, while police and officials in the northeastern region of Catalonia said they still needed to locate up to two other people.

Investigators are focusing on a group of at least 12 suspects believed to be behind the deadliest attacks to hit Spain in more than a decade.

In little more than a year, militants have used vehicles as weapons to kill nearly 130 people in France, Germany, Britain, Sweden and Spain.

None of the nine people arrested or shot dead by police are believed to be the driver who sped into Las Ramblas, leaving a trail of dead and injured among the crowds of tourists and local residents strolling along the Barcelona boulevard.

A Moroccan-born 22-year-old called Younes Abouyaaqoub was among those being sought, according to the mayor’s office in the Catalan town of Ripoll, where he and other suspects lived.

Spanish media reported that Abouyaaqoub may have been the driver of the van in Barcelona, but police and Catalan officials could not confirm this.

The driver in the Barcelona attack abandoned the van and fled on foot on Thursday after plowing into the crowd. Fifty people were still in hospital on Saturday following that attack, with 13 in a critical condition.

Many were foreign tourists. The Mediterranean region of Catalonian is thronged in the summer months with visitors drawn to its beaches and the port city of Barcelona’s museums and tree-lined boulevards.

Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attacks in Cambrils and Barcelona, a statement by the jihadist group said on Saturday.

 

RAIDS

Police searched a flat in Ripoll on Friday in their hunt for people connected to the attacks, the ninth raid so far on homes in the town nestled in the foothills of the Pyrenees near the French border.

The flat had been occupied by a man named as Abdelbaki Es Satty, according to a search warrant seen by Reuters. Neighbors said he was an imam, a Muslim prayer leader. His landlord said he had last been seen on Tuesday.

Scraps of paper covered in notes were strewn around the flat, which had been turned upside down in the police search.

Three Moroccans and a citizen of Spain’s North African enclave of Melilla have been arrested so far in connection with the attacks.

Apart from Abouyaaqoub, authorities are searching for two other people though it is not certain they are at large.

One or even both of them may have been killed in Alcanar, where a house was razed by an explosion shortly before midnight on Wednesday, a spokeswoman for Catalonia’s home affairs department said.

Casting new doubts over the investigation, El Pais said late on Saturday that biological remains of at least three people had been found in the ruins of the Alcanar house. It was not clear whether they could be from the three suspects still sought by the police or if more people were there.

Police believe the house in Alcanar was being used to plan one or several large-scale attacks in Barcelona, possibly using a large number of butane gas canisters stored there.

The Spanish government maintained its security alert level at four, one notch below the maximum level that would indicate another attack was imminent, but said it would reinforce security in crowded areas and tourist hotspots.

Spanish media also said that security at the border with France was being beefed up.

 

TRIBUTES

Of the 14 dead in the two attacks, five are Spanish, two are Italians, two are Portuguese, one Belgian, one Canadian and one a U.S. citizen, emergency services and authorities from those countries have confirmed so far.

A seven-year-old boy with British and Australian nationality who had been missing since the attack in Barcelona was found on Saturday in one of the city’s hospitals and was in a serious condition, El Pais newspaper reported.

Spain’s King Felipe and Queen Letizia on Saturday visited some of the dozens injured whose nationalities ranged from French and German to Pakistani and the Filipino. They are being treated in various Barcelona hospitals.

The royal couple are expected to take part in a Catholic mass on Sunday morning at architect Antoni Gaudi’s famous Sagrada Familia church, a Barcelona landmark, in honor of the victims of the attack.

Barcelona’s football team will wear special shirts, bearing the Catalan words for “We are all Barcelona”, and black armbands in memory of victims when they play their opening league game of the season on Sunday evening against Real Betis.

 

(Additional reporting by Sarah White, Julien Toyer, Carlos Ruano, Rodrigo de Miguel, Alba Asenjo and Adrian Croft, Writing by Sarah White and Julien Toyer; Editing by Janet Lawrence, Edmund Blair and Lisa Shumaker)

 

Barcelona van attacker may still be alive, on the run: police

People gather around an impromptu memorial a day after a van crashed into pedestrians at Las Ramblas in Barcelona, Spain August 18, 2017. REUTERS/Sergio Perez

By Andrés González, Angus Berwick and Carlos Ruano

BARCELONA (Reuters) – The driver of the van that plowed into crowds in Barcelona, killing 13 people, may still be alive and at large, Spanish police said on Friday, denying earlier media reports that he had been shot dead in a Catalan seaside resort.

Josep Lluis Trapero, police chief in Spain’s northeastern region of Catalonia, said he could not confirm the driver was one of five men killed.

“It is still a possibility but, unlike four hours ago, it is losing weight,” he told regional TV.

The driver abandoned the van and fled on Thursday after speeding along a section of Las Ramblas, the most famous boulevard in Barcelona, leaving a trail of dead and injured among the crowds of tourists and local residents thronging the street.

(For a graphic on Barcelona crash, click http://tmsnrt.rs/2fOJ9Sm)

It was the latest of a string of attacks across Europe in the past 13 months in which militants have used vehicles as weapons – a crude but deadly tactic that is near-impossible to prevent and has now killed nearly 130 people in France, Germany, Britain, Sweden and Spain.

Suspected jihadists have been behind the previous attacks. Islamic State said the perpetrators of the latest one had been responding to its call to target countries involved in a U.S.-led coalition against the Sunni militant group.

Hours after the van rampage, police shot dead five people in the Catalan resort of Cambrils, 120 km (75 miles) down the coast from Barcelona, after they drove their car at pedestrians and police officers.

The five assailants had an ax and knives in their car and wore fake explosive belts, police said. A single police officer shot four of the men, Trapero said.

A Spanish woman was killed in the Cambrils incident, while several other civilians and a police officer were injured.

Trapero had earlier said the investigation was focusing on a house in Alcanar, southwest of Barcelona, which was razed by an explosion shortly before midnight on Wednesday.

Police believe the house was being used to plan one or several large-scale attacks in Barcelona, possibly using a large number of butane gas canisters stored there.

However, the apparently accidental explosion at the house forced the conspirators to scale down their plans and to hurriedly carry out more “rudimentary” attacks, Trapero said.

FOUR ARRESTS

Police have arrested four people in connection with the attacks – three Moroccans and a citizen of Spain’s North African enclave of Melilla, Trapero said. They were aged between 21 and 34, and none had a history of terrorism-related activities.

Another three people have been identified but are still at large. Spanish media said two of them may have been killed by the blast in Alcanar while one man of Moroccan origin was still sought by the police.

Police in France are looking for the driver of a white Renault Kangoo van that may have been used by people involved in the Barcelona attack, a French police source told Reuters.

WORST SINCE 2004

It was the deadliest attack in Spain since March 2004, when Islamist militants placed bombs on commuter trains in Madrid, killing 191 people.

Of 126 people injured in Barcelona and Cambrils, 65 were still in hospital and 17 were in a critical condition. The dead and injured came from 34 countries, ranging from France and Germany to Pakistan and the Philippines.

U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said an American citizen was confirmed dead, and Spanish media said several children were killed.

As Spain began three days of mourning, people returned to Las Ramblas, laying flowers and lighting candles in memory of the victims. Rajoy and Spain’s King Felipe visited Barcelona’s main square nearby to observe a minute’s silence.

Defiant crowds later chanted “I am not afraid” in Catalan.

Foreign leaders voiced condemnation and sympathy, including French President Emmanuel Macron, whose nation has suffered some of Europe’s deadliest recent attacks.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel, speaking after media reports that some Germans were among those killed, said Islamist terrorism “can never defeat us” and vowed to press ahead with campaigning for a general election in Germany in September.

King Mohammed VI of Morocco sent his condolences to Spain.

U.S. President Donald Trump, speaking by phone with Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy on Friday, pledged the full support of the United States in investigating the attacks in Barcelona and Cambrils and bringing the perpetrators to justice.

In a message to the cardinal of Barcelona, Pope Francis said the attack was “an act of blind violence that is a grave offense to the Creator”.

Polish Interior Minister Mariusz Blaszczak said the attack showed the European Union’s system of migrant relocation was wrong. “It is dangerous. Europe should wake up,” he said. “We are dealing here with a clash of civilisations.”

(Additional reporting by Julien Toyer, Sarah White, Andres Gonzalez, Silvio Castellanos and Kylie MacLellan; Writing by Adrian Croft and Julien Toyer; Editing by Mark Trevelyan and Lisa Shumaker)

Furor erupts over killing of teenager as Philippines drugs war escalates

Activists take part in a rally after 91 people were shot dead this week in an escalation of President Rodrigo Duterte's ruthless war on drugs in Quezon city, Metro Manila, Philippines August 18, 2017. REUTERS/Dondi Tawatao

By Erik De Castro and Manuel Mogato

MANILA (Reuters) – The Philippines police came under pressure on Friday to explain the killing of a high-school student after the 17-year-old became one of at least 80 people shot dead this week in an escalation of President Rodrigo Duterte’s ruthless war on drugs.

Television channels aired CCTV footage that showed Kian Loyd Delos Santos being carried by two men to the place where his body was later found, raising doubt about an official report that said he was shot because he fired at police officers first.

Witnesses told the ABS-CBN channel that the teenager did not have a firearm and police officers at the scene handed him a gun, asked him to fire the weapon and run.

National police chief Ronald dela Rosa said that if the Grade 11 student did not pose a threat, the officers who shot him on Thursday night would be held accountable.

“Just think about it, he is just a kid. If that happened to your sibling?” he said on GMA TV. “We will investigate it, I assure you.”

Metro Manila police chief Oscar Albayalde said the three policemen involved had been relieved of their duties and an investigation would be launched into the incident, which took place in the Caloocan district in the northwest of the capital.

Police killed at least 13 people in Manila on the third night of a new push in Duterte’s war on drugs and crime, taking the toll for one of the bloodiest weeks so far to 80, Reuters witnesses and media reported.

Earlier this week, 67 people were gunned down and more than 200 arrested in Manila and provinces adjoining the Philippines capital, in what police described as a “One-Time, Big-Time” push to curb drugs and street crimes.

The term has been used by police to describe a coordinated drive in crime-prone districts, usually slums or low-income neighborhoods, often with additional officers.

The spike in killings drew condemnation from Vice President Leni Robredo, who belongs to a party opposed to Duterte.

Branding it “something to be outraged about”, she has been a constant critic of the crackdown that has killed thousands of Filipinos and caused international alarm since Duterte took office over a year ago.

“NOT THE SOLUTION”

Several senators raised concerns on Friday over the rise in the number of deaths, calling for an impartial investigation.

“Killing the poor and powerless is not the solution to the drug problem when tons of methamphetamine are smuggled in,” Senator Francis Pangilinan said in a statement.

An ally of the president, Senator Jose Victor Ejercito, said he was “worried that these intensified killings are being used by some rogue police officers, knowing that the president will protect them”.

Police say there has been no instruction from higher authorities to step up their anti-drug operations and they are only doing their job.

Duterte indicated this week that the escalation had his blessing, saying it was good that 32 criminals had been killed in a province north of Manila and adding: “Let’s kill another 32 every day. Maybe we can reduce what ails this country.”

On Thursday, he said he would not just pardon police officers who killed drug offenders during the anti-narcotics campaign, but also promote them.

“I don’t think they are simply acting based on the president’s endorsements,” Duterte’s spokesman, Ernesto Abella, told reporters. “It just so happens they are taking active steps in addressing the drug situation in Philippines.”

Critics maintain that members of the Philippine National Police (PNP) are executing suspects and say it is likely they have a hand in thousands of unsolved murders of drug users by mysterious vigilantes. The PNP and government reject that.

Although the violence has been criticized by much of the international community, Filipinos largely support the campaign and domestic opposition to it has been muted.

“Again and again we hear people say it is safer … they appreciate the fact that the Philippines is being made safe again,” Abella said.

(Additional reporting by Ronn Bautista and Karen Lema; Writing by John Chalmers; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan)

Finnish stabbings treated as terror, suspect ‘targeted women’: police

Finnish stabbings treated as terror, suspect 'targeted women': police

By Jussi Rosendahl and Tuomas Forsell

HELSINKI/TURKU, Finland (Reuters) – Finnish police said on Saturday that an 18-year-old Moroccan man arrested after knife attacks that killed two people in the city of Turku appeared to have specifically targeted women and that the spree was being treated as terrorism-related.

The suspect arrested on Friday after being shot in the leg by police had arrived in Finland last year, they said, adding they later arrested four other Moroccan men over possible links to him.

“Due to information received during the night, the Turku stabbings are now being investigated as murders with terrorist intent,” Crista Granroth from the National Bureau of Investigation told a news conference.

While the identity of the victims has not been disclosed by authorities, police said the attacker appeared to have targeted women during the stabbing spree in downtown Turku, a city of just under 200,000 people in southwest Finland.

“It seems that the suspect chose women as his targets, because the men who were wounded were injured when they tried to help, or prevent the attacks,” Granroth said.

Both of those killed in the attack were women, as well as six of the eight wounded, she added. The two who died were Finns and an Italian and two Swedish citizens were among the injured.

Finnish broadcaster MTV, citing an unnamed source, said the main suspect had been denied asylum in Finland. The police said only that he been “part of the asylum process”.

SCREAMING

“First thing we heard was a young woman, screaming like crazy. I thought it’s just kids having fun … but then people started to move around and I saw a man with a knife in his hand, stabbing a woman,” said Laura Laine, who was sitting in a cafe during one of the attacks.

“Then a person ran towards us shouting ‘He has a knife’, and everybody from the terrace ran inside. Next, a woman came in to the cafe. She was crying hysterically, down on her knees, saying someone’s neck has been slashed open.”

Four of the wounded were still in hospital, three of them in intensive care, while the other injured persons would be sent home on Saturday, the hospital said.

Local media said the police raided an apartment in the eastern Turku suburb of Varissuo, which is home to a large immigrant population, and located about seven kilometers from the market square where the attacks took place.

Flags were at half mast on Saturday across Finland, whose Security Intelligence Service (SIS) raised the terrorism threat level in June to ‘elevated’ from ‘low’, saying it had become aware of terrorism-related plans.

Leaders of Turku’s Iraqi and Syrian community condemned the attacks and said they would hold a rally of solidarity in the city’s main square, but canceled the plan due to security concerns.

An anti-immigration group was planning a demonstration in Helsinki.

“Terrorists want to pit people against each other. We will not let this happen. Finnish society will not be defeated by fear or hatred,” Interior Minister Paula Risikko said on Twitter.

On Thursday, a suspected Islamist militant drove a van into crowds in Barcelona in Spain, killing 13 people and wounding scores of others.

Finnish police said they were looking into any possible links between the Finnish stabbings and the attack in Spain and that they had issued an international arrest warrant for a sixth Moroccan national.

(Additional reporting by Lefteris Karagiannopoulos; Writing by Jussi Rosendahl and Niklas Pollard; Editing by Niklas Pollard and Andrew Bolton)

Spanish police shoot five suspects dead after van rampage kills 13 in Barcelona

Spanish police shoot five suspects dead after van rampage kills 13 in Barcelona

By Andrés González, Angus Berwick and Carlos Ruano

BARCELONA (Reuters) – Spanish police shot dead five would-be attackers after confronting them early on Friday in a town south of Barcelona where hours earlier a suspected Islamist militant drove a van into crowds, killing 13 people and wounding scores of others.

Islamic State said the perpetrators had been responding to its call for action by carrying out Thursday’s rampage along Barcelona’s most famous avenue, which was thronged with tourists enjoying an afternoon stroll at the peak of the summer season.

Bodies, many motionless, were left strewn across the avenue and authorities said the toll of dead, which included several children, could rise, with more than 100 injured.

Hours later in the early hours of Friday, as security forces hunted for the van’s driver, police said they killed five suspects in Cambrils, 120 km (75 miles) south along the coast from Barcelona, to thwart a separate attack.

The five men attempted to drive into tourists on the Cambrils seafront, police said. Their car overturned and some of them began stabbing people. Four were shot dead at the scene and the fifth was killed a few hundred meters away, police said.

Police said they had arrested a Moroccan and a man from Spain’s north African enclave of Melilla, though neither was the driver of the van. He was seen escaping on foot and was still at large. A third man was arrested in the town of Ripoll on Friday.

Police said later they had made a fourth arrest in connection with the attacks but gave no details.

A Spanish woman was killed in the Cambrils incident while several other civilians and a police officer were injured. Police destroyed explosive belts the men had been wearing, though they turned out to be fake.

Of the 130 people injured in both attacks, 17 were in a critical condition and 30 were serious, an emergency services spokesman said.

Shortly before midnight on Wednesday, the day before the van plowed into the tree-lined walkway of Barcelona’s Las Ramblas avenue, one person was killed in an explosion in a house in a separate town southwest of Barcelona, police said.

A judicial source said investigators believed a cell of at least eight people, possibly 12, may have been involved in the Barcelona and Cambrils operations and that it had been planning to use gas canisters.

Later on Friday, residents and tourists returned to Barcelona’s famous Las Ramblas promenade where hours earlier a white van had zigzagged at high speed through pedestrians and cyclists, leaving bodies and injured writhing in pain in its wake.

The injured and dead came from 34 countries, ranging from France and Germany to Pakistan and the Philippines, Catalan emergency services said. Spanish media said several children were killed.

As Spain began three days of mourning, people laid flowers and lit candles in memory of the victims along the promenade. Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy and Spain’s King Felipe visited Barcelona’s main square nearby to observe a minute’s silence.

Defiant crowds later chanted “I am not afraid” in Catalan.

ISLAMIC STATE CLAIM

Islamic State’s Amaq news agency said the attackers had carried out the operation “in response to calls for targeting coalition states” – a reference to a U.S.-led coalition against the Sunni militant group. Spain has several hundred soldiers in Iraq training local forces in the fight against Islamic State.

There was no immediate indication though that Islamic State had directed or organized the attack, although some of those responsible for similar attacks in Europe have been inspired by the jihadist group.

Islamist militants have staged several attacks across Europe in the past 13 months, killing over 100 people in Nice, Berlin, London and Stockholm.

In March 2004, Islamist militants placed bombs on commuter trains in Madrid, killing 191 people.

BODIES ON THE GROUND

Police said the two men detained on Thursday had been arrested in two towns, Ripoll and Alcanar, both in the region of Catalonia, of which Barcelona is the capital.

The explosion was also in the town of Alcanar. One person died and another was injured in that incident, police said.

A man was also found dead in a car which had driven into a police checkpoint in Barcelona, though the police could not immediately confirm it was connected with the van attack.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel, speaking after media reports that some Germans were among those killed, said Islamist terrorism “can never defeat us” and vowed to press ahead with campaigning for a general election in Germany in September.

Last December, Berlin suffered a similar attack when a truck plowed into a crowded Christmas market, killing 12.

Italy said two of its nationals were killed and three injured while Belgium said one Belgian had died. German television channel ZDF reported three Germans among the dead.

France said 26 of its citizens were hurt, and 11 of them were in a serious condition. Australia said at least four of its nationals were injured, with broadcaster ABC saying a seven-year-old boy was unaccounted for.

A British Foreign Office spokeswoman said the ministry was assisting “a small number” of Britons.

Foreign leaders voiced condemnation and sympathy, including French President Emmanuel Macron, whose nation has suffered some of Europe’s deadliest militant attacks.

In a message to the cardinal of Barcelona, Pope Francis said the attack was “an act of blind violence that is a grave offence to the Creator”.

Polish Interior Minister Mariusz Blaszczak said the attack showed the European Union’s system of migrant relocation was wrong. “It is dangerous. Europe should wake up,” he said. “We are dealing here with a clash of civilizations.”

Authorities in Vic, a small town outside Barcelona, said a van had been found there in connection with the attack. Spanish media had said that a second van was hired as a getaway vehicle.

(Additional reporting by Sarah White, Andres Gonzalez, Silvio Castellanos, Alissa de Carbonnel, Ali Abdelaty and Ahmed Aboulenein, Kylie MacLellan; Writing by Mark Trevelyan; Editing by Mark Bendeich, Nick Tattersall and Richard Balmforth)

Van mows down crowd in Barcelona, 13 reported killed

Van crashes into crowds in Barcelona, media say two killed

By Pilar Suarez and Jordi Rubio

BARCELONA (Reuters) – A van plowed into crowds in the heart of Barcelona on Thursday and Spanish media reported at least 13 people were killed, in what police said they were treating as a terrorist attack.

The death toll was reported by Cadena Ser radio, citing police sources. Police said some people were dead and injured but did not confirm the number of casualties. They said were searching for the driver of the van.

Spanish newspaper El Periodico said two armed men were holed up in a bar in Barcelona’s city center, and reported gunfire in the area, although it did not cite the source of the information.

It was not immediately clear whether the incidents were connected.

A source familiar with the initial U.S. government assessment said the incident appeared to be terrorism, and a White House spokeswoman said President Donald Trump was being kept abreast of the situation.

Media reports said the van had zigzagged at speed down the famous Las Ramblas avenue, a magnet for tourists.

“I heard screams and a bit of a crash and then I just saw the crowd parting and this van going full pelt down the middle of the Ramblas and I immediately knew that it was a terrorist attack or something like that,” eyewitness Tom Gueller told the BBC.

“It wasn’t slowing down at all. It was just going straight through the middle of the crowds in the middle of the Ramblas.”

Mobile phone footage posted on Twitter showed several bodies strewn along the Ramblas, some motionless. Paramedics and bystanders bent over them, treating them and trying to comfort those still conscious.

Around them, the boulevard was deserted, covered in rubbish and abandoned objects including hats, bags and a pram.

“We saw a white van collide with people. We saw people going flying because of the collision, we also saw three cyclists go flying,” Ellen Vercamm, on holiday in Barcelona, told El Pais newspaper.

El Pais said the driver of the vehicle had fled on foot.

TOURIST DRAW

Emergency services said people should not go to the area around Barcelona’s Placa Catalunya, one of the city’s main squares at the top of the Ramblas, and requested the closure of nearby train and metro stations.

Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy said he was in contact with authorities, and the priority was to attend to the injured.

The incident took place at the height of the tourist season in Barcelona, which is one of Europe’s top travel destinations with at least 11 million visitors a year.

Vehicles have been used to ram into crowds in a series of militant attacks across Europe since July 2016, killing well over 100 people in Nice, Berlin, London and Stockholm.

Witness Ethan Spibey told Britain’s Sky News: “All of sudden it was real chaos. People just started running screaming, there were loud bangs. People just started running into shops, there was a kind of mini-stampede where we were, down one of the alleyways.”

He said he had taken refuge with dozens of other people in a nearby church.

“They’ve locked the doors because I’m not sure whether the person who may have done it has actually been caught, so they’ve locked the doors and told people just to wait in here.”

Barcelona is the capital of the wealthy northeastern region of Catalonia, which plans to hold a popular vote on Oct. 1 on whether it should secede from Spain. It is in dispute with the central government, which says the vote cannot go ahead because it is unconstitutional.

In recent weeks, threatening graffiti against tourists has appeared in Barcelona. In one video released under the slogan “tourism kills neighborhoods”, several hooded individuals stopped a tourist bus in Barcelona, slashed the tyres and spray-painted the windscreen.

The attack was the deadliest in Spain since March 2004, when Islamist militants placed bombs on commuter trains in Madrid, killing 191 people and wounding more than 1,800.

(Reporting by Madrid newsroom, writing by Mark Trevelyan; Editing by Alison Williams and Nick Tattersall)

Philippines war on drugs and crime intensifies, at least 60 killed in three days

Philippines war on drugs and crime intensifies, at least 60 killed in three days

By Manuel Mogato

MANILA (Reuters) – Police killed at least 28 people overnight in a crackdown in the Philippines capital Manila, authorities said on Thursday, a second night of heavy bloodshed this week in an intensification of President Rodrigo Duterte’s fierce war on drugs and crime.

The killings across Manila followed 32 deaths in police raids on Monday night in Bulacan province, which borders the capital. Together, they mark the deadliest period of a drugs-focused crackdown that has killed thousands of Filipinos, and caused international alarm, since Duterte took office over a year ago.

Colonel Erwin Margarejo, spokesman for Manila police, described the raids that started late Wednesday in Manila as “one-time, big-time” operations, the same term used by police in Bulacan, who said the victims died because they chose to put up a fight.

The term has been used by Philippines police to describe a coordinated anti-crime drive in crime-prone districts, usually slums or low-income neighbourhoods, often with additional police deployed.

It was however not immediately clear what was behind the step-up in the number of coordinated police operations this week.

According to police reports, a total of 223 people were arrested in Manila and Bulacan. The reports said police launched 84 operations in the two regions, the majority of which were “buy-bust” stings, in which plain-clothes officers attempt to trap drug peddlers.

There were no reports of any police casualties.

“The president did not instruct me to kill and kill,” national police chief Ronald dela Rosa told reporters. “I also don’t have any instructions to my men to kill and kill. But the instruction coming from the president is very clear that our war on drugs is unrelenting. Those who were killed fought back.”

Duterte unleashed his crackdown the day he took office on June 30 last year after a convincing win in an election in which he campaigned heavily on a promise to use deadly force to wipe out crime and drugs.

On Wednesday, he indicated the latest operations had his blessing.

Duterte said it was good that 32 criminals had been killed in Bulacan, then added: “Let’s kill another 32 every day. Maybe we can reduce what ails this country.”

On Thursday, he said he would not just pardon police officers who killed drug offenders during the anti-narcotics campaign, but also promote them.

Chito Gascon, the chairman of the Philippine Commission on Human Rights, said Duterte’s comments emboldened police “to do their worst.”

“The police are essentially free to do what they will because they are almost guaranteed that they will not be investigated or charged,” Gascon said.

“OUTRAGED”

Vice President Leni Robredo, who is from a political party opposed to Duterte, sharply criticised the killings and said it was “something to be outraged about”.

“We are not like that,” she said in a statement. “This is not us. We have long condemned the culture of impunity. Let us not allow it to return.”

Manila police chief Oscar Albayalde said there had been no instruction to change or increase the scale and scope of the anti-drugs campaign.

“This is just part of our ‘one-time, big-time’ operations against illegal drugs,” he told Reuters.

Duterte also chided human rights groups on Wednesday for getting in the way of his anti-drugs campaign and said police should shoot them if they obstructed justice, a remark the New York-based Human Rights Watch said puts activists “in grave danger”.

Its deputy Asia director, Phelim Kine, described the comments as “like painting a target on the backs of courageous people working to protect the rights and upholding the dignity of all Filipinos.”

The exact number of people killed during the war on drugs is difficult to quantify, with no independent statistics available and police providing comprehensive data only for deaths during anti-drugs operations, where official accounts typically say suspects resisted arrest.

From the start of the drugs war to the end of July, police said over 3,400 people were killed in their operations. Police said about 2,100 deaths among some 13,500 murders over the same period were drugs-related, attributed to turf wars, informants being silenced, or vigilantes killing drug users.

Most of the people killed have been drug users or small-time dealers in poor communities, .

A total of 65 policemen have been killed on the job during this time.

Critics maintain that members of the Philippine National Police (PNP) are executing suspects and say it is likely they have a hand in thousands of unsolved murders of drug users by mysterious vigilantes. The PNP and government reject that.

Although the violence has been criticised by much of the international community, Filipinos largely support the campaign and domestic opposition to it has been muted.

Several Senate hearings into allegations that Duterte operated a death squad when he was a city mayor and was now using the same approach on a national scale have been inconclusive, while an impeachment complaint filed earlier this year was dismissed by Congress.

(Additional reporting by Dondi Tawatao, Karen Lema and Andrew Marshall; Writing by Martin Petty; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan)

Truck driver formally indicted for 10 immigrant deaths in Texas

FILE PHOTO: Police officers work on a crime scene after eight people believed to be illegal immigrants being smuggled into the United States were found dead inside a sweltering 18-wheeler trailer parked behind a Walmart store in San Antonio, Texas, U.S. July 23, 2017. REUTERS/Ray Whitehouse/File Photo

By Jon Herskovitz

AUSTIN, Texas (Reuters) – A truck driver accused of smuggling immigrants inside a packed and sweltering tractor-trailer through Texas, 10 of whom died, was formally indicted by a federal grand jury on Wednesday on charges that can carry the death penalty, prosecutors said.

James Bradley Jr., 60, was given a five-count indictment that included charges of transportation of undocumented aliens resulting in death and conspiracy to transport aliens resulting in death. If convicted on these charges, he could face up to life in prison or death, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Texas said.

A lawyer for Bradley was not immediately available for comment.

The incident was one of the deadliest cases of immigrant smuggling in recent U.S. history and brought renewed attention to the dangers of human trafficking.

Law enforcement was called to investigate a suspicious tractor trailer in a Walmart parking lot in San Antonio on July 23 and found about 39 people in the trailer, eight of whom were dead. Others were in perilous health, and two died later, court documents showed.

Many of the immigrants in the trailer ran when Bradley opened the doors. Nearly 200 people may have been inside the truck, according to the documents.

Bradley told law enforcement officials that he did not know about he was carrying human cargo.

“Bradley said he went to open the doors and was surprised when he was run over by ‘Spanish’ people and knocked to the ground,” the criminal complaint said.

Seven men from Mexico and an 18-year-old man from Guatemala were among the dead. The other two fatalities included a juvenile whose name has not been made public and an adult who has not yet been identified, prosecutors said.

Of the survivors, 22 were in federal custody and charged as material witnesses, two remained in hospital and five were released from hospital and turned over to U.S. immigration authorities, prosecutors said.

Some survivors have sought to offer testimony in exchange for consideration of visas that would allow them to stay in the United States, their attorneys said.

In 2003, 19 people died after traveling in an 18-wheeler truck through Victoria, Texas.

(Reporting by Jon Herskovitz; Editing by Toni Reinhold)

Baby girl ‘teargassed, beaten by Kenyan police’ dies: doctor

Lenzer, mother of six month-old Samantha Pendo, stands next to her bed as the girl remains in critical condition in the Intensive Care Unit of Aga Khan Hospital in Kisumu, Kenya August 14, 2017. REUTERS/Baz Ratner

By Maggie Fick

KISUMU, Kenya (Reuters) – A six-month-old girl has died in Kenya, her doctor told Reuters on Tuesday, after her parents said she was teargassed and clubbed by police in a security crackdown after last week’s disputed election.

Samantha Pendo was asleep in her mother’s arms when police forced their way into their home and beat her and her parents as they searched for protesters, her parents said.

“She remained in coma throughout. She never improved one bit,” said Dr. Sam Oula at the Aga Khan Hospital in the western city of Kisumu.

The baby and her parents were beaten when police were sweeping their neighborhood for opposition protesters on Saturday, residents told Reuters journalists who investigated the incident.

Kisumu is a stronghold of opposition leader Raila Odinga, who is contesting results from last Tuesday’s presidential election. An official tally said President Uhuru Kenyatta won re-election by 1.4 million votes.

Odinga’s accusations of rigging have led to protests in Kisumu and in Nairobi slums. Residents there say police have responded with lethal force and many residents were killed in their homes.

Among the dead are an 8-year-old girl, hit by a stray bullet as she played on her balcony, and an 18-year-old student whose mother said was pulled from under the bed and beaten so badly he died the next day.

Police have promised to investigate all incidents but human rights groups say they rarely hold officers to account for extrajudicial killings.

(Writing by Katharine Houreld; Editing by Janet Lawrence)