COLOMBO, Sri Lanka: Helicopters searched for people marooned four days after rain-triggered floods and mudslides inundated Sri Lankan neighborhoods and killed at least 164 people.
With more rain expected Monday, rescuers raced to evacuate people from the most vulnerable areas. Already more than 100,000 have taken shelter in 339 relief camps set up in the south and west.
Army boats skimmed waterlogged village streets, while able-bodied flood victims waded through brackish waters to army trucks carrying relief supplies.
An air force helicopter on relief mission crash landed near Baddegama town in southern Sri Lanka on Monday. All 11 people onboard escaped unhurt. Earlier an airman died after a fall while trying to rescue a marooned person from the air.
“We are displaced and have no place to go,” said Rathana Kumari, who fled her flooded home with her family and took refuge on the Southern Expressway, a major highway linking the commercial capital of Colombo with the cities of Matara and Galle. “Now we are extremely helpless with our little children. ... Today, we didn’t get anything to eat.”
Officials say at least 104 people are still missing since the floods hit on Friday along with cascades of red mud that swallowed village homes.
Special medical teams have been sent to the affected areas, while medicine has been sent by air to hospitals unreachable by road, said Health Minister Dr. Rajitha Senarathna.
Soldiers took advantage of a lull in the rain Sunday to clear roads to reach some affected areas, said Maj. Gen. Sudantha Ranasinghe, who is heading the search and rescue mission.
The United Nations said it had joined the relief efforts and would donate water purification tablets, tents and other supplies for the displaced. India sent two shiploads of goods and some medical staff while the United States and Pakistan also promised relief supplies.
Mudslides have become common during Sri Lanka’s summer monsoons, as forests across the tropical Indian Ocean island nation are cleared for export crops such as tea and rubber.
Another massive landslide a year ago killed more than 100 people in central Sri Lanka.
Sri Lanka races to rescue flood victims before rain resumes
Sri Lanka races to rescue flood victims before rain resumes
Israel building military corridor splitting northern Gaza: BBC
- Satellite photos, video footage show buildings demolished, troop positions established
- Expert: ‘I think they’re going to settle Jewish settlers in the north, probably in the next 18 months’
LONDON: Israel is building military infrastructure separating the north of the Gaza Strip from the rest of the Palestinian enclave, the BBC has reported.
The broadcaster’s Verify team said it has seen satellite images showing that buildings have been demolished along a line from the Israeli border with Gaza to the Mediterranean through a series of controlled explosions.
BBC Verify added that the images show Israeli military vehicles and soldiers stationed along the line, which reaches almost 9 km across the enclave, cutting off Gaza City from the towns of Jabalia, Beit Hanoun and Beit Lahia.
Footage has also emerged online of Israeli soldiers destroying buildings in the area since October, and of personnel driving Humvee vehicles through the zone.
Footage has also been released by Hamas fighters still in the area engaging with Israeli ground forces and tanks around the new dividing line.
Dr. H. A. Hellyer, a Middle East expert at the Royal United Services Institute, told the BBC that the images suggest Israel will block thousands of Palestinians from returning to their homes in northern Gaza.
This new partition is not the first to be built in Gaza since the start of the war in October 2023.
The Netzarim Corridor to the south separates Gaza City into two areas, whilst the Philadelphi Corridor separates the south of the enclave from its border with Egypt.
“They’re digging in for the long term,” Hellyer said. “I would absolutely expect the north partition to develop exactly like the Netzarim Corridor.”
He added: “I think they’re going to settle Jewish settlers in the north, probably in the next 18 months. They won’t call them settlements.
“To begin with they’ll call them outposts or whatever, but that’s what they’ll be and they’ll grow from there.”
The developments have raised fears that Israel is implementing a plan devised by former Gen. Giora Elland to force civilians out of northern Gaza by limiting supplies, and informing those who remain that they will be treated as enemy combatants, in a bid to pressure Hamas into releasing Israeli hostages.
The BBC reported that around 90 percent of Gaza has been subject to evacuation orders at various points since the start of the conflict, with millions of people repeatedly displaced.
The UN estimates, with the assistance of aid agencies working in Gaza, that around 65,000 people could still be trapped north of the new line, where they face the prospect of starving.
A UN spokesperson on Tuesday said “virtually no aid” is entering the area, and locals are “facing critical shortages of supplies and services, as well as severe overcrowding and poor hygiene conditions.”
Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich has said Israel should occupy Gaza and “encourage” Palestinians to leave.
Gaza in anarchy, says UN
- Palestinians are suffering “on a scale that has to be seen to be truly grasped,” Ajith Sunghay, head of the UN Human Rights Office in the Palestinian territories, said
- “This time I was particularly alarmed by the prevalence of hunger,” Sunghay told a media briefing in Geneva
GENEVA: The Gaza Strip has descended into anarchy, with hunger soaring, looting rampant and rising numbers of rapes in shelters as public order falls apart, the United Nations said on Friday.
Palestinians are suffering “on a scale that has to be seen to be truly grasped,” Ajith Sunghay, head of the UN Human Rights Office in the Palestinian territories, said after concluding his latest visit to the devastated Palestinian territory.
“This time I was particularly alarmed by the prevalence of hunger,” Sunghay told a media briefing in Geneva, via video-link from Amman.
“The breakdown of public order and safety is exacerbating the situation with rampant looting and fighting over scarce resources.
“The anarchy in Gaza we warned about months ago is here,” he said, calling the situation entirely predictable, foreseeable and preventable.
Sunghay said young women, many displaced multiple times, had stressed the lack of any safe spaces or privacy in their makeshift tents.
“Others said that cases of gender-based violence and rape, abuse of children and other violence within the community has increased in shelters as a consequence of the war and the breakdown of law enforcement and public order,” he said.
Sunghay described the situation in Gaza City as “horrendous,” with thousands of displaced people sheltering in “inhumane conditions with severe food shortages and terrible sanitary conditions.”
He recounted seeing, for the first time, dozens of women and children in the beseiged enclave now scavenging in giant landfills.
The level of destruction in Gaza “just gets worse and worse,” he added.
“The common plea by everyone I met was for this to stop. To bring this to an end. Enough.”
He said the UN was being blocked from taking any aid to the 70,000 people still thought to be living in northern Gaza, due to “repeated impediments or rejections of humanitarian convoys by the Israeli authorities.”
“It is so obvious that massive humanitarian aid needs to come in — and it is not.”
UN Human Rights Office spokesman Jeremy Laurence called for an immediate ceasefire.
“The killing must end,” he said.
“The hostages must be released immediately and unconditionally. Those arbitrarily detained must be released,” he added.
“And every effort must be made to urgently provide the full quantities of food, medicine and other vital assistance desperately needed in Gaza.”
Fighters from Palestinian group Hamas launched an attack in Israel on October 7, 2023, that resulted in the deaths of 1,207 people, most of them civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.
Israel’s retaliatory military offensive has killed 44,363 people in Gaza, according to figures from the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry that the UN considers reliable.
Dozens feared dead in Nigeria boat accident
- Rescue operations were currently underway, but the exact number of fatalities was unknown
ABUJA: Dozens of people were feared dead after a boat capsized on the Niger River in central Nigeria, a waterways agency spokesperson said on Friday.
National Inland Waterways Authority (NIWA) spokesperson Makama Suleiman said the boat was carrying mostly traders from Missa community in the central Kogi state heading to a weekly market in the neighboring Niger state.
Suleiman said that rescue operations were currently underway, but the exact number of fatalities was unknown.
None of the passengers were wearing life jackets, which significantly increased the risk of fatalities, he said.
Pakistan receives 38,000 Hajj applications in 10 days — religious affairs ministry
- Total number of applications received so far is 11,000 more than during the corresponding period last year
- Pakistan has a Hajj quota of 179,210, evenly split between the government and private tour operators
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s Ministry of Religious Affairs said on Friday that 38,000 Hajj applications had been received in the first 10 days of the submission period, 11,000 more than during the same period last year.
The surge comes as Pakistan prepares to send 179,210 pilgrims for the annual Islamic pilgrimage in 2025, under a quota evenly divided between government and private Hajj schemes.
“By the tenth day, 38,000 Hajj applications have been received,” a ministry said in a statement, adding that designated banks would continue accepting applications over the weekend. The final deadline for submissions is Dec. 3.
Pilgrims under the regular Hajj scheme can secure their booking with an initial payment of Rs200,000 ($719), according to the statement.
Pakistan has steadily improved facilities for pilgrims in recent years.
One key initiative is the Makkah Route Initiative, which streamlines immigration processes by enabling pilgrims to complete formalities at their departure airports.
Initially tested in Islamabad in 2019, the program was later expanded to Karachi, benefitting tens of thousands of travelers.
Efforts have also included the launch of a mobile application, Pak Hajj 2025, to provide pilgrims with essential updates, flight details and navigation assistance in Saudi Arabia.
Hajj, one of the five pillars of Islam, attracts millions of Muslims annually to Makkah, with Pakistan consistently being among the largest contributors of pilgrims.
UK spy chief says Russia behind ‘staggeringly reckless’ sabotage in Europe
- Richard Moore, head of MI6, said: “We have recently uncovered a staggeringly reckless campaign of Russian sabotage in Europe”
- “If Putin succeeds China would weigh the implications, North Korea would be emboldened and Iran would become still more dangerous“
PARIS: Britain’s foreign spy chief accused Russia on Friday of waging a “staggeringly reckless campaign” of sabotage in Europe while also stepping up its nuclear sabre-rattling to scare other countries off from backing Ukraine.
Richard Moore, head of Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service known as MI6, said that any softening in support for Ukraine against Russia’s 2022 full-scale invasion would embolden Russian President Vladimir Putin and his allies.
In what appeared a message to incoming US President Donald Trump’s administration and some European allies that have questioned continued support for Ukraine in the grinding war, Moore argued that Europe and its transatlantic partners must hold firm in the face of what he said was growing aggression.
“We have recently uncovered a staggeringly reckless campaign of Russian sabotage in Europe, even as Putin and his acolytes resort to nuclear sabre-rattling to sow fear about the consequences of aiding Ukraine,” he said in a speech in Paris.
“The cost of supporting Ukraine is well known but the cost of not doing so would be infinitely higher. If Putin succeeds China would weigh the implications, North Korea would be emboldened and Iran would become still more dangerous.”
In September, Moore said Russia’s intelligence services had gone “a bit feral” in the latest warning by NATO and other Western spy chiefs about what they call hostile Russian actions, ranging from repeated cyberattacks to Moscow-linked arson.
Moscow has denied responsibility for all such incidents. The Russian embassy in London did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment on Moore’s remarks.
Last month the UK’s domestic spy chief said Russia’s GRU military intelligence service was seeking to cause “mayhem.” Sources familiar with US intelligence have told Reuters Moscow is likely to step up its campaign against European targets to increase pressure on the West over its support for Kyiv.
LOOKING FORWARD TO TRUMP
Much of Moore’s speech was focused on the importance of Western solidarity, saying the collective strength of Britain’s allies would outmatch Putin who, he said, was becoming increasingly in hock to China, North Korea and Iran.
Trump, who has vowed to quickly end the war in Ukraine, without saying how, and other Republicans in the US have expressed reservations about Washington’s strong strategic support and heavy weapons supplies for Kyiv.
“If Putin is allowed to succeed in reducing Ukraine to a vassal state he will not stop there. Our security — British, French, European and transatlantic — will be jeopardized,” Moore said.
In general terms, Moore said the world was in its most dangerous state in his 37 years working in the intelligence world, with Daesh on the rise again, Iran’s nuclear ambitions a continued threat, and the radicalising impact of the Oct. 7, 2023 Hamas attacks on Israel not yet fully known.
Nicolas Lerner, head of France’s foreign spy agency DGSE, said French and UK intelligence were working closely together “to face what is undoubtedly one of the threats — if not the threat — in my opinion, the possible atomic proliferation in Iran.” Iran has repeatedly denied seeking nuclear weapons.
