BANDA ACEH, Indonesia: A boat loaded with more than 100 Rohingya refugees was spotted off Indonesia’s westernmost province with at least one dead body seen on board, local officials said Saturday.
The mostly Muslim ethnic Rohingya are heavily persecuted in Myanmar, and thousands risk their lives each year on long and dangerous sea journeys to try to reach Malaysia or Indonesia.
The Rohingya boat is anchored around three to four miles (five to six kilometers) off the coast of South Aceh district with its engine turned off, community leader Muhammad Jabal said.
He said the boat was first seen on Friday when he and others set off to deliver food and water to the refugees, estimating more than a hundred were on board.
“I saw with my own eyes there was a body. There were many children too aboard the boat,” Jabal said.
The day before the sighting of the boat, the body of a Rohingya woman was found at sea.
Local police chief Sabda Man Sobri confirmed she was a member of the ethnic group, but could not comment on whether she was connected to the boat.
Yuhelmi, a South Aceh district spokesperson, confirmed the boat sighting but said locals were waiting for an immigration team from provincial capital Banda Aceh to arrive before deciding the next step for the refugees.
“Whether (the refugees) will be brought on land, that’s within the authority of the immigration. For now, there has been no decision,” said Yuhelmi, who goes by one name.
The United Nations refugee agency (UNHCR) said it had been informed by local authorities about the vessel and hoped the refugees would be rescued immediately.
Many Acehnese are sympathetic to the plight of the Rohingya but some locals have opposed their arrivals, accusing members of anti-social behavior.
In December 2023, hundreds of students forced the relocation of more than a hundred Rohingya refugees, storming a function hall in Aceh where they were sheltering and kicking their belongings.
Boat carrying more than 100 Rohingya sighted off Indonesia: officials
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Boat carrying more than 100 Rohingya sighted off Indonesia: officials
- Thousands risk their lives each year on long and dangerous sea journeys to try to reach Malaysia or Indonesia
- The Rohingya boat is anchored around five to six kilometers off the coast of South Aceh district with its engine turned off
Austrian far-right radical arrested after defying Swiss entry ban
- He was arrested by Swiss police on Saturday in the northeastern Thurgau canton, in the town of Kreuzlingen
- Martin Sellner’s Identitarian Movement espouses the far-right white nationalist Great Replacement conspiracy theory
GENEVA: Radical Austrian nationalist Martin Sellner, banned from entering Switzerland, was arrested Saturday having crossed the border.
The 35-year-old, who advocates mass expulsions of foreigners, had been invited by the far-right group Junge Tat, known for its anti-immigration and anti-Islamic views, to speak at a conference in Zurich on Saturday.
Swiss federal police said in a decision published earlier this month that Sellner “is banned from entering the Swiss and Liechtenstein territories from October 10-27, 2024.”
He was arrested by Swiss police on Saturday in the northeastern Thurgau canton, in the town of Kreuzlingen, which lies on the border with the German city of Konstanz.
“Shortly after 10:30am, a 35-year-old person was stopped by forces of the Thurgau cantonal police on Swiss territory in Kreuzlingen and taken away for further investigations,” a Thurgau police spokesman told AFP.
Earlier this month, Swiss federal police spokesman Christoph Gnagi told AFP that Swiss law “provides for entry bans as a preventive police measure when there are indications of a threat to internal or external security.”
Swiss police had prevented Sellner from addressing a far-right gathering organized by Junge Tat near Zurich in March and deported him.
He was also barred from entering Germany in March, following a meeting with the far-right AfD party that sparked an uproar in the country. But a German court overturned the entry ban in May.
Sellner’s Identitarian Movement espouses the far-right white nationalist Great Replacement conspiracy theory, according to which white Europeans are being deliberately supplanted by non-white immigrants.
One of Sellner’s main proposals is that of “remigration,” expelling those without Austrian nationality “who are long-term unemployed” or that are living in “unassimilated parallel societies.”
Train hits and kills 2 wild elephants in Sri Lanka
- The collision happened in the town of Minneriya, renowned for its nature park and wildlife
- Elephant-train collisions have gone up in recent years in Sri Lanka
COLOMBO: A train carrying thousands of gallons of fuel hit a herd of wild elephants in northeast Sri Lanka, killing two of the giant mammals and injuring one other as two of its tankers got derailed, authorities said.
The collision happened in the town of Minneriya — about 200 kilometers (124 miles) from the capital, Colombo — renowned for its nature park and wildlife.
The train driver told The Associated Press that the herd of nearly 20 elephants suddenly tried to cross over the railway track Friday.
“There was about 10 meters (32 feet) between us. So, we couldn’t do anything. We pressed the breaks to their maximum capacity, but there was nothing much we could do. At least four elephants were knocked down.” N.W. Jayalath said.
The train had eight tankers — five carrying diesel and another three petrol, each with a capacity of 50,000 liters (about 132,000 gallons), Jayalath said. Two of the petrol tankers got derailed, causing a significant leakage and severely damaging railway tracks and forcing authorities to suspend the train services on that line, he added.
The train compartment harboring the conductor also got derailed. The train also had two other railway personnel besides the driver. None of the four were injured.
“This is the first time I saw this kind of incident,” V.J. Jackson, a Minneriya resident, said. “We came here after hearing the honking of the train and the screaming of the elephants. We saw elephants lying everywhere and the train had derailed.”
Hasini Sarathchandra, the publicity officer of the wildlife department said the two elephants were killed on site while the injured one was treated and released back to its herd.
Minneriya National Park draws thousands of tourists each year hoping to see elephants in their wild habitats. It is part of the “elephant corridor that connects Kaudulla and Wasgamuwa National parks” which allows for elephant sightings year-round.
Though elephants are revered in the Indian Ocean island nation, they are endangered with their numbers dwindling from about 14,000 in the 19th century to 6,000 in 2011, according to the country’s first elephant census.
Elephant-train collisions have gone up in recent years in Sri Lanka, with wild elephants attempting to cross over railway tracks in search of food and water. They are increasingly vulnerable because of the loss and degradation of their natural habitat and many venture closer to human settlements in search of food. Some are killed by poachers or farmers angry over damage to their crops.
According to the government statistics, seven elephants have died this year after being knocked down by trains while 24 died in 2023.
Gunmen kill two Mozambique opposition figures ahead of election protests
JOHANNESBURG: Gunmen killed a Mozambique opposition lawyer and a party official after firing multiple rounds at a car in which they were traveling on Saturday, ratcheting up tensions ahead of protests against a disputed election result, rights groups said.
Mozambique’s new opposition Podemos party and its presidential candidate Venancio Mondlane have rejected provisional results showing a likely win for Frelimo, the party that has ruled Mozambique for half a century.
They have called for a nationwide strike on Monday.
Mozambican civil society election observer group More Integrity said the attack happened in the Bairro Da Coop neighborhood of the capital Maputo, killing Podemos lawyer Elvino Dias and party representative Paulo Guambe.
“They were brutally assassinated (in a) cold-blooded murder,” Adriano Nuvunga, director of Mozambique’s Center for Democracy and Human Rights (CDD), told Reuters by telephone.
“The indications that around 10 to 15 bullets were shot, and they died instantly.”
Human Rights Watch also issued a statement confirming the attack.
According to the latest election tally, Frelimo is leading in all 11 provinces and its candidate Daniel Chapo is widely expected to win the Oct. 9 election, but Western observers have cast doubt on the credibility of the poll.
They noted reports of vote buying, intimidation, inflated voter rolls in Frelimo strongholds and a lack of transparency in collation — problems that have marred most polls since Frelimo first introduced democracy in 1994 after two decades in power.
Full results are expected on Oct. 24, but many fear Monday’s protest could turn bloody. Mozambique’s security forces have opened fire on political protesters in the past, including after last year’s local elections, according to human rights groups.
First migrants sent to Albania for processing are returned to Italy
SHENGJIN: An Italian navy ship on Saturday took back to Italy the first 12 migrants from newly opened asylum processing centers in Albania following a court decision in Rome.
The court ruling on Friday represents an early stumbling block to a five-year deal between Italy and Albania for Tirana to host 3,000 migrants per month picked up by the Italian coast guard. They will be vetted for possible asylum in Italy or to be sent back to their countries.
Italian Premier Minister Giorgia Meloni has hailed it as a new “model” to handle illegal migration.
The court in Rome rejected the detention of 12 of the migrants, arguing they cannot be sent back to their countries or origin — Bangladesh and Egypt — because the court did not deem them to be safe enough.
The Italian navy ship took the 12 from the port of Shengjin, 66 kilometers (40 miles) northwest of the capital Tirana. After arriving there this week, the four other migrants had already been rejected by center staff, two as vulnerable after undergoing health checks and two for being minors.
Each migrant’s detention must be reviewed by special migration courts in Italy under Italian law.
Meloni slammed the judges following the ruling, and said that deeming countries such as Bangladesh and Egypt unsafe means that virtually all migrants would be barred from the Albania program, making it unworkable. Interior Minister Matteo Piantedosi said the government would appeal the ruling.
Speaking to reporters during a trip to Lebanon, Meloni said she would convene a Cabinet meeting Monday to discuss the issue.
“We’ll meet to approve some norms that will allow us to overcome this obstacle,” Meloni said. “I believe it’s up to the government and not magistrates to establish which countries can be considered safe.”
Although Bangladesh and Egypt are not at war or facing any large refugee crises, the Rome judges said their decision was based on recent international rulings that consider discrimination or persecution in even a part of a country as grounds for such a determination.
Italy has agreed to welcome those migrants who are granted asylum, while those whose applications are rejected face deportation directly from Albania.
The controversial agreement to outsource the housing of asylum-seekers to a non-EU member country has been hailed by some countries that, like Italy, are experiencing a high level of migrant arrivals.
The agreement was endorsed by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen as an example of “out-of-box thinking” in tackling the issue of migration into the European Union.
Human rights organizations considered it as setting a dangerous precedent.
North Korea says it recovered crashed South Korean military drone, KCNA says
- South Korea declines to say if such drones were flown, and whether they were flown by its military or civilians
- ‘It is quite likely that the drone is the one which scattered leaflets over the center of Pyongyang Municipality’
SEOUL: North Korea said on Saturday it had discovered the remains of a crashed South Korean military drone, suggesting it was on a propaganda mission in the latest confrontation between the two involving cross-border flying objects.
“In light of the drone’s shape, the presumptive period of flight, the leaflet-scattering box fixed to the underpart of the drone’s fuselage, etc, it is quite likely that the drone is the one which scattered leaflets over the center of Pyongyang Municipality. But the conclusion has not yet been drawn,” said state news agency KCNA.
South Korea’s government has declined to say if such drones were flown, and if they were, whether they were flown by its military or civilians. It said to comment on the North’s claim would be to get drawn into a ploy.
“If a violation of the DPRK’s territorial ground, air and waters by ROK’s military means is discovered and confirmed again, it will be regarded as a grave military provocation against the sovereignty of the DPRK and a declaration of war and an immediate retaliatory attack will be launched,” KCNA said.
DPRK is short for the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, North Korea’s official name, and ROK stands for Republic of Korea, the South’s formal name.
“North Korea’s one-sided claims are not worth verifying, nor do they merit a response,” South Korea’s defense ministry said in a statement.
South Korean lawmaker Yu Yong-weon said the drones in North Korea’s photos are “very similar” to surveillance drones made by South Korean company Sungwoo Engineering and supplied to the South Korean military in 2023.
Sungwoo says on its website it has supplied 100 of its S-Bat drones — which have a maximum flying time of four hours and a top speed of 140kph (88 mph) — to the South Korean military.
Yu said South Korea’s drone command ordered the aerial vehicles last year after a North Korean drone entered a no-fly zone surrounding South Korea’s presidential office.
Tensions between the Koreas have escalated since the North began flying balloons carrying trash across the border to the South in late May, with Seoul responding by restarting loudspeaker propaganda broadcasts, which anger Pyongyang.
North Korea has intensified its hostile rhetoric in recent days, accusing the South’s military of flying drones over its capital on three days this month and threatening “a horrible disaster” if it detects another drone over its skies.
