Tag Archives: feared

US

Mexican survivor of Seoul Halloween crush feared she’d die in Itaewon

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Juliana Velandia Santaella took a photo of young women dressed up as bananas, a hot dog and french fries on the streets of Itaewon at 10:08 p.m. Saturday night. Then she decided to go home, descending down a tight alleyway where she would narrowly escape her death.

The 23-year-old medical student from Mexico began to feel squeezed by the crowd, which was slowly pushing hundreds downhill in an alley that became the center of an accident that left at least 154 people dead and 149 hurt. Her injuries, which sent her to the emergency room and are still debilitating, show what can happen during a dangerous crowd crush.

Velandia was separated from her friend, 21-year-old Carolina Cano of Mexico, and started to feel the weight of other people’s bodies crushing her. “At some point, my feet weren’t even touching the ground anymore,” she said. “There was an unconscious guy on top of me, which was affecting my breathing.”

Velandia focused on taking shallow breaths through her mouth as her lungs began to feel like they were being flattened. People around her were screaming for help or calling for the police, she said, but then they progressively fell silent as their bodies grew limp above and below her. Stuck in a pile of people, she recalls only being able to freely move her neck as the rest of her body was restrained.

“I thought, ‘Okay, I’m going to be next.’ I really thought I was going to die,” she said. “I was completely paralyzed. At some point, I couldn’t feel my legs. I couldn’t even move my toes.”

She was stuck like that, unable to feel parts of her body, until a young man standing on an elevated ledge grabbed her arms and ripped her from the crowd. She said she was able to then look at her phone and saw that it was 10:57 p.m.

After a few minutes, she started regaining sensation in her legs. Even then, “there were so many unconscious bodies on the floor that I couldn’t even walk,” she said.

She managed to make it home, but on Sunday, she developed a fever and spent four hours in the emergency room at St. Mary’s Hospital at the Catholic University of Korea, where she was diagnosed with rhabdomyolysis, a life-threatening condition that involves muscle injury and necrosis as cells — in Velandia’s case, in the leg — begin to die. The muscle tissue releases proteins and electrolytes into the blood and can damage the heart or kidneys or cause permanent disability or death. On Friday, doctors will check her kidneys for damage. Speaking from her dorm room on Monday, she said that the pain has gotten worse. One leg is swollen and purple, and she is unable to place her entire foot on the ground as she walks.

Even now, her chest hurts if she breathes too deeply.

G. Keith Still, a crowd safety expert and visiting professor of crowd science at the University of Suffolk in Britain, told The Post that compressive or restrictive asphyxia is the probable cause for most people who are killed in a crowd crush. It takes about six minutes for people to enter this condition if their lungs do not have room to expand.

“People don’t die because they panicked,” he said. “They panic because they’re dying. So what happens is, as bodies fall over, as people fall on top of each other, people struggle to get up and you end up with arms and legs getting twisted together.”

According to Velandia, many people were trying to move bodies to clearer ground to perform CPR as she escaped the crowd. Some people who appeared to be lifeless had vomit in their mouths and around them, suggesting that they had choked, she said.

She found her friend, Cano, who had borrowed a stranger’s cellphone to call her. The two met in front of Itaewon Station, the place where so many partygoers had started their Halloween night.

“We hugged and we cried a lot when we saw each other, because we really thought the other was dead,” Velandia said. “It’s a miracle that we are alive, really.”

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World

50 dead, dozens feared missing as storm lashes Philippines

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MANILA, Philippines (AP) — Flash floods and landslides set off by torrential rains left at least 50 people dead, including in a hard-hit southern Philippine province, where as many as 60 villagers are feared missing and buried in a huge mudslide laden with rocks, trees and debris, officials said Saturday.

At least 42 people were swept away by rampaging floodwaters and drowned or were hit by debris-filled mudslides in three towns in Maguindanao province from Thursday night to early Friday, said Naguib Sinarimbo, the interior minister for a five-province Muslim autonomous region governed by former separatist guerrillas.

Eight other people died elsewhere in the country from the onslaught of Tropical Storm Nalgae, which slammed into the eastern province of Camarines Sur early Saturday, the government’s disaster response agency said.

But the worst storm impact so far was a mudslide that buried dozens of houses with as many as 60 people in the tribal village of Kusiong in Maguindanao’s Datu Odin Sinsuat town, Sinarimbo told The Associated Press by telephone, citing accounts from Kusiong villagers who survived the flash flood and mudslide.

Army Lt. Col. Dennis Almorato, who went to the mudslide-hit community Saturday, said the muddy deluge buried about 60 rural houses in about 5 hectares (12 acres) section of the community. He gave no estimate of how many villagers may have been buried in the mudslide, which he described as “overwhelming.”

At least 13 bodies, mostly of children, were dug up Friday and Saturday by rescuers in Kusiong, Sinarimbo said.

“That community will be our ground zero today,” he said, adding that heavy equipment and more rescue workers had been deployed to intensify the search and rescue work.

“It was hit by torrents of rainwater with mud, rocks and trees that washed out houses,” Sinarimbo said.

The coastal village, which lies at the foot of a mountain, is accessible by road, allowing more rescuers to be deployed Saturday to deal with one of the worst weather-related disasters to hit the country’s south in decades, he said.

Citing reports from mayors, governors and disaster-response officials, Sinarimbo said 27 died mostly by drowning and landslides in Datu Odin Sinsuat town, 10 in Datu Blah Sinsuat town and five in Upi town, all in Maguindanao.

An official death count of 67 in Maguindanao on Friday night was recalled by authorities after discovering some double-counting of casualties.

The unusually heavy rains flooded several towns in Maguindanao and outlying provinces in a mountainous region with marshy plains, which become like a catch basin in a downpour. Floodwaters rapidly rose in many low-lying villages, forcing some residents to climb onto their roofs, where they were rescued by army troops, police and volunteers, Sinarimbo said.

The coast guard issued pictures of its rescuers wading in chest-high, brownish floodwaters to rescue the elderly and children in Maguindanao. Many of the swamped areas had not been flooded for years, including Cotabato city where Sinarimbo said his house was inundated.

The stormy weather in a large swath of the country prompted the coast guard to prohibit sea travel in dangerously rough seas as millions of Filipinos planned to travel over a long weekend for visits to relatives’ tombs and for family reunions on All Saints’ Day in the largely Roman Catholic nation. Several domestic flights have also been canceled, stranding thousands of passengers.

The wide rain bands of Nalgae, the 16th storm to hit the Philippine archipelago this year, enabled it to dump rain in the country’s south even though the storm was blowing farther north, government forecaster Sam Duran said.

The storm was battering Laguna province Saturday night with sustained winds of 95 kilometers (59 miles) per hour and gusts of up to 160 kph (99 mph) and moving northwestward — just south of the densely populated capital Manila, which had been forecast for a direct hit until the storm turned.

More than 158,000 people in several provinces were protectively evacuated away from the path of the storm, officials said.

About 20 typhoons and storms batter the Philippine archipelago each year. It is located on the Pacific “Ring of Fire,” a region along most of the Pacific Ocean rim where many volcanic eruptions and earthquakes occur, making the nation one of the world’s most disaster-prone.

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Associated Press journalists Joeal Calupitan and Aaron Favila contributed to this report.

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World

Rainer Schaller: Gold’s Gym owner feared dead after plane crash off Costa Rica, 5 others also on board

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CNN
 — 

Gold’s Gym owner Rainer Schaller, his family and two others are feared dead after a plane they were on apparently crashed off Costa Rica’s Caribbean coast on Friday, officials said.

The Costa Rican Ministry of Public Security posted on Facebook on Friday saying a plane heading from Mexico to Limon, Costa Rica, lost contact with the control tower at Costa Rica’s Juan Santamaria International Airport at about 6 p.m. local time (8 p.m. ET) while flying over the northeastern Parismina area off the country’s Caribbean coast.

CNN was given access to a copy of the flight manifest by the Public Security Ministry. Schaller, a German national and business tycoon, along with four other German nationals and a pilot, were aboard the private flight on Friday, according to the manifest. Among the German nationals were Schaller’s partner, Christiane Schikorsky, and two minors.

According to Martin Arias, the vice president of the Ministry of Public Security, the coast guard conducted a search operation in the Caribbean Sea starting at 5 a.m. local time on Saturday, and at 5:50 a.m., the remains of an aircraft were found 28 kilometers from Costa Rica’s Limon Airport.

Arias said the Red Cross has been asked to assist with search and rescue operations.

Costa Rica’s Minister of Public Security Jorge Torres Carillo tweeted on his verified account Saturday that the private plane was carrying a “foreign crew” and that two bodies have been recovered.

The German Foreign Office told CNN it is aware of the situation and that the German Embassy in the Costa Rican capital of San José is in contact with local authorities for further clarification.

“The embassy also stands ready to provide consular assistance to the families of the persons affected,” the German Foreign Office said.

Schaller is the founder and CEO of the RSG Group, which includes McFit, John Reed and Gold’s Gym fitness studios.

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World

Many feared dead, including prominent cleric, after bombing at mosque in Kabul

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A bombing at a mosque in the Afghan capital of Kabul during evening prayers on Wednesday killed at least 10 people, including a prominent cleric, an eyewitness and police said.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack, the latest to strike the country in the year since the Taliban seized power.

The Islamic State group’s local affiliate has stepped up attacks targeting the Taliban and civilians since the former insurgents’ takeover last August as U.S. and NATO troops were in the final stages of their withdrawal from the country. Last week, the IS claimed responsibility for killing a prominent Taliban cleric at his religious center in Kabul.

According to the eyewitness, a resident of the city’s Kher Khanna neighborhood where the Siddiquiya Mosque was targeted, the explosion was carried out by a suicide bomber. The slain cleric was Mullah Amir Mohammad Kabuli, the eyewitness said, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the media.

He added that more than 30 other people were wounded. The Italian Emergency hospital in Kabul said that at least 27 wounded civilians, including five children, were brought there from the site of the bomb blast.

Khalid Zadran, the Taliban-appointed spokesman for the Kabul police chief, confirmed an explosion inside a mosque in northern Kabul but would not provide a casualty toll or a breakdown of the dead and wounded.

Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid also condemned the explosion and vowed that the “perpetrators of such crimes will soon be brought to justice and will be punished.”

A U.S.-led invasion toppled the previous Taliban government, which had hosted al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan, following the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks in the United States.

Since regaining power, the former insurgents have faced a crippling economic crisis as the international community, which does not recognize the Taliban government, froze funding to the country.

Separately, the Taliban confirmed on Wednesday that they had captured and killed Mehdi Mujahid in western Herat province as he was trying to cross the border into Iran.

Mujahid was a former Taliban commander in the district of Balkhab in northern Sar-e-Pul province, and the only member of the minority Shiite Hazara community among the Taliban ranks.

Mujahid had turned against the Taliban over the past year, after opposing decisions made by Taliban leaders in Kabul.

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World

Earthquake hits eastern Afghanistan: up to 280 feared dead

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The earthquake hit at 1:24 a.m. about 46 kilometers (28.5 miles) southwest of the city of Khost, which lies close to the country’s border with Pakistan, according to the United States Geological Survey (USGS).

The quake registered at a depth of 10 kilometers (6.2 miles), according to USGS, which assigned the quake a yellow alert level — indicating a relatively localized impact.

Casualties were reported in the Barmal, Zirok, Nika and Giyan districts of Paktika province, with more than 600 injured, according to Bakhtar.

Local officials and residents have warned that the death toll is likely to rise, according to Bakhar. Full casualty figures are not yet clear, and CNN is unable to independently confirm Bakhtar’s reporting.

Photos from Paktika province, just south of Khost province, show destroyed houses with only a wall or two still standing amid the rubble, and broken roof beams.

Najibullah Sadid, an Afghan water resources management expert, said the earthquake had coincided with heavy monsoon rain in the region — making traditional houses, many made of mud and other natural materials, particularly vulnerable to damage.

“The timing of the earthquake (in the) dark of night … and the shallow depth of 10 kilometers of its epicenter led to higher casualties,” he added.

A Taliban deputy spokesperson, Bilal Karimi, said the earthquake had been “severe,” and asked aid agencies to “urgently send teams” to the area affected.

In a tweet on Wednesday, the World Health Organization said its teams were on the ground for emergency response, including providing medicine, trauma services and conducting needs assessments.

Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif extended his condolences and an offer of support in a tweet on Wednesday. “Deeply grieved to learn about the earthquake in Afghanistan, resulting in the loss of innocent lives,” he wrote. “People in Pakistan share the grief and sorrow of their Afghan brethren. Relevant authorities are working to support Afghanistan in this time of need.”

This is a developing story.

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US

Two American fighters Drueke and Huynh are missing in Ukraine and feared captured

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The men are Alexander John-Robert Drueke, 39, from Tuscaloosa, Alabama and Andy Tai Ngoc Huynh, 27, from Hartselle, Alabama.

A man who is acting as the team’s sergeant, who wished to remain anonymous for security reasons, provided CNN with photos of both men’s passports and their entry stamps into Ukraine. The man said that their unit was fighting under the command of Ukraine’s 92nd mechanized brigade on June 9, near the town of Izbytske.

Drueke and Huynh, he said, went missing during the battle and subsequent search missions failed to find any remains. A post on a Russian propaganda channel on Telegram the following day claimed that two Americans had been captured near Kharkiv. “It was absolute chaos,” he told CNN. “There was about a hundred plus infantry advancing on our positions. We had a T72 firing on people from 30, 40 meters away.”

Bunny Drueke, Alexander’s mother, told CNN that “they are presumed to be prisoners of war, but that has not been confirmed.”

She said the US Embassy to Ukraine has not been able to verify whether her son has been captured. “They have not been able to verify that he’s with the Russians. All that they can verify is that he is missing at this point,” she said. “They stay in close touch with me, and I have every confidence that they are working on the situation.”

Huynh’s fiance, Joy Black, told CNN, “We don’t want to make assumptions about what might have happened at this time. Obviously they’re looking at several scenarios. And one of them is that they might have been captured. But we don’t have absolute confirmation of that at this time.”

A US State Department spokesperson said on Wednesday that they “are aware of unconfirmed reports of two U.S. citizens captured in Ukraine.”

“We are closely monitoring the situation and are in contact with Ukrainian authorities,” the spokesperson said. “Due to privacy considerations, we have no further comment.”

The White House said Wednesday that they can’t confirm the reports, however, National Security Council coordinator for Strategic Communications John Kirby said that “if it’s true, we’ll do everything we can to get them safely home.”

Both Bunny Drueke and Black told CNN that their last communication with their loved ones was on June 8, when the men told them that they would be going offline for a few days for a mission.

“It was a pretty normal conversation actually: I told him I was getting food with my friends at our favorite restaurant,” Black said. “And he said, ‘I love you very much.’ And then he said, ‘I’ll be unavailable for two to three days.’ Which I found out was for the operation they were doing.”

They got engaged in March, not long before he left for Ukraine, she said.

“We didn’t know if we wanted to get married or get engaged before he left. And we decided on just getting engaged so that when he came back we could get married and enjoy it and not be apart right after we got married.”

Now, she said, she is “very fragile.”

“Even though not great stuff has happened, I’m still very proud of Andy for being strong,” she added.

Bunny Drueke said that she has “ups and downs.”

“I’m trying to stay calm and brave, because losing everything will not help Alex in the least. So I’m just trying to stay calm,” she said.

Drueke and Black later explained to CNN’s Anderson Cooper in a joint interview on “AC360” Wednesday evening that selflessness and a love for the US fueled their loved ones’ decision to go to Ukraine.

“He is one of the most loyal Americans you would ever hope to meet and he was proud to serve his country,” Drueke said of her son. “He said, ‘Mom, I really need to go and help fight in Ukraine because if Putin is not stopped there he is not going to be satisfied, he will become emboldened and eventually Americans will be threatened.'”

Fighting back tears, Black told Cooper that her fiancé “didn’t go there for selfish reasons or anything. He really had this gnawing at his heart and this big burden on him to go and serve the people however he can.”

“I know it’s not a great situation, but I’m still very proud of him. I just want to see him back safely,” she said.

This story has been updated with additional reporting.

CNN’s Jennifer Hansler, Kaitlan Collins and Devan Cole contributed reporting from Washington, DC.

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World

Luhansk school shelter bombing: 60 people feared dead in Russian bombing, Ukrainian official says

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Serhiy Hayday, head of the Luhansk regional military administration, said the school building was destroyed.

“The explosion happened inside the building. Rescuers (are) dismantling the debris as quickly as possible. The chances of finding (anyone still) alive are very small. There were 90 people inside the school building; 27 survived, 60 people most likely died,” Hayday said.

Hayday said a Russian air strike hit the school in the village of Bilohorivka, which is some seven miles from the front lines of the ongoing conflict in eastern Ukraine, at around 4:37 p.m. (9:37 a.m. ET) on Saturday, causing fires to break out that took almost four hours to extinguish.

Photos shared from the scene showed rescue personnel searching the smoldering ruins of the school building.

Survivors of the bombing described their harrowing experience in interviews with CNN.

“I got slammed down by a slab — bent into a ball,” said a man with a bandage across his nose and forehead, who preferred not to give his name out of privacy concerns. “Then another explosion, small rocks fell on us. Darkness.”

He continued: “There was a woman in our room screaming the whole time. She was pulled out and screaming the whole time. I told her, ‘Don’t scream.’ We couldn’t hear a thing.”

“They started digging,” he said. “I got out. I was like a drunk man — lost.”

Video of the school shared by Hayday on Telegram shows a building that was completely leveled by the attack.

Another survivor, Sergiy, said that he was in the school’s basement when the bomb hit and that all three floors of the building collapsed “to the ground.”

“We didn’t understand anything,” Sergiy said. “We were inside. All at once, everything fell down. Darkness. That’s it.”

Yevgen, meanwhile, described a desperate escape.

“I was the very first one to start climbing out,” he said. “I was raking bricks and throwing them out. There were wooden planks and boards. Locals who weren’t in the basement helped and used a pipe to rip those boards off.”

The survivors said that among the neighbors they were sheltering with were several elderly grandparents.

“Imagine what they bombed,” said Sergiy. “An ordinary village with only pensioners and children.”

United Nations Crisis Coordinator for Ukraine and UN Assistant Secretary-General Amin Awad in a statement Sunday called the bombing “yet another stark reminder of the cruelty of this war.”

“Civilians and civilian infrastructure must be spared in times of war; these obligations under international humanitarian law are non-negotiable,” Awad said. “The sooner we seek a peaceful end to the war, the better for the people here in Ukraine and everywhere in the world.”

Western countries reacted to the bombing with outrage. UK Foreign Secretary Liz Truss said on Sunday that she was “horrified,” adding: “Deliberate targeting of civilians & civilian infrastructure amounts to war crimes. We will ensure Putin’s regime is held accountable.”

Russian forces have struck fleeing or sheltering civilians on numerous occasions since Moscow invaded Ukraine.

Schools, nurseries and hospitals have all been targeted by Russia, according to the United Nations.

Amnesty International said Friday that Russian forces “must face justice for a series of war crimes” committed in the region northwest of Kyiv, following an investigation the group conducted in Ukraine.

The investigation, based “on dozens of interviews and extensive review of material evidence,” has documented “unlawful air strikes on Borodyanka, and extrajudicial executions in other towns and villages including Bucha, Andriivka, Zdvyzhivka and Vorzel.”

Fighting in Luhansk has been raging for months, and particularly since Russia refocused its invasion on the eastern Donbas region.

Hayday said on Ukrainian television on Saturday, hours before the school bombing, that the situation was difficult.

“The biggest efforts made by the enemy are to break through in Popasna and the direction of Severodonetsk and Voievodivka. That’s where they deployed the biggest amount of their troops and equipment,” he said.

“That’s where the largest number of shellings and rockets, and air strikes are constant — it’s just a terrible situation. Our guys are holding on, we are waiting for help, for reinforcement,” he said.

This story has been updated with additional information.

CNN’s Martin Goillandeau, Radina Gigova, Devan Cole and Richard Roth contributed to this report.

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World

Dozens feared dead in bombing of Ukrainian school

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ZAPORIZHZHIA, Ukraine (AP) — Scores of Ukrainians were feared dead Sunday after a Russian bomb flattened a school where about 90 people were taking shelter in the basement, while Ukrainian fighters held out inside Mariupol’s steel plant as Moscow’s forces apparently raced to capture the city ahead of Russia’s Victory Day holiday.

Emergency crews found two bodies and rescued 30 people at the school in the village of Bilohorivka after Saturday’s bombing, according to the governor of Luhansk province, part of the eastern industrial heartland known as the Donbas.

“Most likely, all 60 people who remain under the rubble are now dead,” Gov. Serhiy Haidai wrote on the Telegram messaging app. Russian shelling also killed two boys, ages 11 and 14, in the nearby town of Pryvillia, he said.

As Moscow prepared to celebrate the 1945 surrender of Nazi Germany with a Victory Day military parade on Monday, a lineup of Western leaders and celebrities made surprise visits to Ukraine in a show of support.

U.S. first lady Jill Biden met with her Ukrainian counterpart. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau raised his country’s flag at its embassy in Kyiv. And U2′s Bono, alongside bandmate The Edge, performed in a Kyiv subway station that had been used as a bomb shelter, singing the 1960s song “Stand by Me.”

The newly appointed acting U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, Kristina Kvien, posted a picture of herself at the American Embassy, trumpeting plans for the eventual U.S. return to the Ukrainian capital after Moscow’s forces abandoned their effort to storm Kyiv weeks ago and began focusing on the capture of the Donbas.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and others warned in recent days that Russian attacks would only worsen in the lead-up to Victory Day, and some cities declared curfews or cautioned people against gathering in public. Russian President Vladimir Putin is believed to want to proclaim some kind of triumph in Ukraine when he addresses the troops on Red Square.

“They have nothing to celebrate tomorrow,” Linda Thomas-Greenfield, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, told CNN. “They have not succeeded in defeating the Ukrainians. They have not succeeded in dividing the world or dividing NATO. And they have only succeeded in isolating themselves internationally and becoming a pariah state around the globe.”

Russian forces struggled to complete their takeover of Mariupol, which has been largely reduced to rubble. The sprawling seaside steel mill where an estimated 2,000 Ukrainian fighters were making what appeared to be their last stand was the only part of the city not under Russian control.

The last of the women, children and older civilians who were taking shelter with the fighters in the Azovstal plant were evacuated Saturday. Buses carrying over 170 evacuees from the steelworks and other parts of Mariupol arrived in the Ukrainian-held city of Zaporizhzhia on Sunday, U.N. officials said.

The Ukrainian defenders in the steel mill have rejected deadlines set by the Russians for laying down their arms.

Capt. Sviatoslav Palamar, deputy commander of the Ukrainian Azov Regiment, a unit holding the steel mill, said the site was targeted overnight by warplanes, artillery and tanks.

“We are under constant shelling,” he said online, adding that Russian ground troops tried to storm the plant — a claim Russian officials denied in recent days — and lay mines. Palamar reported a “multitude of casualties.”

Lt. Illya Samoilenko, another member of the Azov Regiment, said there were a couple of hundred wounded soldiers at the plant but declined to reveal how many able-bodied fighters remained. He said fighters didn’t have lifesaving equipment and had to dig by hand to free people from bunkers that had collapsed under the shelling.

“Surrender for us is unacceptable because we cannot grant such a gift to the enemy,” Samoilenko said.

The Ukrainian government has reached out to international organizations to try to secure safe passage for the defenders.

On the economic front, leaders from the Group of Seven industrial democracies pledged to ban or phase out imports of Russian oil. The G-7 consists of the U.S., Canada, Britain, Germany, France, Italy and Japan.

The U.S. also announced new sanctions against Russia, cutting off Western advertising from Russia’s three biggest TV stations, banning U.S. accounting and consulting firms from providing services, and cutting off Russia’s industrial sector from wood products, industrial engines, boilers and bulldozers.

Trudeau met with Zelenskyy and made a surprise visit to Irpin, which was damaged in Russia’s attempt to take Kyiv. The Ukrainian president also met with the German parliament speaker, Bärbel Bas, in Kyiv to discuss further defense assistance.

Jill Biden visited western Ukraine for a surprise Mother’s Day meeting with Zelenskyy’s wife, Olena Zelenska.

Zelenskyy released a video address marking the day of the Allied victory in Europe 77 years ago, drawing parallels between Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the evils of Nazism. The black-and-white footage showed Zelenskyy standing in front of a ruined apartment block in Borodyanka, a Kyiv suburb.

Zelenskyy said that generations of Ukrainians understood the significance of the words “Never again,” a phrase often used as a vow not to allow a repeat of the horrors of the Holocaust.

Elsewhere, on Ukraine’s coast, explosions echoed again across the major Black Sea port of Odesa. At least five blasts were heard, according to local media.

The Ukrainian military said Moscow was focusing its main efforts on destroying airfield infrastructure in eastern and southern Ukraine.

In a sign of the dogged resistance that has sustained the fighting into its 11th week, Ukraine’s military struck Russian positions on a Black Sea island that was captured in the war’s first days. A satellite image by Planet Labs showed smoke rising from two sites on the island.

But Moscow’s forces showed no sign of backing down in the south. Satellite photos show Russia has put armored vehicles and missile systems at a small base in the Crimean Peninsula.

The most intense combat in recent days has taken place in eastern Ukraine. A Ukrainian counteroffensive in the northeast near Kharkiv, the country’s second-largest city, is making “significant progress,” according to the Institute for the Study of War, a Washington think tank.

However, the Ukrainian army withdrew from the embattled eastern city of Popasna, regional authorities said.

Rodion Miroshnik, a representative of the pro-Kremlin, separatist Luhansk People’s Republic, said its forces and Russian troops had captured most of Popasna after two months of fierce fighting.

The Kharkiv regional administration said three people were killed in shelling of the town of Bogodukhiv, about 50 kilometers (30 miles) from Kharkiv city.

South of Kharkiv, in Dnipropetrovsk province, the governor said a 12-year-old boy was killed by a cluster munition that he found after a Russian attack. An international treaty bans the use of such explosives, but neither Russia nor Ukraine has signed the agreement.

“This war is treacherous,” the governor, Valentyn Reznichenko, wrote on social media. “It is near, even when it is invisible.”

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Gambrell reported from Lviv, Ukraine. Yesica Fisch in Bakhmut, David Keyton in Kyiv, Yuras Karmanau in Lviv, Mstyslav Chernov in Kharkiv, Lolita C. Baldor in Washington and AP staff around the world contributed to this report.

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Follow AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine: https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine

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World

Sixty feared dead in Ukraine school bombed by Russia, governor says

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  • Luhansk governor says Russia bombed school sheltering 90
  • Trapped civilians evacuated from Mariupol’s Azovstal plant
  • G7 leaders to talk with Zelenskiy in show of unity

KYIV, May 8 (Reuters) – As many as 60 people were feared to have been killed in the Russian bombing of a village school in the eastern Ukrainian region of Luhansk, the regional governor said on Sunday.

Governor Serhiy Gaidai said Russian forces dropped a bomb on Saturday afternoon on the school in Bilohorivka where about 90 people were sheltering, causing a fire that engulfed the building.

“The fire was extinguished after nearly four hours, then the rubble was cleared, and, unfortunately, the bodies of two people were found,” Gaidai wrote on the Telegram messaging app.

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“Thirty people were evacuated from the rubble, seven of whom were injured. Sixty people were likely to have died under the rubble of buildings.”

Reuters could not immediately verify the report.

Ukraine and its Western allies have accused Russian forces of targeting civilians in the war, which Moscow denies.

In the ruined southeastern port city of Mariupol, scores of civilians have been evacuated from a sprawling steel plant in a week-long operation brokered by the United Nations and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said in an address late on Saturday that more than 300 civilians had been rescued from the Azovstal steelworks and authorities would now focus on trying to evacuate the wounded and medics. Other Ukrainian sources have cited different figures.

Russian-backed separatists on Saturday reported a total of 176 civilians evacuated from the plant.

The Azovstal plant is a last hold-out for Ukrainian forces in the city now largely controlled by Russia, and many civilians had also taken refuges in its underground shelters. It has become a symbol of resistance to the Russian effort to capture swathes of eastern and southern Ukraine.

Emergency crew work near a burning debris, after a school building was hit as a result of shelling, in the village of Bilohorivka, Luhansk, Ukraine, May 8, 2022. State Emergency Services/Handout via REUTERS

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Russian President Vladimir Putin calls the invasion he launched on Feb. 24 a “special military operation” to disarm Ukraine and rid it of anti-Russian nationalism fomented by the West. Ukraine and its allies say Russia launched an unprovoked war.

Mariupol is key to blocking Ukrainian exports and linking the Crimean Peninsula, seized by Russia in 2014, and parts of the eastern regions of Luhansk and Donetsk that have been controlled by Russia-backed separatists since that same year.

In an emotional address on Sunday for Victory Day, when Europe commemorates the formal surrender of Germany to the Allies in World War Two, Zelenskiy said that evil had returned to Ukraine with the Russian invasion, but his country would prevail. read more

U.S. President Joe Biden and other G7 leaders were to hold a video call with Zelenskiy on Sunday in a show of unity ahead of Victory Day celebrations on Monday in Russia.

Underlining Western support for Ukraine, Britain pledged to provide a further 1.3 billion pounds ($1.6 billion) in military support and aid, double its previous spending commitments.

Victory Day is a major event in Russia and Putin will preside on Monday over a parade in Moscow’s Red Square of troops, tanks, rockets and intercontinental ballistic missiles, showing military might even as his forces fight on in Ukraine.

His speech could offer clues on the future of the war. Russia’s efforts have been stymied by logistical and equipment problems and high casualties in the face of fierce resistance. read more

U.S. Central Intelligence Agency Director William Burns said on Saturday that Putin was convinced “doubling down” on the conflict would improve the outcome for Russia.

“He’s in a frame of mind in which he doesn’t believe he can afford to lose,” Burns told a Financial Times event in Washington on Saturday.

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Reporting by Pavel Polityuk in Kyiv and Reuters bureaus
Writing by Michael Perry and Estelle Shirbon
Editing by William Mallard and Frances Kerry

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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Texas National Guard Soldier Feared Drowned in Rio Grande

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HOUSTON — A member of the Texas National Guard was missing and believed drowned in the Rio Grande on Friday while stationed along the river, as part of a mission ordered by Gov. Greg Abbott to help prevent illegal border crossings, according to two officials briefed on the matter.

The Texas Military Department, in a brief statement, said the Guard member “has gone missing along the river during a mission related incident” as part of his assignment with the border mission, known as Operation Lone Star. “The soldier has not been found,” the department said, adding that an active search was underway.

By the afternoon, helicopters, boats and divers were searching in and around the section of the river where he was last seen, an area known for frequent migrant crossings and dangerous conditions.

The guardsman, who was not immediately named, had been attempting to rescue a migrant woman as she struggled in the water, according to one of the officials, Sheriff Tom Schmerber of Maverick County, which includes the city of Eagle Pass, where the incident occurred.

The woman had been crossing as part of a relatively small group of migrants on Friday morning, the sheriff said. The guardsman, believed to be in his early 20s, went in to assist her, and appeared to have been pulled away by the current at about 8:30 a.m., the sheriff said. The woman survived and made it across the river to the United States, he said.

“It’s very dangerous, this river, the Rio Grande — it’s very tricky,” said Sheriff Schmerber, who is a former U.S. Border Patrol officer.

The sheriff said the county had recently seen about two drownings of migrants a week. But the drowning of any law enforcement officer during border operations is considerably more rare. “When I was in the Border Patrol, we advised never to jump after anybody,” he said.

According to an initial incident report prepared by the Guard and obtained by The New York Times, the guardsman saw the person appearing to drown, removed his body armor and “jumped in” to try to make a rescue. “The soldier had not resurfaced” as of shortly before 10 a.m., the report said, and his team had “lost visibility.”

On Monday, Mr. Abbott issued a brief statement, saying his office “continues to work with the Texas National Guard and other law enforcement agencies as they search for the missing soldier.”

The apparent drowning comes at a time of pitched political debate over how to handle a surge of migrants at the southern border and whether to end a Trump-era public health rule that has allowed federal agents to quickly turn back many migrants who arrived at the border during the coronavirus pandemic.

That rule, known as Title 42, is expected to expire in late May, though President Biden is under pressure from Republicans and some Democrats to extend it. Federal officials have been preparing for an influx of as many as 18,000 migrants a day after Title 42 ends.

On Friday, the attorney general of Texas, Ken Paxton, sued the Biden administration over its decision to end the Title 42 process, which has allowed hundreds of thousands of migrants, including those seeking asylum, to be immediately sent back over the border with Mexico.

Mr. Paxton’s suit is seeking an emergency order to keep the policy in place.

Mr. Abbott has said that the Biden administration has done little to secure the border from illegal crossings, which surged last year, and he has sharply increased the number of state law enforcement agents at the border with Mexico.

Last year, Mr. Abbott, a two-term Republican who is up for re-election in the fall, ordered thousands of Texas National Guard troops to patrol the border, a mission that was expected to cost more than $2 billion a year.

But the Guard members cannot arrest migrants for federal immigration offenses, and mostly act as lookouts and support for the Border Patrol, directing migrants to federal agents when they encounter them. Some Guard members described the state’s deployment as hastily arranged, disorganized and politically motivated.

At the same time, the number of migrants who died or were reported missing while attempting to cross into the United States sharply increased last year, with more than 600 deaths recorded by the International Organization for Migration.

Tiffany Burrow, director of the Val Verde Border Humanitarian Coalition, said that though many migrants had perished in the often-dangerous river currents, the apparent drowning of the guardsman on Friday demonstrated the dangers to law enforcement agents.

“Border Patrol and the guards put their lives on the line in moments like that,” Ms. Burrow said.

A group of Republican members of Congress, including Representative Kevin McCarthy, the minority leader in the House, and Representative Tony Gonzales, who represents the area, was expected to visit Eagle Pass on Monday and planned to meet with federal immigration officials and members of state law enforcement, including the National Guard.

On Friday, Mr. Gonzales posted a photo of a protective vest lying on the ground, saying that the “brave National Guardsman removed his armor before jumping into dangerous waters to save a human life.”

The mayor of Eagle Pass, Rolando Salinas Jr., said the area where the guardsman went into the water was a common place for migrants to cross the river, but also one of the most dangerous in the area.

As of the early afternoon, he said, a Border Patrol dive team was still in the water searching for the body of the guardsman, who he said was about 22 years old.

The mayor said that when the year began, the area of the border that includes both Eagle Pass and the city of Del Rio had seen a few hundred people crossing a day. But in the past month, Mr. Salinas said, that number had increased to at least 1,000 a day.

“It’s getting hectic here,” Mr. Salinas said. “With the cancellation of Title 42, we’re afraid that this will be even double or triple.”

The missing guardsman, he added, was “trying to do a good deed.”

But some members of the Texas National Guard said they had not been properly trained in how to handle the swift currents of the Rio Grande.

After the guardsman was swept away, senior leaders spread word to members not to attempt similar rescues of migrants. Units along the water ordinarily have “throw ropes” and use them to assist those in trouble in the water, rather than enter the water themselves, especially if they do not have a life vest, said one member of the guard assigned to Operation Lone Star. It was not clear if the guardsman who went into the water had one.

Soldiers were told on Monday that they would soon receive more training in water operations, the member said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to describe the internal messages. The level of the river appeared to be high, the member added, making it potentially more dangerous.

Edgar Sandoval reported from San Antonio.

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