Hundreds of people were feared dead on Tuesday after high winds and heavy seas capsized boats carrying African migrants heading for Europe off the coast of Libya.
“A tragedy has happened off the Libyan coast with at least two boats going down … with obviously hundreds of people going down at sea,” Jean-Philippe Chauzy with the International Organization for Migration in Geneva, Switzerland, said Tuesday, citing diplomatic officials in Tripoli and Libyan officials.
The U.N. refugee agency, aware of the reports, said they came at the “beginning of the smuggling season in the Mediterranean.”
The Israeli blitz against the Gaza Strip has left two more people killed, bringing the Palestinian death toll to 397 since Saturday.
Over 1900 others were also wounded in the onslaught. Women and children have been among the victims, the UN announced on Wednesday.
A Palestinian medic was killed and two others wounded when a missile struck next to their ambulance east of Gaza City, Palestinians said.
The death toll of a road accident in southern Egypt has risen to 57, the state MENA news agency reported on Sunday, citing a senior official.
Minya Governor Ahmed Diaaeddin said the bus carrying 70 passengers was traveling to Beni Sueif when the accident occurred.
On Sunday morning, the coach overturned some 200 km south of Cairo on the way from the southern city of Minya to Beni Sueif, said MENA.
The bus plunged into Al-Ibrahimia canal as the driver was trying to avoid a speedy truck coming from the opposition direction, Diaaeddin was quoted as saying.
Earlier reports said most of the victims drowned in the canal before rescuers can reach them.
More than 20 ambulances rushed to the spot to take part in rescue operations, said Diaaeddin, adding both drivers are being held pending investigations.
Earlier reports said at least 51 people were killed in the road accident, one of the deadliest tragedies in the country in recent years.
Traffic accidents are common in Egypt with an estimated annual death toll of some 6,000 people.
On Monday, a bus carrying Coptic students overturned about 30 km south of Cairo, killing at least 13 people and injuring 30 others.
On Dec. 1, at least 14 people were killed and 11 others injured when a lorry collided with two microbuses near the Mediterranean port city of Alexandria, some 220 km northwest of Cairo.
The Egyptian traffic authorities implemented a new traffic code with tougher punishments for lawbreakers as of Aug. 1 in a bid to reduce road accidents.
BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) — A car bomb exploded Friday in an outdoor market in southern Baghdad, killing at least 12 civilians and wounding 22, an Interior Ministry official said.
Women and children were among the casualties from the explosion in the Shiite enclave in the Dora neighborhood, the official said.
In a separate incident Friday, an improvised explosive device killed four Iraqis and wounded 18 during an attack against an Iraqi Police mounted patrol in Mosul, north of Baghdad, according to a written statement from the Multi-National Division-North. Two Iraqi policemen were wounded.
CAIRO (AFP) – At least 12 people were killed in the Egyptian port city of Alexandria before dawn on Wednesday when a four-storey apartment block collapsed as families slept, security and hospital officials said.
Eleven bodies were pulled from the rubble of the building where about 35 people lived, and one man succumbed to his injuries in hospital, the officials said. At least six people were injured in the collapse.
The recovered bodies included a woman locked in an embrace with her baby, the official MENA news agency reported, adding that the search was going on for more bodies.
Eleven people have been killed during a American raid in the Iraqi city of Mosul in which a suicide bomber blew himself up, the US military says.
Three women and three children were among the dead at the private home, the US military said, adding that five “terrorists” had also died.
However, an official at a local morgue told the BBC most of the dead showed signs of bullet wounds.
Elsewhere in Mosul, four people were killed when gunmen attacked a funeral.
SOFIA (AFP) — A Ukrainian ship sank early Saturday off Bulgaria’s Black Sea coast in bad weather, and 10 crew members are still missing, the Bulgarian transport ministry said.
Only an empty lifeboat had been found at the scene off Cape Emine where the 5,000-tonne Tolstoy went down, the ministry said.
The ship, sailing under a North Korean flag, sent no distress signal, but the Bulgarian authorities were alerted by a Russian satellite center, Nikolai Apostolov, head of the Bulgarian maritime office said earlier.
BAGHDAD (Reuters) – Two U.S. Black Hawk helicopters collided while landing at an American combat outpost in northern Baghdad on Saturday, the U.S. military said.
One Iraqi soldier was killed and two American and two Iraqi soldiers were injured, military spokesman Lieutenant Patrick Evans said in an e-mail to Reuters.
“Two UH-60 Black Hawks have crashed while landing at Combat Outpost Ford in (the northern Baghdad district of) Adhamiya about 8:55 p.m. Baghdad time (1755 GMT) this evening,” he said.
BAGHDAD – Suicide bombers struck two Shiite mosques in Baghdad on Thursday, killing at least 24 people and wounding dozens during celebrations marking the end of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan.
To the north, suspected Shiite militiamen gunned down six members of a Sunni family, including women and children, police reported.
Those attacks occurred four days after a series of explosions killed 32 people and wounded nearly 100 in Shiite areas of Baghdad, raising fears that al-Qaida in Iraq is trying to provoke Sunni-Shiite reprisal killings now that the last of the American “surge” troops have left the country.
TAIPEI (AFP) — Typhoon Jangmi lashed Taiwan with heavy rain and strong winds Monday as it moved offshore, leaving two dead and forcing the closure of schools, offices and financial markets, officials said.
A further 58 people were reported to have been injured by Jangmi, which was downgraded to a tropical storm, as it was forecast to churn towards Japan.
Authorities in China ordered hundreds of thousands of residents to evacuate from the country’s southeast coast, despite the storm losing momentum as it approached the area.
