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Sirens wailed as ambulances delivered charred bodies of children to a Dhaka hospital on Monday, victims of a military jet crash that killed at least 19 people, most of them young students.In Bangladesh’s deadliest aviation accident in decades, a training aircraft of the Bangladesh Air Force crashed into a school campus in the northwestern part of its bustling capital Dhaka. Grief hung heavy over the National Burn and Plastic Surgery Institute, where many of the more than 150 injured were rushed for treatment. Tofazzal Hossain, 30, broke down in tears on learning that his young cousin had been killed. “We frantically searched for my cousin in different hospitals,” Hossain told AFP.”He was an eighth grader. Finally, we found his body.”The Chinese-made F-7 BJI aircraft crashed moments after students were let out of class at 1:00 pm (0700 GMT) at the Milestone School and College.The well-known private school offers education to kindergarten children as well as senior secondary students.”We have two playgrounds, one for the senior students and one for the juniors,” said Shafiur Rahman Shafi, 18, who is enrolled at the school.”We were on the playground for the seniors. There were two fighter planes… Suddenly one of the two planes crashed here (in the junior playground),” he told AFP. “It created a boom, and it felt like a quake. Then it caught fire, and the army reached the spot later.”- ‘Helping the children’ -The Dhaka hospital’s joint director, Mohammad Maruf Islam, said most of the injured were aged between eight and 14. Of the 51 brought to the facility, at least 20 were critically hurt, he said. Monsur Helal, 46, waited grimly as his wife Mahrin — a coordinator in the school —  lay unconscious on life support. “Mahrin was helping the children out of the classroom when the plane suddenly crashed near her,” he said. “She was able to speak with me briefly, but now she is unresponsive.”Outside the hospital’s intensive care unit, grieving and tearful mothers comforted one another, sharing harrowing stories of how they found their children.Dozens of volunteers lined up at the hospital, ready to donate blood.The interim government led by Muhammad Yunus announced a day of national mourning on Tuesday.The crash was the worst aviation accident in the country in several decades.The deadliest ever disaster happened in 1984 when a plane flying from Chattogram to Dhaka crashed, killing all 49 on board.

A Bangladeshi training fighter jet crashed into a school in the capital Dhaka on Monday, killing at least 19 people and injuring dozens more in the country’s deadliest aviation accident in decades.An AFP photographer at the scene saw fire and rescue officials taking away the injured students on stretchers, while military personnel helped clear the wreckage.A military statement said 19 people were killed, including the pilot, and 20 others were critically wounded.At least 51 people, mostly students, were undergoing treatment at Dhaka’s National Burn and Plastic Surgery Institute, its director Mohammad Nasir Uddin told AFP.The Chinese-made F-7 BJI aircraft crashed moments after students were let out of class at 1:00 pm (0700 GMT) at the Milestone School and College.A witness said he heard a huge blast that felt like an earthquake.”We have two playgrounds, one for the senior students and one for the juniors,” said Shafiur Rahman Shafi, 18, who is enrolled at the school.”We were on the playground for the seniors. There were two fighter planes… Suddenly one of the two planes crashed here (in the junior playground),” he told AFP. “It created a boom, and it felt like a quake. Then it caught fire, and the army reached the spot later.”The interim government of Muhammad Yunus announced a day of national mourning on Tuesday.- ‘We frantically searched’ -Grieving parents and relatives of the victims thronged the National Burn and Plastic Surgery Institute.Tofazzal Hossain, 30, broke down in tears on learning that his young cousin had been killed.”We frantically searched for my cousin in different hospitals,” Hossain told AFP.”He was an eighth grader at the school. Finally, we found his body.”Yunus expressed “deep grief and sorrow” over the incident in a post on X. “The loss suffered by the Air Force, the students, parents, teachers, and staff of Milestone School and College, as well as others affected by this accident, is irreparable,” he said. “This is a moment of profound pain for the nation.”The crash was the worst aviation accident in the country in several decades.The deadliest ever disaster happened in 1984 when a plane flying from Chattogram to Dhaka crashed, killing all 49 on board.Last month, a commercial aircraft crashed in neighbouring India, killing 260 people. 

Sri Lanka’s Catholic Church on Monday demanded the criminal prosecution of the intelligence chief who was sacked for failing to prevent the 2019 Easter bombings that killed 279 people, including 45 foreigners. Church spokesman Cyril Gamini Fernando said they welcomed the dismissal days ago of Nilantha Jayawardena, who was head of the State Intelligence Service (SIS) when jihadist suicide bombers attacked three churches and three hotels. “This (sacking) is for the negligence part of it, but we want the authorities to investigate Jayawardena’s role in the attack itself,” Fernando told reporters in Colombo. “We want a criminal prosecution.” He said evidence presented before several courts and commissions of inquiry indicated that the SIS, under Jayawardena, had attempted to cover up the actions of the jihadists in the lead-up to the April 21 attacks. “Six years on, we are still looking for answers. We want to know the truth about who was behind the attack,” he said. Jayawardena, 52, was dismissed Saturday from the police department, where he was the second most senior officer in charge of administration and on track to become the next inspector-general. Court proceedings have revealed that both military and police intelligence units were closely linked to the home-grown jihadists, and some had even been on the payroll of the intelligence services.The current ruling party, led by Anura Kumara Dissanayake, had while in opposition accused Gotabaya Rajapaksa of orchestrating the attacks to win the 2019 presidential election. The once powerful Rajapaksa family has denied the allegations. The attacks occurred despite a warning from an intelligence agency in neighbouring India, which alerted Jayawardena 17 days before the devastating bombings. He was found guilty of ignoring a series of alerts. More than 500 people were also wounded in the bombings, Sri Lanka’s worst jihadist attack on civilians. Jayawardena was removed from his position as SIS chief in December 2019 but was later promoted to deputy head of the police force, overseeing administration. However, he was placed on compulsory leave a year ago, pending the disciplinary inquiry, following repeated judicial orders to take action against him. 

Three people died and more than 500 others were rescued after a ferry caught fire off the Indonesian island of Sulawesi, emergency officials said Monday.Passengers jumped overboard with lifejackets after the fire broke out on Sunday at the stern of the KM Barcelona 5, as it sailed to Manado, according to the Indonesian coast guard.A video released by the Manado rescue agency showed a coast guard vessel spraying water on the ferry, which was emitting black smoke. Indonesian authorities previously reported five people died in the accident, but later revised the death toll to three.”Until now, the joint rescue team is still conducting the search and rescue operation because the data is still developing,” Manado rescue agency head George Leo Mercy Randang told AFP on Monday.”Our post is still open 24 hours a day, in case families want to report about their missing relative.”At least 568 people were rescued from the ferry and water while three others were found dead, the national search and rescue agency said in a statement Monday.The ferry’s log had only registered 280 passengers and 15 crew on board.Local media reported that the ship had a capacity for 600 people.Marine accidents are a regular occurrence in the Southeast Asian archipelago of around 17,000 islands, in part due to lax safety standards or bad weather.Sunday’s fire came just weeks after another ferry sank off the popular resort island of Bali due to bad weather, killing at least 19 people.In March, a boat carrying 16 people capsized in rough waters off Bali, killing an Australian woman and injuring at least one other person.And in 2018, more than 150 people drowned when a ferry sank in one of the world’s deepest lakes on Sumatra Island.

Cammie, a young camel whose front leg was chopped off by a landlord in Pakistan’s southern province of Sindh, left her caregivers emotional as she walked for the first time on a prosthetic leg.”I started weeping when I saw her walking with the prosthetic leg. It was a dream come true,” Sheema Khan, the manager of an animal shelter in Karachi told AFP on Saturday.Veterinarian Babar Hussain said it was the first time a large animal in Pakistan had received a prosthetic leg.Cammie’s leg was allegedly severed by a landlord in June 2024 as punishment for entering his field in search of fodder. A video of the wounded camel that circulated on social media prompted swift government action. According to the deputy commissioner of Sanghar, she was transported the very next day to Karachi, over 250 kilometers (155 miles) away, and has been living in a shelter there ever since. “She was terrified when she first arrived from Sanghar. We witnessed her heart-wrenching cries. She was afraid of men,” Khan told AFP. One of the biggest challenges the caregivers faced was gaining her trust.”I cannot put her condition into words,” Khan added. To aid her recovery, the caregivers introduced another young camel named Callie. Her presence brought comfort to the injured Cammie, who tried standing on her three legs for the first time after seeing her new companion. “Cammie had been confined to her enclosure for almost four to five months before Callie arrived,” Khan added. After treating the wound and completing initial rehabilitation, the shelter — Comprehensive Disaster Response Services (CDRS) Benji Project — arranged a prosthetic leg from a US-based firm so she could walk on all fours again. “We don’t force her to walk. After attaching the prosthetic leg, we wait about 15 to 20 minutes. Then she stands up on her own and walks slowly,” veterinarian Hussain told AFP. He said that it would take another 15 to 20 days for her to fully adjust to the new limb. The caregivers said Cammie will remain at the shelter permanently.

Relatives anxiously sat beside ambulances on the wharf of one of Vietnam’s most popular tourist sites on Sunday, waiting for news of loved ones who were on a tourist boat that capsized killing dozens.Fruits and flowers were laid on the coast for the at least 35 killed in the wreckage on Saturday in what some called Ha Long Bay’s worst disaster.As rescuers worked into Sunday morning to salvage the sunken boat, a handful of people were still missing.The tourist vessel called “Wonder Sea” had been carrying 49 people, including several children, around the UNESCO World Heritage Site, according to provincial police.Hoang Quang rushed from Hanoi to Quang Ninh province at 2:00 am on Sunday for news of his cousin and her family who were on the boat when it capsized.The couple — a housewife and fruit seller married to a bus driver — had “tried their best” to afford the trip around the world-famous bay.”They found the body of (the husband), not my cousin yet,” Hoang told AFP.He was “so shocked” when he heard news of the incident and immediately went to the wharf with other worried family members.”Suddenly the victims were my relatives — anyone would be scared. We didn’t know what to do, except to keep waiting,” he said.”We think that as we are all here, she knew and she would show up. We are all so anxious… We just wish and pray for her to come back here to us.”- ‘No hope’ -At Ha Long city’s main funeral home, AFP journalists saw bodies wrapped in red cloth being carried in on stretchers, as friends and relatives cried in front of more than a dozen coffins.A 68-year-old man, who asked not to be named, rushed to the scene at 3:00 am, only to discover that his relatives -– a young family of four, including two boys — had died in the capsizing.”We were all so shocked,” the uncle of the family told AFP tearfully. “This was a very sudden accident. They were just taking the kids out to the bay for summer holidays and it ended up terrible.”The bodies of the mother and children had been recovered, but he was awaiting news of the father to be able to cremate them together.”We know there is no hope,” he said.The friend of another victim, a firefighter who had taken the trip with colleagues, said they had known each other since university.”He was still single. We brought his body back to (his hometown) for burial early this morning,” the friend said.He praised the rescue efforts and said provincial authorities had given families 25 million dong ($955) for each victim.- ‘Worst accident ever’ -The wreckage had been towed into the wharf by Sunday and 10 people were being treated at a nearby hospital.Security guard Nguyen Tuan Anh spent the night on the wharf where ambulances were waiting to carry the bodies away — a scene he described as “painful”.”I don’t think I have experienced this scene before. This maybe the worst accident ever in Ha Long Bay,” he told AFP, adding it had been “unpredictable and also I think unpreparable.””The whirlwind came so sudden and so big. The wind blew off the framework of a big stage for a grand music show nearby,” he said.Ha Long Bay is one of Vietnam’s most popular tourist destinations, with millions of people visiting its blue-green waters and rainforest-topped limestone islands each year.Several hundred rescuers including professional divers, soldiers, and firefighters joined the search for survivors through the night and heavy rain, state media said.”The whirlwind came just so sudden,” a rescue worker, who asked not to be named, told AFP on Saturday.”As the boat turned upside down, several people were stuck inside the cabin. Me and other rescuers pulled up two bodies and rescued one,” he said.”The accident was so devastating.”

Rescuers searched desperately Sunday for four people still missing after at least 35 were killed when a boat capsized at one of Vietnam’s most popular tourist destinations.The tourist boat ferrying families around Vietnam’s famed Ha Long Bay was lashed by a sudden storm Saturday in one of the deadliest disasters at the UNESCO World Heritage site.The vessel “Wonder Sea” was carrying 46 passengers and three crew when it capsized because of sudden heavy rain, according to a provincial police report seen by AFP.Previous state media reports had said that 53 people were on board and 37 people had died, but the figures were later revised by police.Tran Trong Hung, a resident in the Ha Long Bay area, told AFP: “The sky turned dark.”There were “hailstones as big as toes with torrential rain, thunderstorms and lightning”, he said.Most of those on board were families visiting from the capital, Hanoi, with more than 20 children among the passengers, state media outlet VNExpress said35 bodies had been recovered and 10 people rescued by Sunday, police said, with four people still missing.One of the rescued, a 10-year-old boy, told state media outlet VietnamNet: “I took a deep breath, swam through a gap, dived then swam up, I even shouted for help, then I was pulled up by a boat with soldiers on”.Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh sent his condolences on Saturday to relatives of those killed and called on the defence and public security ministries to conduct urgent search and rescue.Authorities would “investigate and clarify the cause of the incident and strictly handle violations”, a government statement said.Torrential rain also lashed northern Hanoi, Thai Nguyen and Bac Ninh provinces on Saturday.Several trees were knocked down in the capital by strong winds. The storm followed three days of intense heat, with the mercury hitting 37 degrees Celsius (99 degrees Fahrenheit) in some areas.Mai Van Khiem, director of the National Center for Hydrometeorological Forecasting, was quoted in VNExpress as saying that the thunderstorms in northern Vietnam were not caused by the influence of Tropical Storm Wipha in the South China Sea.Wipha entered the South China Sea on Sunday gaining strength, and is on course to make landfall in Vietnam early next week.Ha Long Bay is one of Vietnam’s most popular tourist destinations, with millions of people visiting its blue-green waters and rainforest-topped limestone islands each year.Last year, 30 vessels sank at boat lock areas in coastal Quang Ninh province along Ha Long Bay after Typhoon Yagi brought strong wind and waves.And this month, a ferry sank off the popular Indonesian resort island of Bali, killing at least 18 people.

Vietnam’s plan to bar gas-guzzling motorbikes from central Hanoi may clear the air of the smog-smothered capital, but riders fear paying a high toll for the capital’s green transition.”Of course everyone wants a better environment,” said housewife Dang Thuy Hanh, baulking at the 80 million dong ($3,000) her family would spend replacing their four scooters with electric alternatives.”But why give us the first burden without any proper preparation?” grumbled the 52-year-old.Hanoi’s scooter traffic is a fixture of the city’s urban buzz. The northern hub of nine million people has nearly seven million two-wheelers, hurtling around at rush hour in a morass of congestion.Their exhausts splutter emissions regularly spurring the city to the top of worldwide smog rankings in a country where pollution claims at least 70,000 lives a year, according to the World Health Organization.The government last weekend announced plans to block fossil-fuelled bikes from Hanoi’s 31 square kilometre (12 square mile) centre by next July.It will expand in stages to forbid all gas-fuelled vehicles in urban areas of the city in the next five years.Hanh — one of the 600,000 people living in the central embargo zone — said the looming cost of e-bikes has left her fretting over the loss of “a huge amount of savings”.While she conceded e-bikes may help relieve pollution, she bemoaned the lack of public charging points near her home down a tiny alley in the heart of the city.”Why force residents to change while the city’s infrastructure is not yet able to adapt to the new situation?” she asked.Many families in communist-run Vietnam own at least two motorcycles for daily commutes, school runs, work and leisure.Proposals to reform transport for environmental reasons often sparks allegations the burden of change is felt highest by the working class. London has since 2023 charged a toll for older, higher pollution-emitting vehicles.France’s populist “Yellow Vest” protests starting in 2018 were in part sparked by allegations President Emmanuel Macron’s “green tax” on fuel was unfair for the masses.- ‘Cost too high’ -Hanoi authorities say they are considering alleviating the financial burden by offering subsidies of at least three million dong ($114) per switch to an e-bike, and also increasing public bus services.Food delivery driver Tran Van Tan, who rides his bike 40 kilometres (25 miles) every day from neighbouring Hung Yen province to downtown Hanoi, says he makes his living “on the road”.”The cost of changing to an e-bike is simply too high,” said the 45-year-old, employed through the delivery app Grab. “Those with a low income like us just cannot suddenly replace our bikes.”Compared with a traditional two-wheeler, he also fears the battery life of e-bikes “won’t meet the needs for long-distance travel”.But citing air pollution as a major threat to human health, the environment and quality of life, deputy mayor Duong Duc Tuan earlier this week said “drastic measures are needed”.In a recent report, Hanoi’s environment and agriculture ministry said over half of the poisonous smog that blankets the city for much of the year comes from petrol and diesel vehicles.The World Bank puts the figure at 30 percent, with factories and waste incineration also major culprits.Several European cities, such as Barcelona, Paris and Amsterdam have also limited the use of internal combustion engines on their streets — and other major Vietnamese cities are looking to follow suit.The southern business hub Ho Chi Minh City aims to gradually transition delivery and service motorbikes to electric over the next few years.But with the high costs, office worker Nguyen My Hoa thinks the capital’s ban will not be enforceable. “Authorities will not be able to stop the huge amount of gasoline bikes from entering the inner districts,” 42-year-old Hoa said.”It simply does not work.”

The patient lay prone on the operating table. An IV line snaking from his left leg, near the wound from the tranquilliser dart that sedated him. Yong, a pig-tailed macaque rescued from a life harvesting coconuts, was being treated at Thailand’s only NGO-run wildlife hospital.He is one of dozens of animals treated each month at the Wildlife Friends Foundation Thailand (WFFT) facility.Patients range from delicate sugar gliders intended as pets, to some of the hefty rescued elephants that roam WFFT’s expansive facility in Phetchaburi, southwest of Bangkok.The wide variety can be a challenge, said vet Siriporn Tippol.”If we can’t find the right equipment, we have to DIY use what we already have or modify based on the specifications we need.”She described strapping an extension handle onto a laryngoscope designed for cats and dogs so it could be used during surgery on bears and tigers.A treatment whiteboard gives a sense of an average day: cleaning a wound on one elephant’s tail, assessing another’s possible cataract and treating a Malayan sunbear’s skin condition.  Yong was in quarantine after rescue — coconut monkeys often carry tuberculosis or other infectious diseases — and needed a full health check.But first, he had to be sedated, with a tranquilliser dart blown from a white tube into his left haunch.Before long he was slumped over and ready to be carried to hospital.Blood was taken, an IV line placed and then it was X-ray time, to look for signs of broken bones or respiratory illness.Next was a symbolic moment: vets cut off the metal rings around the monkey’s neck that once kept him connected to a chain.The operating theatre was the final stop, for a vasectomy to allow Yong to join a mixed troop of rescued monkeys without risk of breeding.- Out-of-hand hobby -The light-filled hospital only opened this month, replacing a previous “tiny” clinic, said WFFT founder Edwin Wiek.”I’ve always dreamed about having a proper medical facility,” he told AFP, over the sound of nearby tigers roaring in grassy enclosures.With over 900 animals in WFFT’s care and a regular stream of emergency arrivals, “we needed really a bigger place, more surgery rooms, a treatment room,” he said.Wiek founded WFFT in 2001 with two macaques and a gibbon. It now spans 120 hectares (297 acres) and houses 60 species.”That hobby got out of hand,” he laughed.He has long advocated for stronger wildlife protections in a country well-known as a wildlife trafficking hub in part because of its location and strong transport links.Wiek once had tendentious relations with Thai authorities, even facing legal action, but more recently has become a government advisor.WFFT is now a force multiplier for the Department of National Parks, Wildlife and Plant Conservation (DNP).”In many cases, when wild animals from elephants and tigers to macaques are found injured and displaced, we coordinate with WFFT, who assist in rehabilitation and medical care,” said DNP wildlife conservation director Chalerm Poommai.One of WFFT’s current campaigns focuses on the estimated thousands of monkeys like Yong trained to pick coconuts on plantations in southern Thailand.”The animal welfare issue is horrible,” said Wiek. “But another very important point is that these animals actually are taken out of the wild illegally. And that, of course, has a huge impact, negative impact on the survival of the species.”WFFT is working with authorities, the coconut industry and exporters to encourage farmers to stop using monkeys, and switch to shorter trees that are easier to harvest.There is also work to do equipping the new hospital. A mobile X-ray unit and specialised blood analysis machine are on Siriporn’s wishlist.And Wiek is thinking ahead to his next dream: a forensics lab to trace the origins of the animals confiscated from traffickers.”The laws are there, we lack the enforcement,” he said.”But with this tool, we could actually do some real damage to these illegal wildlife traffickers.”

Hundreds of thousands of supporters of Bangladesh’s main Islamist party rallied on Saturday, demanding an overhaul of the electoral system as the country gears up for polls next year.The Jamaat-e-Islami party has gained significant momentum since the ousting of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in a popular uprising last year. During her tenure, Hasina took a hardline stance against Jamaat, even cancelling its registration as a political party. For decades, Jamaat was barred from holding public rallies. Last month, the Supreme Court restored the party’s registration, paving the way for its participation in elections slated for next April.”We have suffered a lot in the last 15 years. We went to jail, we were robbed of our political rights,” Mohammad Abdul Mannan, a 29-year-old party activist, told AFP.Demonstrators braving the sweltering heat in the capital demaded changes to the distrution of seats, calling for proportional representation. “We’ve gathered here in masses to press our seven-point demand, which includes participatory representation in parliament,” Mannan said.”Elections shouldn’t be held unless our demands are fulfilled.”  After independence, Jamaat was banned. It later re-emerged and registered its best electoral performance in 1991 when it secured 18 seats.The party joined a coalition government in 2001, but failed to build lasting popular support. “We want a proportional representation system so that winners can’t take all — we too deserve a voice,” Mannan said. Tens of thousands of demonstrators began swarming the Suhrawardy Udyan memorial in capital Dhaka by midday, spilling out into the surrounding park. Some wore T-shirts bearing the party’s logo, others sported headbands inscribed with its name, while many displayed metallic badges shaped like a scale — the party’s electoral symbol.Md Shafiqul Islam, 58, travelled from Bogura — a stronghold of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party, which is eyeing a landslide victory in the polls. “I felt it was my duty as a Muslim to attend. Jamaat-e-Islami promises to establish an Islamic country, and that’s why I came,” Shafiqul told AFP. During Bangladesh’s 1971 war of independence from Pakistan, Jamaat-e-Islami supported Islamabad, a role that sparks anger among many Bangladeshis today.Bangladesh’s war crimes tribunal sentenced several of Jamaat-e-Islami’s senior leaders to death for their roles in the war, executing four of them.Many Bangladeshis believe the party must acknowledge its past to regain public trust and become a viable electoral force. But at the rally, supporters offered a different take. “Jamaat is being blamed unfairly,” said a 33-year-old private service holder, who spoke to AFP on condition of anonymity.”It did nothing except uphold the integrity of the nation.”