Up to 500 African migrants may have drowned off the Libyan coast after their boat sank in the Mediterranean last week.
An overcrowded fishing boat carrying hundreds of migrants between Libya and Italy sank as panicked passengers from smaller boats attempted to board it. The UNHCR agency said 41 people survived the ordeal after being rescued by a passing ship. If the death toll can be confirmed, it would be the deadliest shipwreck involving migrants attempting to reach Europe in months, and bring the total number of drownings in the Mediterranean to more than 1000 in 2016.
Militant gunmen kill seven police in Pakistan
Taliban gunmen have killed seven police officers guarding health workers conducting polio vaccinations in two separate attacks in Pakistan’s capital city of Karachi. Eight attackers on four motorcycles targeted two teams within 600 metres of each other near a market in the port city, police said. A spokesman for a faction of the Pakistani Taliban said the attacks were part of a series of attacks against security forces and police, and that these would continue.
Norwegian mass murderer wins human rights case
Mass murderer Anders Behring Breivik, who killed 77 people in a shooting and bombing attack in 2011 has won part of his lawsuit against the Norwegian state on Wednesday over his treatment by prison authorities. The Oslo district court ruled Breivik has been subject to “inhuman or degrading treatment” while in solitary confinement in a high-security prison. The court ordered the government to pay all legal costs for the ring-wing extremist. Breivik’s claim that authorities also violated his right to individual and family privacy, including correspondence, was rejected by the court.
Three dead, more than 100 injured after Mexican oil plant explosion
An explosion at an oil plant in south-west Mexico has killed at least three people and injured more than 100. The blast rocked an oil facility owned by Mexico’s state oil company Pemex in the port city of Coatzacoalcos. A large fire broke out and plumes of smoke billowed from the plant. Hundreds of people were evacuated from the area and were urged to stay clear until the smoke dissipated. This is the latest in a series of explosions and deaths reported at other Pemex facilities in the past three years. – Compiled from online sources by Matina Moutzouris
Image of migrants pleading for help from a dinghy in the Mediterranean from SOS Méditerranée.
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