Foreign News
Pakistan railway bomb blast kills at least 25
Authorities say at least 25 people have been killed after a bomb exploded at a railway station in Pakistan’s south-western Balochistan province.
Dozens of others were injured in the blast, which happened as a popular morning train was about to leave Quetta station in southwestern Pakistan for Peshawar.
A separatist militant group, the Balochistan Liberation Army, said it carried out what police are deeming a suicide attack.
There has been a recent surge in deadly attacks in the province, driven by demands for independence and control over local resources.
The city’s commissioner said that the suicide bomber was among the dead, while about 50 others were injured in the blast.
Senior police official Muhammad Baloch said the explosion was thought to have been caused by a suicide bomber carrying 6-8kg of explosives. The dead and injured included both civilians and military personnel, he told the BBC.
Videos shared on social media appear to show the moment the explosion happened on Saturday morning, with dozens of people visible at the platform.
There is also footage circulating of the aftermath, showing a number of injured people and debris spread across the station.
Abdul Jabbar was among the injured brought to the Civil Hospital. He said that he was entering the station, having purchased a ticket from the booking office, when the explosion happened. “I can’t describe the horror I faced today, it was like a judgement day has come,” he said.
Muhammad Sohail arrived soon after the explosion had happened to catch his train to Multan, in Punjab province. “Everything was destroyed at the station, and people were laying down on the ground screaming for help,” he said.
The Baloch Liberation Army, which claimed responsibility for the attack, said in a statement released on social media that it had targeted a Pakistan military unit that was returning from Quetta after completing a training course.
Police later confirmed 14 soldiers were among the dead.
The chief minister of Balochistan called the act deplorable and the perpetrators “worse than animals”. Mir Sarfraz Bugti said the authorities would pursue them and “bring them to their logical end”.
The speaker of Pakistan’s National Assembly, Sardar Ayaz Sadiq, condemned the blast, saying those responsible were the “enemies of humanity”.
Balochistan is Pakistan’s largest province and the richest in terms of natural resources, but it is the least developed.
The region shares a volatile border with Iran and Taliban-controlled Afghanistan, and also boasts a vast coastline along the Arabian Sea.
In August, at least 73 people were killed in a series of attacks – which the Baloch Liberation Army also claimed responsibility for – targeting police stations, railway lines and highways, according to Reuters.
The militant separatist group has been waging a decades-long insurgency to gain independence for the region from Pakistan.
[BBC]
At least 13 people, including four children, have been killed in two incidents in Nigeria as large crowds gathered to collect food and clothing distributed at annual Christmas events, police say.
In the capital, Abuja, at least 10 people died on Saturday and many more were injured in a scramble to receive gifts of charity being distributed by the Holy Trinity Catholic Church in Maitama district.
“This unfortunate event, which took place around 6:30am [05:30 GMT], resulted in a stampede that claimed the lives of 10 individuals, including four children, and left eight others with varying degrees of injuries,” said Josephine Adeh, a police spokesperson.
In a separate incident in Okija in Anambra State in southern Nigeria, three people were killed in a crush at a charity event organised by a philanthropist, state police said.
“The event had not even started when the rush began,” police spokesman Tochukwu Ikenga said. There could be more deaths recorded as officers investigate, he said.
In both incidents, the victims were mostly women and children who were trampled as crowds tried to reach the provisions being offered.
[Aljazeera]
A nine-year-old child and four adults have been killed, and more than 200 injured after a car drove into a crowd at a Christmas market in the eastern German city of Magdeburg on Friday, officials say.
At least 41 people were critically injured after the incident which lasted around three minutes, police said.
The arrested suspect has been named in local media as Taleb al-Abdulmohsen, a 50-year-old Saudi citizen who arrived in Germany in 2006 and had worked as a doctor.
Reiner Haseloff, the premier of Saxony-Anhalt state, said a preliminary investigation suggested the alleged attacker was acting alone.
He added that he could not rule out more deaths due to the number of injured.
The suspect is currently being questioned and prosecutors expect to charge him with murder and attempted murder in due course, the head of the local prosecutor’s office said on Saturday.
Prosecutor Horst Walter Nopens added that the investigation was ongoing but suggested the background to the crime “could have been disgruntlement with the way Saudi Arabian refugees are treated in Germany”.
The suspected attacker has no known links to Islamist extremism – social media and posts online appear to suggest he had been critical of Islam.
Footage from the scene showed numerous emergency services vehicles attending while people lay on the ground.
Further footage then emerged of armed police confronting and arresting a man who can be seen lying on the ground by a stationary vehicle.
Unverified video on social media purports to show a car ploughing into the crowd at the market.
City officials said around 100 police, medics and firefighters, as well as 50 rescue service personnel rushed to the scene.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who travelled to the city on Saturday, described the attack as a “dreadful tragedy” as “so many people were injured and killed with such brutality” in a place that is supposed to be “joyful”.
He told reporters that there were serious concerns for those who had been critically injured – which German media reports is in the dozens – and that “all resources” will be allocated to investigating the suspect behind the attack.
There would be a memorial service for the victims at the Magdeburg Cathedral later on Saturday, he added.
[BBC]
Independent Wexford TD Verona Murphy will be the next Ceann Comhairle (speaker) of Dáil Éireann.
She will become the first woman to ever hold the role after being elected by her fellow TDs (members of the Irish parliment).
Fianna Fáil’s John McGuinness and Seán Ó Fearghaíl as well as Aengus Ó Snodaigh from Sinn Féin also ran for the position.
Politicians in the Republic of Ireland met for the first time since the general election on Wednesday.
[BBC]
At least 13 people killed in Nigeria stampedes at charity events
Prime Minister and ADB Country Director discuss educational reforms
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