Headline

Several Shot Dead At Jehovah’s Witness Centre

Published

3 years ago

March 10, 2023

Several people have been killed in a shooting at a Jehovah’s Witness centre in Hamburg, with the gunman believed to be among the dead, German police said Thursday.

Police have not given a death toll, but multiple local media outlets reported that the shooting had left seven dead and eight seriously injured.

The first emergency calls were made around 2015 GMT after shots rang out at the building in the city’s northern district of Gross Borstel, a police spokesman at the scene said.

Police tweeted that “several people were seriously injured, some even fatally” in the incident.

“At the moment there is no reliable information on the motive of the crime,” police said, urging people not to speculate.

An alarm for “extreme danger” in the area had been sounded using a catastrophe warning app, but Germany’s Federal Office for Civil Protection lifted it shortly after 3 am local time.

Hamburg police tweeted early Friday: “The police measures in the surrounding area are gradually being discontinued. Investigations into the background of the crime are continuing.”

The port city’s mayor, Peter Tschentscher, expressed shock at the shooting on Twitter.

Sending his sympathies to the victims’ families, he said emergency services were doing their utmost to clarify the situation.

– Bible study group –

In the non-descript, three-storey building, police said an event had been taking place on Thursday evening.

Jehovah’s Witnesses had gathered for a weekly Bible study meeting, according to local daily Hamburger Abendblatt.

There are about 175,000 people in Germany, including 3,800 in Hamburg, who are Jehovah’s Witnesses, a US Christian movement set up in the late 19th century that preaches non-violence and is known for door-to-door evangelism.

The first officers at the scene found several lifeless bodies and seriously wounded people, police said.

Hamburger Abendblatt reported that 17 unhurt people, who had been at the event, were being attended to by the fire brigade.

Officers heard a shot in the “upper part of the building” before finding a body in the area where it rang out, police said.

“We have no indications of a perpetrator on the run,” said the police spokesman.

Instead, officers have “indications that a perpetrator may have been in the building and may be even among the dead.”

The spokesman added that the person uncovered in the upper part of the building was “possibly” the perpetrator.

“We have found a lifeless person in a community centre in [Gross Borstel] which we assume could be a perpetrator,” Hamburg police tweeted early Friday morning.

“According to the current state of affairs, we assume that there is one perpetrator,” police said in a separate tweet.

– Hit by attacks –
Germany has been rocked by several attacks in recent years, both by jihadists and far-right extremists.

Among the deadliest committed by Islamist extremists was a truck rampage at a Berlin Christmas market in December 2016 that killed 12 people.

The Tunisian attacker, a failed asylum seeker, was a supporter of the Islamic State jihadist group.

Europe’s most populous nation remains a target for jihadist groups in particular because of its participation in the anti-Islamic State coalition in Iraq and Syria.

Between 2013 and 2021, the number of Islamists considered dangerous in the country had multiplied by five to 615, according to interior ministry data.

But Germany has also been hit by several far-right assaults in recent years, sparking accusations that the government was not doing enough to stamp out neo-Nazi violence.

In February 2020, a far-right extremist shot dead 10 people and wounded five others in the central German city of Hanau.

And in 2019, two people were killed after a neo-Nazi tried to storm a synagogue in Halle on the Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur.

AFP

Headline

12 Feared Dead In Kenya Light Aircraft Crash

Published

1 day ago

October 28, 2025

Editor

A small plane travelling from Kenya’s coast crashed on Tuesday, according to the country’s aviation authority, with the 12 people on board feared dead.

The small plane was en route to Kichwa Tembo — a private airstrip located in the Maasai Mara National Park — from the tourist hotspot of Diani when it came down at around 5:30am local time (0230 GMT).

“The aircraft had 12 persons on board,” a statement from the Kenya Civil Aviation Authority (KCAA) said.

It gave no further details, but said that government agencies were already on site to establish the cause of the accident.

The Guardian reports that plane crashes are fairly common in Kenya in the last 18 months. On March 5, 2024, a mid-air collision between a Safarilink Aviation commercial flight and a 99 Flying School training aircraft occurred over the Nairobi National Park, resulting in two fatalities.

The incident took place shortly after both aircraft had departed Wilson Airport. The collision involved Safarilink Aviation Flight 053, a De Havilland Canada Dash 8 carrying 39 passengers and five crew members, and a 99 Flying School Cessna 172M.

AMREF Aircraft Crash

In August, a light aircraft belonging to the AMREF Flying Doctors crashed into a residential area in Mwihoko, Ruiru, Kiambu County, killing six people and injuring at least two others.

The aircraft, a Cessna Citation XLS (registration 5Y-FDM), had taken off from Wilson Airport and was en route to Hargeisa, Somalia, when it went down under unclear circumstances.

AMREF Flying Doctors CEO Stephen Gitau issued a statement confirming the incident. Mr Gitau noted that the aircraft departed Wilson Airport at 2.17 PM before crashing in Mwihoko. He stated that the organisation is “cooperating fully with relevant aviation authorities and emergency response teams to establish the facts surrounding the situation.”

Foreign Couple Killed in Kenyan Plane Crash, Earlier in January, a light aircraft crash killed a foreign couple aboard. The accident involved a Cessna 185 aircraft that departed from Nairobi and was en route to Mbaruk in Nakuru County. It went down in the lakeside town of Naivasha at approximately 5:14 p.m. local time (1414 GMT).

At the time, Naivasha Police Deputy Chief Charles Mwai suggested that poor visibility due to fog in the area might have been a contributing factor. Aviation experts have been called to the scene to conduct an investigation.

Headline

UK Police Arrest Asylum Seeker Sex Offender Mistakenly Freed

Published

3 days ago

October 26, 2025

Editor

The UK police on Sunday arrested an Ethiopian asylum seeker and convicted sex offender, whose crimes had sparked anti-immigration protests, after he was accidentally released from prison in an embarrassing blunder by British authorities.

London’s Metropolitan Police said officers arrested Hadush Kebatu in the north of the capital on Sunday morning, nearly 48 hours after he was mistakenly freed around 30 miles (48 kilometres) away.

Kebatu, 38, had served the first month of a one-year sentence for sexually assaulting a teenage girl and a woman, but was reportedly due to be deported when the Prison Service error occurred on Friday.

His high-profile case earlier this year in Epping, northeast of London, sparked demonstrations in various English towns and cities where asylum seekers were believed to be housed, as well as counter-protests.

Commander James Conway, who oversaw the manhunt for him, said “information from the public” led officers to the Finsbury Park neighbourhood of London, where he was found.

“He was detained by police but will be returned to the custody of the Prison Service,” he added.

Kebatu is now expected to be deported.

Prime Minister Keir Starmer said Friday he was “appalled” by the “totally unacceptable” mistake that saw him freed rather than sent to an immigration detention centre.

The Telegraph newspaper said he was wrongly categorised for release on licence and handed a £76 ($101) discharge grant.

Police had appealed Saturday for Kebatu to turn himself in, after reports emerged that he had appeared confused and reluctant to leave the prison in Chelmsford, eastern England.

A delivery driver described seeing Kebatu return several times in a “very confused” state, only to be turned away by staff and directed to the railway station.

The driver told Sky News he saw Kebatu outside the jail, asking, “Where am I going? What am I doing?”

“He was starting to get upset, he was getting stressed,” the driver said.

The father of Kebatu’s anonymous teenage victim told the broadcaster that “the justice system has let us down.”

Police arrested the asylum seeker in July after he repeatedly tried to kiss a 14-year-old girl and touch her legs, and made sexually explicit comments to her.

He also sexually assaulted an adult woman, placing a hand on her thigh, when she intervened to stop his interactions with the girl.

He was staying at the time at Epping’s Bell Hotel, where scores of other asylum seekers have been accommodated, and which became the target of repeated protests.

AFP

Headline

Madagascar Revokes Ousted President’s Nationality

Published

3 days ago

October 26, 2025

Editor

Madagascar’s new government has stripped ousted president Andry Rajoelina of his Malagasy nationality in a decree published Friday, 10 days after he was removed in a military takeover.

According to AFP, the decree means that Rajoelina, who was impeached on October 14 after fleeing the island nation in the wake of weeks of protests, would not be able to contest future election.

The decree published in the official gazette said Rajoelina’s Malagasy nationality was revoked because he had acquired French nationality in 2014, local media reported, as photographs of the document were shared online.

French broadcaster RFI said it had confirmed the decree with the entourage of the new prime minister, Herintsalama Rajaonarivelo, who signed the order.

The decree cited laws stipulating that a Malagasy who voluntarily acquires a foreign nationality loses their Malagasy nationality.

Rajoelina’s French nationality caused a scandal when it was revealed ahead of the November 2023 elections, nearly 10 years after it was granted.

It triggered calls for him to be disqualified but he went on to win the contested polls, which were boycotted by opposition parties.

The 51-year-old politician fled Madagascar after army Colonel Michael Randrianirina said on October 11 his CAPSAT unit would refuse orders to put down the youth-led protest movement, which security forces had attempted to suppress with violence.

Rajoelina said later he was in hiding for his safety, but did not say where.

Randrianirina was sworn in as president on October 14, pledging elections within two years.