Another boat of Rohingya refugees capsizes off Bangladesh

Agencies
October 9, 2017

Cox’s Bazar, Oct 9: At least 12 people were killed and scores were missing on Monday after a boat packed with Rohingya refugees, mostly children, capsized, the latest tragedy to strike those fleeing violence in Myanmar's Rakhine state.

Coast guard and border guard officials said the boat was overloaded with about 100 people when it sank late Sunday in the mouth of the Naf river that separates Myanmar from its South Asian neighbour Bangladesh.

Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB) official Abdul Jalil said that 12 bodies had been recovered after a all-night rescue operation, saying “they include 10 children, an elderly woman and a man”.

The boat sank near Shah Porir Dwip, on the southern tip of Bangladesh, said Lieutenant Colonel Ariful Islam, the local commander of Border Guard Bangladesh.

More than 500,000 ethnic Rohingya Muslims have fled Myanmar since Aug. 25, when an attack by Rohingya militants on police and military posts in Rakhine State sparked a ferocious response from Myanmar's security forces which the United Nations described as “ethnic cleansing".

Myanmar's government denies the allegations of ethnic cleansing and has labelled as terrorists the militants from the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army who launched the initial attacks.

Six weeks after the violence erupted, Rohingya continue to stream into neighbouring Bangladesh by land and sea amid reports that Myanmar's military and Buddhist mobs have targeted Rohingyas with summary killings and burned villages.

Myanmar, a mostly Buddhist nation, does not recognise the Rohingya Muslims as citizens, even though many have lived in Rakhine for generations. After waves of violence in the past five years, about 1 million Rohingya have been forced to move to Bangladesh.

The overturned vessel is the latest of a series of deadly mishaps at sea involving Rohingya refugees. Most recently, on Sept. 28, a boat carrying about 80 refugees overturned. Seventeen survived, while 23 were confirmed dead and the remainder declared missing.

On September 6, 46 bodies were recovered after another boat sunk in the narrow stretch of water that separates Myanmar and Bangladesh. Among the dead were 19 children, 18 women and 9 men.

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News Network
November 24,2025

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Israeli forces have pushed over the Syrian frontier, erecting a checkpoint and stopping vehicles in the southwestern city of Quneitra, in yet another breach of the Arab country’s sovereignty.

The violation took place on Sunday, when the troops made their way across the border, setting up the outpost near the Ain al-Bayda junction in northern Quneitra, Syrian outlets reported.

According to the al-Ikhbariya paper, an Israeli detachment positioned itself at the junction, halting cars and conducting searches.

The Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) reported that three Israeli military vehicles then moved further into the northern countryside, deploying between the town of Jubata al-Khashab and the villages of Ofaniya and Ain al-Bayda. The agency added that a separate Israeli unit mounted a new incursion in the central region, approaching the villages of Umm Batina and al-Ajraf.

Residents said such activities have surged in recent months, pointing to Israeli advances onto farmland, leveling of extensive forested areas, arrests, and spread of mobile checkpoints.

The Israeli regime began markedly increasing its military aggression against Syria last year.

The escalation coincided with increasingly ferocious onslaughts throughout the country by the so-called Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) Takfiri terrorist group, which the government of President Bashar al-Assad had confined to northwestern Syria. The HTS, however, managed to overthrow the government as the Israeli attacks would pummel the country’s civilian and defensive infrastructure.

Various reports have shown that, during the escalation, the regime conducted more than 1,000 airstrikes on the Syrian territory and over 400 ground raids into the south.

Following the collapse of the Assad government, Tel Aviv also widened its grip over the occupied Golan Heights by taking control of a demilitarized buffer zone, in defiance of a 1974 Disengagement Agreement. Earlier this month, senior Israeli officials, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, visited the buffer zone, prompting expressions of alarm on the part of the United Nations.

The United States, the regime’s biggest ally, has, meanwhile, been fraternizing the HTS head Abu Mohammed al-Jolani amid the widely reported prospect of rapprochement with Tel Aviv.

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News Network
December 3,2025

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Mangaluru, Dec 3: A group of Congress workers gathered at the Mangaluru International Airport on Wednesday to welcome AICC general secretary K C Venugopal, but the reception quickly turned into a display of support for Deputy Chief Minister D K Shivakumar.

Venugopal arrived in the city to participate in the centenary commemoration of the historic dialogue between Mahatma Gandhi and Narayana Guru. The event, organised by the Sivagiri Mutt, Varkala, in association with the Mangalore University Sri Narayana Guru Study Chair, is being held on the university’s Konaje campus.

KPCC general secretary Mithun Rai and several party workers had assembled at the airport to receive Venugopal. However, the moment he stepped out, workers began raising slogans backing Shivakumar.

The university programme will be inaugurated by Chief Minister Siddaramaiah.

This show of support comes just a day after Siddaramaiah remarked that Shivakumar would lead the government “when the high command decides.” The chief minister made the comment after a breakfast meeting at Shivakumar’s residence—another public display of camaraderie between the two leaders amid ongoing attempts by the party high command to downplay their leadership rivalry.

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News Network
December 5,2025

Mangaluru: In a significant step to curb online hate and intimidation, Mangaluru City Police have registered a suo motu case against multiple Instagram accounts accused of circulating alleged provocative and threatening content.

While monitoring social media activity on Tuesday, Kankanady Town PSI Anitha Nikkam identified the Instagram handle ‘team_targetttt_900’ for posting a hate message alongside images of lethal weapons. Another account, ‘team_nagara_900’, allegedly shared a threatening post targeting activist Bharath Kumdelu, tagging additional pages such as KARAVALI-OFFICIAL.

Several other accounts — including ‘immu_bhai.fan’, ‘target_boy_900’, ‘kings_of_manglore’, ‘team_target_boys.900’, ‘arshad_mangalore’, ‘target_ka19_ullal’, ‘team_target__’, ‘troll_tigersz_900’, ‘tr_group_900’, and ‘team_target_900’ — are also under scrutiny for spreading similar inflammatory material, police said.

Authorities have urged citizens, especially young social media users, to report suspicious pages and avoid engaging with groups that glorify violence or threaten individuals. Online hate can quickly escalate into real-world harm, and police stress that sharing or promoting such content can attract legal consequences.

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