Two dead, several injured in building collapse in Bahrain
MANAMA, Bahrain, Feb 13: The body of a 66-year-old Bahraini man has been recovered from the rubble of a collapsed building in Arad, bringing the total number of fatalities to two. Rescue operations are still ongoing as authorities continue to search for any remaining survivors.
The collapse, which occurred due to a gas cylinder explosion, caused significant structural damage to the two-story building, which housed a restaurant and a commercial store. Emergency services were alerted at 7:40 PM when an explosion triggered the collapse of the structure.
Major General Dr. Shaikh Hamad bin Mohammed Al Khalifa, Deputy Chief of Public Security, expressed hope that no further casualties would be found. "We hope that no more injuries or fatalities occur. Our staff are still searching under the debris," he said in a statement.
Civil Defence personnel managed to rescue two Asian nationals from the rubble, while one person was confirmed dead and four others were injured. The rescue efforts were coordinated with other Interior Ministry departments, securing the site and managing traffic around the area. A total of seven Civil Defence vehicles and 38 personnel were deployed to contain the situation, while the National Ambulance transported the injured to nearby hospitals for medical care.
Initial reports suggest that the explosion was caused by a gas cylinder detonation. Authorities have summoned the building's owner for questioning and have launched a full investigation into the cause of the explosion. Legal action will be taken to prevent similar incidents in the future.
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Kuwait Times
7 days ago
- Kuwait Times
Two deaths, 559 arrests mar French celebrations after PSG's win
PARIS: Two people died, hundreds were arrested and cars set ablaze in France overnight as football fans celebrated Paris Saint-Germain's stunning Champions League final victory, the interior ministry said on Sunday. The epicenter of the euphoria was in Paris, which was a theater of car horns, cheers, singing in the street and fireworks throughout the night following PSG's 5-0 triumph over Inter Milan in Munich. The ministry said 491 people were arrested in the capital when crowds converged on the Champs-Elysees avenue and clashes broke out with officers. Across France as a whole, including Paris, a total of 559 people were arrested, it added. The two deaths occurred as the celebrations took place. A man riding a motor scooter in Paris died after being hit by a car in the city's southern 15th arrondissement located just a couple of kilometers (miles) away from the Champs-Elysees. In the southwestern town of Dax, a 17-year-old boy was fatally stabbed at a gathering feting the PSG victory, prosecutors said. His death occurred "during the celebrations", but the prosecutor's office said it did not know whether it was directly related to the Champions League final. It added that the perpetrator was "on the run". The interior ministry said that 18 police officers in Paris were injured, along with three elsewhere in France, as were 192 people celebrating in the streets. Seven fire-service personnel were also hurt. It said that 692 fires were reported through the night, including 264 cars that were set ablaze. Victory parade The PSG team were to hold a victory parade on the Champs-Elysees on Sunday, with tens of thousands of supporters expected to gather to catch a glimpse of their returning heroes. Overnight, AFP journalists saw police on the famed thoroughfare using a water cannon to stop a crowd reaching the Arc de Triomphe, which sits at the top of the Champs-Elysees. Police, in a statement, said "troublemakers" clashed with officers "by throwing large fireworks and other objects". One policeman was in an induced coma after being hit in the eye by a firework in the Normandy region, prosecutors said. Elsewhere, police said a car careered into fans celebrating PSG's win in Grenoble in southeastern France, leaving four people injured, two of them seriously. All of those hurt were from the same family, police said. The driver handed himself in to the police and was placed under arrest. A source close to the investigation said it was believed the driver had not acted intentionally. The public prosecutor's office said the driver had tested negative for alcohol and drugs. The majority of fans celebrated peacefully, but police in Paris said scuffles broke out near the Champs-Elysees avenue, and around PSG's Parc des Princes stadium, where 48,000 had watched the match on giant screens. Most of those arrested in the capital were suspected of illegally possessing fireworks and causing disorder, police said. The PSG victory meant the club won the biggest prize in European club football for the first time in their history. One 20-year-old PSG supporter, Clement, said: "It's so good and so deserved! We have a song that talks about our struggles and it hasn't always been easy. But we got our faith back this year with a team without stars. They're 11 guys who play for each other." French President Emmanuel Macron's office said he would host the victorious players on Sunday to congratulate them. In a message on X, Macron hailed a "day of glory for PSG". Paris mayor Anne Hidalgo hailed it as a "historic" win. A total of 11.5 million people tuned in across France to watch the match, according to figures given by the Mediametrie audience-measurement company and one of the broadcasters, Canal+. – AFP
Arab Times
01-06-2025
- Arab Times
Deadly Fire Rekindles Warnings Over Kuwait Expat Housing Conditions
KUWAIT CITY, Jun 1: A devastating fire broke out early Sunday morning in a residential building in Reggae area, killing six people and injuring five others, in an incident chillingly reminiscent of the deadly Al-Mangaf blaze in June 2024 that claimed 49 lives. The Kuwait Fire Force (KFF) confirmed that emergency teams were dispatched at 4:22 a.m. following a distress call reporting a fire in the building. Brigadier General Mohammed Al-Gharib, Director of Public Relations and Media at KFF, stated that units from Ardiya Industrial Area, Shuwaikh, and the Technical Rescue Department arrived at the scene within four minutes. The fire had engulfed two apartments on the fifth and sixth floors, which, according to Al-Gharib, had been illegally subdivided to house single male labourers. This overcrowding and unauthorised construction significantly worsened the blaze, he said. 'Firefighters launched evacuation efforts using ladders and stairwells, managing to rescue dozens of expats,' Al-Gharib stated. 'Three charred bodies were recovered at the scene, while seven people were taken to the hospital. Two later succumbed to their injuries.' The victims included individuals of Asian and African nationalities. Al-Gharib warned that violations such as unregulated room partitions, poor fire safety compliance, blocked escape routes, and a lack of fire-fighting equipment are recurring hazards that endanger lives and hamper emergency response. He urged property owners to strictly adhere to safety codes, particularly during the summer when fire incidents typically spike. Farwaniya Governor Sheikh Athbi Nasser Al-Sabah visited Farwaniya Hospital to check on the injured, offering condolences to the victims' families. He instructed authorities to investigate the cause of the fire and ensure full support for those affected. Praising the efforts of emergency responders, he also emphasised the urgent need for stricter enforcement of fire safety standards in residential buildings. The Ministry of Health reported that ten casualties were handled across several hospitals. Six were treated at Farwaniya Hospital, while two were referred to Al-Babtain Burns and Plastic Surgery Center. Four were also admitted to Al-Sabah Hospital. The Ministry activated its emergency response plan in coordination with ambulance services to ensure swift medical intervention. Dr. Abdullah Al-Fars, Assistant Undersecretary for Medical Support Services, conducted an on-site assessment, overseeing the provision of care and ensuring the availability of resources. This latest fire tragedy once again highlights critical safety lapses in worker accommodations and underlines the pressing need for regulatory reforms to prevent a repeat of past disasters.
Kuwait Times
01-06-2025
- Kuwait Times
How Mexico's cartels recruit kids, groom them into killers
Victims come from homes wrecked by violence and drugs MEXICO CITY: Sol remembers her first kill for a Mexican cartel: a kidnapping she committed with a handful of other young recruits that twisted into torture and bled into murder. She was 12 years old. Sol had joined the drug cartel a few months earlier, recruited by someone she knew as she sold roses on the sidewalk outside a local bar. She started as a lookout, but rose fast. The cartel liked her childish enthusiasm for learning new skills, her unquestioning loyalty, and perhaps most importantly, her status as a minor protected her from severe punishment if the cops ever caught her. 'I obeyed the boss blindly,' Sol, now 20 years old, told Reuters, speaking from the rehabilitation center in central Mexico where she is trying to patch her life back together. 'I thought they loved me.' Sol declined to say how many people she killed during her time in the cartel. She said she'd been addicted to methamphetamine from the age of nine. When she was 16 she was arrested for kidnapping - her only criminal conviction - and spent three years in juvenile detention, according to her lawyer. Reuters is withholding Sol's full name, and the names of the city where she worked and the cartel she joined, to protect her. The news agency was unable to independently verify the details of Sol's account, although psychologists at the center and her lawyer said they believed it was accurate. Security experts say children like Sol are a casualty of a deliberate strategy by Mexican organized crime groups to recruit minors into their ranks by preying on their hunger for status and camaraderie. In cartel slang they are known as 'pollitos de colores' or 'colorful chicks,' after the fluffy baby chicks sprayed with lurid toxic colors and sold at Mexican fairgrounds. They're cheap, burn bright, and don't live long. Reuters spoke to 10 current and six former child assassins, as well as four senior cartel operatives, who said cartels are increasingly recruiting and grooming young killers. Their experiences reveal the growing brutalization of Mexican society and the failure of President Claudia Sheinbaum and past governments to address not only the expanding territorial influence of the cartels but their extensive cultural hold too. Mexico's presidency and interior ministry did not reply to requests for comment. The news agency contacted active cartel members through Facebook and TikTok. Many shared pictures of themselves holding rifles, one had a cap emblazoned with a cartoon chicken firing off automatic rounds - a reference to the 'colorful chicks.' They were aged between 14 and 17. Most said they had been recruited by relatives or friends, joining principally out of a desire to belong to something. They usually came from homes wrecked by violence and drugs. Many were already battling addictions of their own to drugs like cocaine or methamphetamine. 'You join with your death sentence already signed,' said one 14-year-old child killer who has worked for a cartel for eight months, requesting anonymity to protect themselves. 'But it's worth it,' they said. Now they're no longer hungry and have a sense of family. Failed policies Although 15 security experts and those within the cartels say child recruitment is becoming more common, a lack of hard data makes the issue difficult to track. The US government's Bureau of International Labor Affairs estimates that some 30,000 children have joined criminal groups in Mexico. Advocacy groups say the number of vulnerable children prone to being recruited is as high as 200,000. It is not clear how these numbers have changed over time, though experts say child recruits are getting younger. A Mexican government report into the cartel recruitment of children published last year found minors as young as six have joined organized crime and also highlighted the growing use of technology, like video games and social media, to draw in young recruits. The report said 70 percent of adolescents pulled into the cartels grew up surrounded by high levels of extreme violence. In 2021, Mexican authorities intercepted three boys between the ages of 11 and 14 in the state of Oaxaca who they said were about to join a cartel after being recruited through the violent multiplayer game 'Free Fire.' Mexico's National Guard has since issued guidelines on the safe use of video games, while a legislative proposal is currently before the Lower House seeking to criminalize the cultural glorification of crime in music, TV, and video games. 'We see more and more criminal groups co-opting ever younger children,' said Dulce Leal, a director at Reinserta, an advocacy group focused on children who have been victims of organized crime. She said this trend has grown alongside the use of new technologies like video games with integrated chat messaging systems. At the rehabilitation center in central Mexico, another former child killer, Isabel, 19, who is being treated for extreme trauma and depression said her uncle recruited her when she was 14. The uncle helped her murder a former teacher who had raped her, she said, and they then became a couple despite him being 20 years her senior. He got her pregnant but she miscarried, she thinks because of her heavy drug use. Reuters was unable to corroborate all of Isabel's account, but her arrest as an unnamed child cartel member was published in news reports at the time. Isabel had tattoos with her uncle's name removed, but still bears a stencil of his faceless silhouette. 'Disposable' kids While the youngest kids might only be useful for simpler tasks, like delivering messages or working as look-outs, their loyalty and malleability quickly make them an asset. They're also cheap and easily replaceable. By the time they're eight-years-old, they can usually handle a gun and kill, one cartel member said. There are some parallels with child soldiers fighting in places like Sudan and Syria, but Mexican cartels differ in their for-profit nature and arguably in the cultural sway they exert. Cases of child killers have emerged in other places too, including Sweden. 'These kids are disposable, they can be used... but in the end, all they await is death,' said Gabriela Ruiz, a specialist in youth issues at Mexico's National Autonomous University. In 2021, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights called on Mexico to combat the forced recruitment of minors after reports of children in the state of Guerrero joining a community defense force to fight criminal groups in the area. Despite a government focus under former President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, and now under Sheinbaum, on combating the social roots of cartel violence—including programs aimed at keeping children away from drugs and crime—little measurable progress appears to have been made, the 15 experts who spoke with Reuters said. There are no specific government programs aimed at rescuing recruited children, they added. One problem is a lack of clear criminal law banning the recruitment of minors into organized crime. Another is the broader problem of child labor in Mexico. In 2022, the most recent official data available, 3.7 million children aged between 5 and 17 were already working, about 13% of that total age group in Mexico. By law, children in Mexico can work from the age of 15 if they meet certain criteria, including signed parental approval. Fleeing from death Daniel was 16 when he joined a cartel in a state on Mexico's Pacific coast in 2021. The group turned up to a party he was at and forced the kids to join at gun point. For the next three years Daniel worked for the cartel - starting as a lookout, becoming an enforcer collecting protection money, and eventually a cartel killer. Many of his friends died along the way, some at the hands of rivals, some by his own cartel - murdered to set an example, because they refused to follow orders or because they were maneuvering to rise up the ranks. Last November, he fled the cartel - leaving his partner and three-year-old son behind - and escaped to Mexico's north, applying for a US asylum appointment through the Biden-era government app CBP One. The program was dismantled when Trump took office. He's now hiding near the border. Afraid for his life and even more scared his old cartel will come after his partner and child. He's saving to pay a smuggler to get him to the United States. 'I have no choice, I'm scared to die,' he told Reuters at the migrant shelter where he was staying. For Sol, her focus is on starting her life over in Mexico. She is studying for a law degree and wants to build a career and stable life away from the death and violence she wrought and suffered as a child. She hopes to specialize in juvenile law and serve as a mentor for younger children tempted by a life of crime. 'I never thought I would make it to 20, I always thought I would die before,' she said, fighting back tears. - Reuters
