Australian charity volunteer killed in Ukraine
Nick Parsons, 28, was volunteering for the mine clearance charity Prevail Together, which helps to disarm landmines, when he was killed in the city of Izyum in the Kharkiv region earlier this month.
The charity's co-founder, Chris Garrett, a British bomb disposal expert, was also killed in the incident, which severely injured another volunteer.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese expressed his 'deepest condolences and sympathies' to Parsons' family.
'I can confirm he wasn't a participant in the conflict, he was volunteering with a humanitarian organisation. I do want to remind Australians that Ukraine is a do not travel zone,' Albanese said at a press conference on Monday.
'The situation is extremely dangerous and we continue to strongly advise all Australians not to travel to Ukraine, under any circumstances.'
Albanese said the government was limited in what it could say publicly about the incident at this time.
Ukraine's ambassador to Australia, Vasyl Myroshnychenko, paid tribute to Parsons, saying he had sacrificed his life on a courageous mission to help the people of Ukraine.
The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) said it was providing consular support to the Australian man's family.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Sydney Morning Herald
an hour ago
- Sydney Morning Herald
Britain scrambles after shock court ruling in wake of furious protests
London: A shock court defeat has left the British government scrambling to defend its border regime, as populist politician Nigel Farage urged the public to protest to demand tougher measures against asylum seekers. The government is racing to find new ways to house thousands of asylum seekers who currently reside in hotels and motels across the UK after the court ruled in favour of a local council that opposed the policy. The court decision requires the government to move about 140 asylum seekers from the Bell Hotel in Epping, an area north-east of London, where residents have rioted outside the hotel. With local people increasingly opposed to the asylum seekers in their streets, the Epping Forest Council argued the border control policy breached planning laws because it changed the use of the hotel – and the High Court agreed. Farage has seized on the decision, urging other councils to use the same arguments to shut down asylum seeker hotels in their areas. Loading 'Let's hold peaceful protests outside the migrant hotels, and put pressure on local councils to go to court to try and get the illegal immigrants out; we now know that together we can win,' Farage wrote in the UK's Telegraph newspaper. 'No doubt we will be attacked as 'far Right' provocateurs for daring to suggest that people follow the lead of Epping's parents and residents by protesting peacefully.' Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch also asked her party colleagues on local councils to try to shut down asylum hotels, setting up a wave of court cases that could wreck a policy used by previous Conservative governments and inherited by the current Labour government.
Sky News AU
2 hours ago
- Sky News AU
‘Shameful moral fail': Albanese's recognition of Palestine is ‘rewarding terrorists'
Shadow defence minister Angus Taylor says the Albanese government's decision to recognise Palestine is a 'shameful moral fail' that 'rewards terrorists'. 'What we have seen from Australia, from the government … is a shameful moral fail on the premature recognition of Palestine,' Mr Taylor told Sky News host Sharri Markson. 'This was the wrong decision; it's rewarding terrorists.'
Sydney Morning Herald
3 hours ago
- Sydney Morning Herald
Netanyahu ignores pleas for calm and condemns Albanese, Australian protesters
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has waded further into Australian domestic politics, claiming Australia risked being engulfed in a 'tsunami of antisemitism', despite direct pleas for him to calm down from Australia's top Jewish community leaders. Netanyahu said pro-Palestinian protesters calling for a ceasefire in Sydney or Melbourne should be 'counteracted' in a Sky News interview on Thursday. 'If you don't stop [attacks such as on the synagogue] when they're small, they get bigger and bigger and bigger, and ultimately, they consume your society,' he said. '[Protesters] should be defied by the leaders. And yet we see – not in America, I'm happy to say, because President Trump is standing strong – but in Europe, one country after another succumbing to them, condemning Israel that is fighting these monsters and is doing its best to avoid civilian casualties.' Netanyahu also has labelled the burning of a Melbourne synagogue last year as part of a 'tsunami of antisemitism'. Since Hamas' October 7 attack on southern Israel, which killed about 1200 people, more than 60,000 Palestinians, mostly civilians, have been killed, according to the latest estimates from Gaza's health ministry. Netanyahu did not escalate his bitter personal attack on Albanese during the Sky interview beyond comments previewed earlier on Thursday in which he branded the Australian 'forever tarnished' by his plan to recognise a Palestinian state. Netanyahu was condemned this week by Jewish groups and conservative MPs for a scathing social media post on Tuesday night that called Albanese 'weak' and accused him of abandoning Israel and Australia's Jewish community.
