Most victims children in Bangladesh jet crash: government official
:: The majority of people killed in the Bangladesh military jet crash were children, says a government official
:: Dhaka, Bangladesh
:: Sayedur Rahman, Special assistant to the chief adviser on health
'Among the 27 deceased, one was a pilot and another was a local resident, the remaining 25 were children.'
'We can confirm that the total number of deaths is 27. Across all hospitals, 78 people have been admitted. Among those admitted to this hospital, several are in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU), and a few are on ventilators while some are not. Even among those in the High Dependency Unit, the conditions of some patients are critical. So, we are going through a very difficult time as a nation. We ask everyone to keep us in their prayers.'
The F-7 BGI aircraft crashed soon after it took off at 1:06 p.m. (0706 GMT) on Monday (July 21) from the airbase in Kurmitola in the capital on a routine training mission. The military said the plane experienced a mechanical failure.
The government announced a day of mourning, with flags at half-mast and special prayers at all places of worship.
Solve the daily Crossword
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
News24
15 hours ago
- News24
Limpopo woman Dineo Twala turns parents' home into disabled children's centre
A Limpopo woman has transformed her parents' house into a centre for children born with disabilities. Deep compassion and love for children motivated her to make a difference in their lives. Thirty-year-old Dineo Thwala, from the rural village of Bothashoek, provides comfort to children who are permanently disabled and paralysed. Her journey began with the challenge of caring for her sister's child, who was born with cerebral palsy and couldn't walk, talk, or sit. This experience led her to establish the Tshepo Foundation, 'Tshepo' being a Sepedi name meaning 'Hope.' In 2019, Dineo's love for children blossomed into a fully-fledged centre. She started with a support group for parents of children born with disabilities. 'I encourage and teach other parents to train and exercise their children. I help them learn how to care for their children living with disabilities, using an app that outlines step-by-step methods to improve a disabled child's living conditions,' she explains. Eight-year-old Dimakatso Nkadimeng is one of the children who received a special mobility device called a Madiba Buggy during the 67 minutes of Mandela Day celebration. The device helps restore mobility and dignity for children who can't sit properly, providing essential body and head support. Unemployed young mothers Dikeledi Nkadimeng, 21, and Virginia Matlakala, 25, from Ga-Manoke village near Burgersfort, survive on their children's disability social grants. They stay at home and have struggled to find employment. Matlakala told Drum magazine that seeing her child play with other children and finally attempt to speak has brought her joy after countless years of trying to get a wheelchair for her child. 'My child used to watch with envy as other children played together,' Matlakala said. Dineo shared a success story: 'When Matlakala's daughter, Comfort, was first brought to the Tshepo Foundation, she was unable to do anything. Now she can speak, move around, and eat solid food without being selective about what she eats.' Caring for people living with disabilities has always been challenging, but for unemployed Thwala, it has become a passion that has developed into a centre for those born with disabilities. The centre operates from a house in her parents' backyard and cares for children with cerebral palsy, hydrocephalus, osteogenesis imperfecta, and other disabilities. 'We face challenges such as lack of cleaning materials, transport, toiletries, and wheelchairs,' Dineo explains. She continues to approach potential donors and funders, and her efforts are beginning to bear fruit. She also plans to secure land where she can build a proper centre for children living with disabilities. Read more | Limpopo man appeals for help to remove life-altering keloid growth Many children depend on her centre for social contact with other kids living with similar conditions. Thwala's advice to parents with disabled children is important: 'They often find themselves isolated at home because they literally have no one to communicate with. Here, they have a sense of belonging because we show them love and care.' Most of these children come from disadvantaged families, and the centre provides them with two meals a day. Thwala pleads for support from multidisciplinary professionals, including physiotherapists and occupational therapists, to volunteer their therapeutic expertise. This training would help improve the lives of those living with disabilities.
Yahoo
15 hours ago
- Yahoo
I Thought I Was Giving My Daughter A Life Any Kid Would Dream Of. I Was Shocked By Her Response.
Moving to Hawaii may sound like a dream come true, but for our family, it was a forced relocation thanks to a set of orders from the U.S. Navy. We were excited about island life, but five military duty stations into my marriage, I knew better than to expect an easy transition. Week one felt like a vacation. My husband and I had never been to Hawaii, so everything was fresh: waterfall hikes, shave ice, world-class beaches. Even the one-lane traffic on the North Shore felt charming. These weren't orders we requested or expected, but we kept telling ourselves: This is going to be great! As well as: The kids are resilient! They're going to be fine! By week two, our 5-year-old middle child, Alice, had fully committed to not being fine. Her Hawaii life was starting to sound like her personal version of 'Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day.' She had to share a bed with her little sister. Her nose got sunburned. On day three at the new-to-us beach, she got stung by a box jellyfish. And all the other kids at the Navy Lodge seemed to be either her big brother's age or her little sister's — not a single new best friend in sight. Every sentence began with 'I juuuust don't like…' and ended with '…and can we please juuuuust go back to Virginia?' Meanwhile, my husband and I were running dangerously low on optimism ourselves. Living in Hawaii quickly stopped feeling like vacation and started feeling like crushing reality: unbelievable grocery bills, including $9 for a gallon of milk, $4,000 to ship our car overseas, and mountains of paperwork to dig through, ranging from car registration to reimbursement for our stay at said Navy Lodge. We pinned our hopes on the first day of school. Surely, a little structure would help everyone. Surely Alice would come home bubbling with new-friend stories, tired and happy from a long kindergarten day. Nope. At pick-up, full of best-case-scenario expectations, we asked, 'How was your day?' But instead of happily chirping about new friends and exciting specials, she launched into a tirade that rivaled any talking head you've seen on cable news. Her school didn't even have a real playground — just a blacktop. All the other kindergartners had gone to pre-k together and didn't want to be her friend. She couldn't FaceTime Grandma after dinner because of the time difference. Her favorite after-school activity (playing on the backyard swingset) was 4,800 miles away. She was outraged that our hotel had only one potty instead of 'three potties, like a regular house.' And the novelty of eating dinner on paper plates on a hotel floor? Worn off, big time. I want to be the mom who validates feelings and listens with saintly patience. But when your 5-year-old delivers a personalized podcast nightly on why your new home is the actual worst —and blames you personally— it wears a person down. After a week, I made a quiet decision: I'd stop asking her how her day was. Not out of spite, but survival. If she wanted to tell me, she could, but I wasn't going to prompt her. Next, I tried that thing adults always tell other adults: 'Focus on the positive.' I have journaled on and off for decades — from middle school drama to post-partum exhaustion — and I hoped maybe it could help Alice, too. I bought a jaunty little composition book with a cartoon sun on the cover and dubbed it 'Alice's Positivity Notebook.' We were going to fake it until we made it. I told her we could still talk about every part of her day if she wanted, but for this notebook, she would just write down the good stuff. She could even draw a picture to go with it. Fifteen minutes into our first journaling session, I was already defeated. Every prompt I offered — What made you smile? Who was kind to you? What was something fun? — was met with a shrug or a flat 'no.' We were living any middle child's dream, sitting outside on a warm Hawaiian evening just the two of us, and here was Alice complaining about never getting a snow day again. (Please note that during our two years in Virginia Beach, we only had half a day of snow, and she had not enjoyed it.) Finally, she gave me something. 'I liked the clear noodles at lunch,' she mumbled. Victory. I wrote down her verbatim sentence about the 'clear noodles,' handed her the crayons, and watched fallen plumeria blooms drift across the hotel lanai while she drew. A sad realization dawned on me: I couldn't force her into gratitude. She had lost the only home she could remember. And even though we were somewhere beautiful, the view didn't erase the hard parts. I couldn't positivity-journal her way out of the grief of change. I remembered how I felt when we first got our orders to Hawaii. I was losing a job I loved (it turns out 'remote work' has limits). We were heading to one of the most expensive places in the country. We were moving away from our friends and community we'd established in the military-friendly town of Virginia Beach. I was nervous and overwhelmed. But when I voiced that to civilian friends, I was met with, 'We honeymooned in Maui, you're so lucky!' and 'We loved our week at Turtle Bay!' Talking about Friday night fireworks in Waikiki made for better conversation for my friends, so I stopped bringing it up, swallowing my apprehension. And now here I was, asking Alice to do the exact same thing. Trying to gaslight her into enjoying things she wasn't (Yet, I told myself. Yet.). If an adult talked to me the way I was talking to her — 'You're whining about having no friends and a pause in your career? Look at the sunsets and the novelty of wild chickens!!' — I'd want to scream. I was allowed to struggle with the transition, to miss what we had and to take time to build something new. She was allowed that, too. That night, I closed the notebook and reminded myself that with consistency, this notebook would be filled. Eventually, the entries would expand to include more than lunch noodles. The good, the bad: I needed to let her feel it all. I decided I would still notice the beauty for her, gently saving it for her when she was ready, but I wouldn't use it to silence the hard stuff. The luaus and waterfalls weren't going anywhere, so for the moment, we could be excited about clear noodles. Meanwhile, I started tending to my own feelings, too. I sought support from fellow military spouses — women who understand the 'and' of this lifestyle: the beauty and the privilege of living here and the challenges it presents. One friend in particular always reminds me, 'You're not imagining it. This is as hard as it feels.' It's her mantra, and I've adopted it as my own — a phrase I reach for whenever I start wondering if I'm overreacting or if someone else would be handling it all better. It doesn't fix anything, but it reminds me that what I'm navigating is genuinely challenging and that working through it is something to be proud of. Speaking my concerns and frustrations out loud gave me the space to fully show up for my kids — not as the relentlessly cheerful mom, but just as a steady one. We kept journaling, one entry a day. Slowly, the sessions and the tone began to shift with mentions of a fun math game in class, a few names of new friends, hula lessons, a sea turtle spotting, and a game of sharks and minnows on the blacktop. Inside the pages, we taped positive notes from teachers ('Alice is such a good listener!' and 'Alice helped a classmate today.') and birthday party invitations. And while I'm not sure Alice will ever reconcile her not-so-new-now school's lack of playground equipment, I can report that today, no one in our family loves our island life more than Alice. We still talk about the hard days when they come, but now the good parts of her day fill more than one bullet point… and Alice cheerfully recites them unprompted. This experience didn't just teach me to sit with my daughter's feelings — it taught me to stop trying to rush her out of them. My job isn't to shield her from discomfort or aggressively mine her for silver just to create a lining. It's to walk beside her with honesty, to hold space for what's hard, while teaching her to notice the 'and'— the beauty that can exist alongside the hard parts. Do you have a compelling personal story you'd like to see published on HuffPost? Find out what we're looking for here and send us a pitch at pitch@ Solve the daily Crossword
Yahoo
18 hours ago
- Yahoo
'I did my best': Teacher dies after rescuing 20 kids from Bangladesh plane crash
'I did my best': Teacher dies after rescuing 20 kids from Bangladesh plane crash "Those kids are my kids too," Mahreen Chowdhury told her husband as she lay dying in hospital. Just hours earlier, the teacher had been standing at the entrance to Milestone School and College in the Bangladesh capital of Dhaka, preparing to hand the second- to fifth-grade students over to their parents. But in a split second, what had been an unremarkable Monday lunchtime turned to horror. A Bangladesh Air Force fighter jet crashed into a two-storey building, bursting into flames. Chowdhury - realising there were students still in the building's classrooms - ran back into the burning wreckage. ADVERTISEMENT "I did my best to pull out about 20 to 25 people - as much as I could," Chowdhury's husband Mansur Helal recalls her saying, moments before she was put on ventilation at the intensive care unit of Dhaka's National Burn Institute. "I don't know what happened after that." Chowdhury died later on Monday: in the process of rescuing the children, she had suffered burns to almost 100% of her body. She was among the at least 31 people killed in the accident - 25 of whom are children. Monday's crash marks the deadliest aviation disaster Bangladesh has seen in decades [Getty Images] Bangladesh's armed forces said that the F7 jet had experienced a mechanical fault after taking off for a training exercise just after 13:00 local time (07:00 GMT) on Monday, and that the pilot, Flight Lieutenant Md. Taukir Islam, had tried to steer to a less crowded area. He was among those killed. ADVERTISEMENT The crash marks the deadliest aviation disaster the country has seen in decades. More than 160 people were injured, with an on-duty doctor at the Uttara Adhunik Medical College Hospital saying most were aged between 10 and 15 years old, many suffering from jet fuel burns. More than 50, including children and adults, were taken to hospital with burns, a doctor at the National Institute of Burn and Plastic Surgery said. Mr Helal told BBC Bangla that he first called his wife after hearing the news of the plane crash. When she didn't answer, he asked his eldest son to go to the school and find out what had happened. Soon after, he received a call from an ambulance driver telling him that his wife was being taken to the burns unit at Uttara Modern Medical Hospital. She would later be taken to the ICU. At least 25 children were killed after the plane crashed into the school and burst into flames [Getty Images] Mr Helal said Chowdhury apologised to him from her hospital bed, shortly before being placed on ventilation. As he recalled their final moments together, he broke down in tears. ADVERTISEMENT "She was still alive. She spoke the highest words with great mental strength. Because almost its hundred percent burn inner and outer," he said. Chowdhury worked at Milestone School and College for 17 years, having first joined as a teacher before being promoted to become a coordinator in the Bangla department for classes two to five. She was buried on Tuesday in her home district of Nilphamari, in northern Bangladesh, as flags flew at half mast across the country in a day of mourning for the victims. Hundreds of protesters have called for crash victims to be named and compensation for victims' families, among other things [Getty Images] Muhammad Yunus, the leader of Bangladesh's interim government, has said that an investigation committee has been formed to look into the incident. Across Dhaka on Tuesday, hundreds of protesting students took to the streets to demand an accurate death toll and the resignation of the education adviser – many of them breaking through the main gate of the federal government secretariat, according to local TV footage. ADVERTISEMENT Police fired tear gas and used sound grenades to disperse the crowd, leaving dozens of people injured, witnesses said. The protesters called for the crash victims to be named, as well as compensation for victims' families, the decommissioning of what they said were old and dangerous jets, and a change to air force training procedures. The Bangladesh air disaster comes just weeks after neighbouring India witnessed the world's worst aviation disaster in a decade. An Air India passenger plane bound for London's Gatwick airport crashed shortly after taking off in Ahmedabad, western India, on 12 June, killing 260 people. The crash killed 242 people on board the flight and 19 others on the ground, with only one survivor from the plane.
