NEWS OF THE DAY
Deadly crash: At least 35 people were killed, most of them children, after a school bus crashed in northern Tanzania, police said Saturday. The bus had been carrying students from a school in Arusha, Region Police Commander Charles Mkumbo said. It skidded off the road near the Mlera river and plunged into a ravine. The dead included 32 students, two teachers and the bus driver. President John Magufuli sent a message with his condolences to families of the victims. Africa has the world’s highest per capita rate of road deaths, though it has roughly just 2 percent of the world’s vehicles, the World Bank has reported.
Refugees rescued: A Spanish navy ship rescued 651 migrants trying to cross the Mediterranean from North Africa to Europe early Saturday, authorities said. Spain’s defense ministry said the frigate Canarias, participating in a joint European Union mission, made the rescue off the coast of Libya. The ministry said the operation was carried out in complete darkness and that the refugees were from several different sub-Saharan countries. Canarias has saved 1,958 migrants in less than three months patrolling the Mediterranean.
Detained activists: The United States has joined the European Union and U.N. human rights agencies in expressing concern over the extended pretrial detention of five Cambodian human rights activists held for more than a year. The five current or former staff members of the group ADHOC — the Cambodian Human Rights and Development Association — are being held for allegedly bribing a woman to change testimony that was damaging to then-deputy opposition leader Kem Sokha, who was accused of acting illegally in connection with an alleged extramarital affair. The related cases are generally seen as part of a campaign by Prime Minister Hun Sen’s government to weaken its political opponents, especially ahead of local elections this June. A statement released Friday by the U.S. State Department urged Cambodia to meet its obligations under international human rights statutes.
Climber dies: An 85-year-old man from Nepal died Saturday while attempting to scale Mount Everest to regain his title as the oldest person to climb the world’s highest peak, officials said. Min Bahadur Sherchan died at the Everest base camp. The cause of death was not immediately clear, said Dinesh Bhattarai of Nepal’s Tourism Department. Sherchan, a grandfather of 17 and great-grandfather to six, first scaled Everest in May 2008 when he was 76 — at the time becoming the oldest climber to reach the top. His record was broken in 2013 by 80-year-old Japanese climber Yuichiro Miura. Before leaving for the mountain last month, Sherchan said that once he had completed the climb, he intended to travel to conflict areas to spread a message of peace.
Poland protest: Thousands of Poles marched through Warsaw on Saturday to protest the policies of the populist ruling party under Jaroslaw Kaczynski, describing them as attacks on the country’s democracy. Speakers at the “March of Freedom” said the government under the conservative Law and Justice party has eroded the independence of Poland’s courts and other institutions to such an extent that the country would not be accepted into the European Union or NATO today if it didn’t already belong. The event was organized by the opposition Civic Platform party, but other opposition parties and the Committee for the Defense of Democracy, a civic organization, also took part.
Egypt violence: The decapitated bodies of a father and his two sons recently kidnapped by Islamic militants were found Saturday lying in the street in the northern Sinai town of Rafah, according to security officials and witnesses — the latest grotesque act of brutality in the country’s long-running insurgency. They said the mother of the two siblings was killed last week by militants from the Islamic State group when they raided the family home and kidnapped the three men they suspect of being collaborators. The Islamic State is spearheading an insurgency in northern Sinai, where there has recently been an increase in the abduction and killing of suspected informants. The brutal killings are meant to serve as a deterrent to would-be collaborators.