Category: #zanews

Up to 100 people were missing after a luxury residential highrise under construction in Nigeria’s commercial capital Lagos collapsed on Monday, trapping construction workers under a pile of concrete rubble, witnesses said.

A body was retrieved and at least three survivors were pulled out on Monday night as rescue workers raced against the clock to dig up victims at the site in the affluent neighbourhood of Ikoyi, where many blocks of flats are under construction.

Workers told Reuters that possibly 100 people were at work when the building came crashing down.

Rescue workers used excavators to dig through rubble using generator-powered flood lights. The retrieved body was put in a waiting van while at least three people who were rescued were taken to nearby ambulances.

Building collapses are frequent in Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country, where regulations are poorly enforced and construction materials often substandard.

There were heaps of rubble and twisted metal where the building once stood, as several workers looked on. One man wailed, saying his relative was among those trapped.

The Lagos state government said the building had 22 floors and authorities were assessing whether there had been any damage to nearby buildings.

The collapsed building was part of three towers being built by private developer Fourscore Homes. In a brochure for potential clients, the company promises to offer “a stress-free lifestyle, complete with a hotel flair”. The cheapest unit was selling for $1.2 million.

Calls to the numbers listed for Fourscore Homes and the main building contractor did not ring through.

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The Ethiopian government accused rebellious Tigrayan forces on Monday of killing 100 youths in the town of Kombolcha, as the United States expressed concern about Tigrayan advances a year into the fighting.

The Tigrayan forces led by the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) denied the allegation. Spokesperson Getachew Reda said from an undisclosed location, “We don’t have to kill the youth. There was no resistance in Kombolcha.”

Government spokesperson Legesse Tulu did not respond when asked by phone and message for a comment on Getachew’s statement, but he had earlier in the day referred Reuters to the government statement on the alleged killing in Kombolcha.

The Tigrayan forces have been fighting the government for the past year in a widening war that has destabilised Africa’s second most populous nation.

Communications to the area are down and journalists are barred. On Sunday, Getachew, the TPLF spokesperson, said its fighters had pushed south to take Kombolcha and its airport. If confirmed, it would be the closest the TPLF has got to the capital since pushing into Tigray’s neighbouring region of Amhara in July.

Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed later that day called on all citizens to mobilise – threatening to exacerbate a conflict that has threatened to tear apart a country once seen as a stable Western ally in a volatile region.

The Government Communication Service said on Twitter, “The terrorist group TPLF has summarily executed more than 100 youth residents of Kombolcha in areas it has infiltrated.”

The statement gave no further details and Legesse, the government spokesperson, did not answer phone calls seeking comment about whether those killed were combatants or civilians.

HUMANITARIAN CRISIS

While he has in general decried ethnic cleansing and other abuses in the war, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken earlier on Monday criticised Tigrayan forces, saying he was alarmed by reports that they had taken Kombolcha and Dessie, a nearby town that the Tigrayan forces said they had seized on Saturday.

“Continued fighting prolongs the dire humanitarian crisis in northern Ethiopia. All parties must stop military operations and begin ceasefire negotiations without preconditions,” Blinken said.

Tens of thousands of ethnic Amharas have sought refuge from an escalation in fighting in Dessie. The government denied Dessie, which is north of Kombolcha, was under Tigrayan control.

The capture of Kombolcha would be a strategic gain for the fighters against Ethiopia’s military and their allies, who are trying to dislodge the Tigrayans from the Amhara region.

War broke out a year ago between federal troops and the TPLF, which dominated Ethiopian politics for nearly 30 years before Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed was appointed in 2018. The conflict has killed thousands of civilians and forced more than 2.5 million people to flee their homes.

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Seven Malian soldiers were killed on Saturday in two separate attacks on patrols in the centre-west of the country, the army said, the latest bloodshed to indicate violence is shifting southward into previously peaceful areas.

At around 11:20 GMT an army escort was ambushed near the town of Mourdiah, around 200 km (120 miles) north of the capital Bamako, killing two and injuring three, the army said in a statement published on Facebook.

Two hours later an army truck hit a roadside bomb near Segou, around 200 km (120 miles) north-east of Bamako, killing all five passengers, the army said.

“A sweep of the area where the incident took place led to the arrest of two suspects who were immediately handed over to the gendarmerie,” the army said, without accusing a group of responsibility for either attack.

Armed attacks by Islamist militants and other groups are common across vast swathes of Mali and its neighbours Burkina Faso and Niger, despite a heavy presence of international troops. Thousands of civilians have been killed and millions displaced.

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Unidentified armed men killed five police officers in an attack on security forces in northern Burkina Faso in the early hours of Sunday, in which around 15 of the attackers died, the security ministry said in a statement.

The incident occurred in Sourou province in the borderlands near Mali, where groups with links to al Qaeda and Islamic State have increased attacks in recent years despite international efforts to stamp them out.

The attackers struck at 5 a.m. and around 15 of them were killed in the ensuing fight, the ministry said.

Attacks have surged across Africa’s Sahel region, killing thousands and driving millions from their homes in Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger. About 1.2 million people have been displaced by the violence in Burkina Faso alone.

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