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Record number of refugees enter Hungary from Serbia

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More than 2,000 refugees crossed frontier on Monday, just days before Hungary completes a border fence.

After crossing Serbia, refugees enter Hungary to continue their journey to western and northern EU countries [EPA]

After crossing Serbia, refugees enter Hungary to continue their journey to western and northern EU countries [EPA]

by Al Jazeera

A record number of refugees streamed into EU member Hungary from Serbia, police said, just days before Hungary completes a border fence.

A total of 2,093 potential asylum seekers, the highest ever daily total, crossed the border near the Hungarian town of Roszke, a police statement said on Monday.

They were part of a wave of around 8,000 refugees whose journey to the European Union had been blocked last week when Macedonia declared a state of emergency and closed its borders after being overwhelmed by the huge influx of people, amid Europe’s worst refugee crisis since World War II.

Many refugees said they had passed through Serbia after travelling through Macedonia’s border with Greece.

“We were stopped in Macedonia for two days, the riots were terrible, police used guns and tear gas, I saw an old woman beaten, her money and papers taken,” a 29-year-old IT engineer from Mosul in Iraq told the AFP news agency.

Al Jazeera’s Djordge Kostic, reporting near the border with Hungary, said an estimated 1,500 refugees are currently staying at 28 shelters set up by the UN and Russian-Serbian aid organisation in the city of Kanjiza.

He said the refugee situation at Kanjiza is “better organised” than in other parts of Serbia.

“There water, food, toilet and shower stalls provided to them. They even have Wi-Fi,” he said.

From there, the refugees can proceed to Horgos, about 12-km away, where they can take the train to Hungary, our correspondent said.

Meanwhile,Al Jazeera’s Aljosa Milenkovic, reporting from Presevo on the Serbia-Macedonia border, said more refugees were likely to come, “putting to test the region’s ability to cope with the large number of people transiting through”.

The latest movements came as German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Fracois Hollande called for a unified system for the right to asylum, and the setting up of reception centres in Greece and Italy.

The issue is set to top the agenda at a summit of Balkan leaders on Thursday, which Merkel will attend.

Razor-wire fence

Hungary has registered more than 100,000 asylum seekers so far in 2015, over double the total for all of last year. In 2012, the figure was just 2,000.

The numbers have sharply increased to around 1,500 a day in August, after Hungary’s conservative government announced it would build a razor-wire fence along its southern border with Serbia.

In recent days, refugees have entered Hungary alongside a cross-border train track near Roszke, one of the few sections of the border with Serbia not yet blocked by three rolls of razor-wire, which the government says will completely seal off the border by August 31.

The fence is one of several measures making it more difficult for refugees to enter and stay in Hungary. The government is also tightening asylum laws, introducing penalties for illegal border-crossing, and the planned closure of permanent refugee camps.

About 102,000 “migrants” entered the EU via Macedonia, Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Albania, Montenegro or Kosovo between January and July this year, versus just 8,000 for the same period in 2014, according to EU border agency Frontex.

The number of refugees now making their way from Greece towards the EU is worrying many EU politicians and has left the Balkan countries struggling to cope with the humanitarian crisis.

China stocks suffer biggest one-day loss in eight years

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China market plummets more than eight percent as investors disillusioned with measures taken dump shares.

EPA/WOO HE

EPA/WOO HE

by Al Jazeera

China’s stock market has fallen by its biggest margin in eight years at the end of trading, defying the government’s multibillion-dollar effort to stop a slide that has wiped out the gains of this year’s price boom.

The plunge on Monday in China’s equities followed last week’s losses of 11 percent, and hammered stock prices across Asia, as fears grew that a slowdown in China could send the rest of the world into a recession.

The Shanghai Composite Index fell 8.5 percent to close at 3,209.91 points, its biggest one-day loss since an 8.8 percent decline on February 27, 2007. The index is down 38 percent from its June 12 peak.

Analysts blame the fall on both weak onshore performance and investors moving money out of yuan-denominated assets after a surprise devaluation in the Chinese currency earlier in August.

The further decline threatened to weigh anew on global markets after last week’s Chinese losses triggered a worldwide selloff.

Meanwhile, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index fell for the seventh straight day, dropping 5.2 percent to 21,251.57 points as Taipei stocks tumbled 583.85 points to 7,203.07 in morning trading, a drop of 7.49 percent.

More than $5 trillion has been wiped off the value of global equities markets since China’s shock devaluation.

Many investors had expected the People’s Bank of China would over the weekend cut the amount banks have to keep in reserves, which could boost stocks by increasing market liquidity and address weakness in China’s vast manufacturing sector.

No such move materialised, and the only policy support in evidence was an announcement formalising rules allowing pension funds to buy stocks, a policy initiative that had already been trailed.

Earlier measures taken

Beijing already carried out rounds of cuts to transaction fees and encouraged companies to buy back their own stock. Such buybacks usually result in increased valuations of outstanding shares by reducing net supply.

Rajiv Biswas, a senior director and economist for IHS Global Insight in Singapore, told Al Jazeera that Beijing needs to do more to prop up the economy.

“It doesn’t seem that they are prepared to really put in a big package of measures, but would rather put in dribs and drabs along the way. And that is not convincing anybody that the economy is about the turn around anytime soon,” he said.

“One of the problems is that they are directing their efforts towards stabilising the stock market. But we are not seeing enough initiatives to support the real economy,” Biswas added.

“It’s the real economy that investors in the country are not confident about. All the signs are showing that the economy is cooling.”

Al Jazeera’s Adrian Brown, reporting from Beijing, said that malaise on the markets could continue as investors awaited US gross domestic product or GDP figures set for release this week, and a decision on whether the US Federal Reserve would lift interest rates.

Monday’s falls followed heavy falls on Wall Street on Friday, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average posting its worst single-day session in four years and all benchmark indices losing more than three percent.

Iraqi forces clash with ISIL in push for Anbar

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Dozens of casualties reported as army backed by militias expand offensive to retake western province.

Iraqi forces and loyalists launched an offensive to recapture Anbar province in July [Reuters]

Iraqi forces and loyalists launched an offensive to recapture Anbar province in July [Reuters]

by Al Jazeera

Dozens of Iraqi forces have reportedly been killed by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) in Iraq’s Anbar province, which has witnessed heavy fighting since Iraqi forces launched an offensive in July.

Three car bombs in Al Toui, northwest of Ramadi, killed at least 18 Iraqi forces and members of the Popular Mobilisation Forces on Monday, sources told Al Jazeera.

A total death toll of 46 Iraqi forces and Popular Mobilisation Forces has been reported following days of heavy clashes in several areas as Iraqi forces advanced in their offensive to recapture Anbar province.

At least seven ISIL fighters have been killed, military sources said.

Karim al-Nouri, a spokesman for the Popular Mobilisation Forces, an umbrella organisation of mainly Shia militiamen, said the operation to recapture Anbar has been difficult but the forces have been able to advance towards Ramadi, the capital of Anbar.

“We entered from near Fallujah and pushed northwest of the city. We lost forces along the way but the army and several government hospitals have been a great help,” al-Nouri told Al Jazeera.

“Our aim is to trap ISIL, and it is no longer about who outnumbers who – it’s about the type of weapons being used and we are prepared.”

Al-Nouri said a large number of Iraqi soldiers, moblisation forces and tribal fighters were taking part in the operation.

Significant province

ISIL captured Ramadi in early May and controls most of Anbar, including the city of Fallujah.

Anbar stretches from Iraq’s western borders with Syria, Jordan and Saudi Arabia all the way east along the Euphrates to the outskirts of Baghdad.

Iraqi forces and loyalists launched an offensive to recapture Anbar province in July, and have been trying to enter the province from several points but have been met with strong resistance from ISIL.

On Friday, ISIL ambushed Iraqi forces and loyalists west of Ramadi, killing up to 50 soldiers.

Anbar has been rocked by violence since the beginning of 2014, months before ISIL launched a nationwide offensive that saw it advance through northern Iraq.

It is currently the main focus of the Iraqi government’s efforts to regain lost ground, with large military operations under way in several parts of the province and multiple daily air strikes by jets from the US-led coalition.

Thousands stuck in limbo at Macedonia border bottleneck

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Rain-soaked refugees brave elements in no man’s land as Macedonian police continue to block border crossing from Greece.

A Syrian refugee woman cries on her husbands arms as they wait to cross into Macedonia at the Greek-Macedonian border [Reuters]

A Syrian refugee woman cries on her husbands arms as they wait to cross into Macedonia at the Greek-Macedonian border [Reuters]

by Al Jazeera

Thousands of rain-soaked refugees remain trapped in a no man’s land between Greece and Macedonia as Macedonian police continue to block the frontier, preventing them from heading north to other nations within the European Union.

Police let small groups of families with children cross the border overnight on Friday by walking to a railway station in the Macedonian town of Gevgelija, where most take trains to the border with Serbia before heading towards EU-member Hungary.

Those who could not cross, including many women and children, spent the rainy and chilly night in the open, the Associated Press news agency reported.

Al Jazeera’s Jonah Hull, reporting from Idomeni on the Greek side of the border, said people were continuing to arrive at the border crossing, where a “bottleneck” had formed on Saturday morning.

“This is now a bottleneck of people, there are hundreds, thousands even, and they’ll keep coming throughout the day,” he said.

Our correspondent said large numbers of Syrians had moved back from the point of crossing to separate themselves from other nationalities.

“They want to separate themselves from the other nationalities; the Pakistanis, the Afghans, the Iraqis…what they say is that all these other nationalities claim to be Syrians as well, because it is the Syrians who have the most valid claim to asylum.

“They are refugees, they are fleeing civil war. Many of the others, they say, are economic migrants.”

Violent clashes

Police fired stun grenades and clashed with the migrants who tried to rush over the border on Friday, a day after Macedonia’s government declared a state of emergency on the frontier to deal with the issue.

Ivo Kotevsky, a spokesman for the interior ministry, told Al Jazeera that the officers had not used violence against the refugees but had been forced to take measures to protect themselves and the border.

Kotevsky said Macedonia was trying to do its best in protecting the refugees, who had been “practically expelled from Greece”.

The refugees hope that by crossing to Macedonia they would be able to take trains through Serbia to Hungary, an EU member, which has begun erecting a fence to try to keep the distraught refugees out.

The United Nations refugee agency (UNHCR) urged the Macedonian government to do more, saying it should allocate a site to accommodate people fleeing war.

UNHCR spokesman Petros Mastakas told Al Jazeera that the refugees included “hundreds of vulnerable persons, children, babies and those with extreme vulnerabilities including medical needs.

“Most of them stay rough in the open air,” he said.

North Korea leader orders army to be ready for war

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Kim Jong-un quoted as ordering army units to “enter wartime state” after exchange of artillery shells with South Korea.

S Korea's president held an emergency meeting of her National Security Council and ordered a "stern response" [Reuters]

S Korea’s president held an emergency meeting of her National Security Council and ordered a “stern response” [Reuters]

by Al Jazeera

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has ordered his frontline troops to be ready for war, against a backdrop of rising military tensions between his country and South Korea.

The announcement follows an exchange of artillery shells across the two countries’ heavily fortified border.

The Demilitarised Zone (DMZ) is a legacy of the 1950-53 Korean War, which ended with an armistice, not a peace treaty, leaving the Korean Peninsula still technically in a state of war.

The North’s official KCNA news agency said the move came during an emergency meeting late on Thursday of the powerful Central Military Commission of which Kim is the chairman.

During the meeting, Kim ordered frontline, combined units of the Korean People’s Army (KPA) to “enter a wartime state” from Friday 5pm local time (08:00 GMT).

The troops should be “fully battle ready to launch surprise operations” while the entire frontline should be placed in a “semi-war state,” KCNA quoted him as saying.

The CMC meeting came hours after the two Koreas traded artillery fire on Thursday, leaving no apparent casualties but pushing already elevated cross-border tensions to dangerously high levels.

The KPA followed up with an ultimatum sent via military hotline that gave the South 48 hours to dismantle loudspeakers blasting propaganda messages across the border or face further military action.

The ultimatum expires on Saturday at 5pm.

The 1950-53 Korean War, which ended with an armistice, left the Korean Peninsula technically in a state of war [AP]

The South’s defence ministry dismissed the threat and said the broadcasts would continue.

The CMC backed the army’s ultimatum and also ratified plans for “a retaliatory strike and counterattack on the whole length of the front”, KCNA said.

There was no immediate response from South Korea, but the unification ministry announced it was restricting access to the North-South’s joint industrial zone at Kaesong.

Only South Koreans with direct business interests in Kaesong – which lies 10km over the border inside North Korea – would be allowed to travel there, a ministry spokesman said.

The Kaesong industrial estate hosts about 120 South Korean firms employing up to 53,000 North Korean workers and is a vital source of hard currency for the North.

Restricting access will probably be seen as a thinly veiled threat by South Korea to shut the complex down completely if the situation at the border escalates further.

Thursday’s artillery exchange in a western quarter of the border came amid heightened tensions following mine blasts that maimed two members of a South Korean border patrol earlier this month and the launch this week of a major South Korea-US military exercise that angered North Korea.

South Korea said the mines were placed by the North and responded by resuming propaganda broadcasts across the border, using loudspeakers that had remained silent for more than a decade.

The South Korean military said the North side fired first on Thursday and that it retaliated with dozens of 155mm howitzer gun rounds.

South Korean troops were placed on maximum alert, while President Park Geun-hye chaired an emergency meeting of her National Security Council and ordered a “stern response” to any further provocations.

The CMC meeting in Pyongyang insisted that the situation would only de-escalate if South Korea turned off the propaganda loudspeakers.

The US and UN both said they were following the situation on the Korean peninsula with deep concern.

The US State Department urged North Korea to avoid provoking any further escalation and said it remained “steadfast” in its commitment to defending ally South Korea.

Dozens of people on the South Korean side of the border were evacuated to underground bunkers when the North’s shell fell [AP]

Fatal shooting of black teen in US city sparks protests

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Crowds come out on streets of St Luis in Missouri state against killing of 18-year-old teenager by white policeman.

Arrests were made during the protests that followed the fatal shooting [Reuters]

Arrests were made during the protests that followed the fatal shooting [Reuters]

by Al Jazeera

Police in the US state of Missouri have fatally shot a black teenager, who they say pointed a gun at them, and later faced angry crowds, reigniting racial tensions in the country.

Sam Dotson, the police chief of the city of St Louis, said the shooting took place on Wednesday when young black men ran out of the back door of a house where two officers were carrying out a search warrant.

Officers ordered the pair to stop in an alley behind the house. One suspect pointed a gun at officers who then fired four times, killing him, Dotson said.

“Detectives were looking for guns, looking for violent felons, looking for people that have been committing crimes in the neighbourhood,” he said.

Police identified the slain suspect as Mansur Ball-Bey, 18. The second teenager fled.

Both officers, who are white, were unharmed, police said, adding that they were on administrative leave.

Following the incident, crowds gathered at a nearby intersection shortly after the shooting and then again in the evening. Three people were arrested for blocking traffic, police said.

NBC television affiliate KSDK reported that some in the crowd threw rocks at officers, who responded with what appeared to be tear gas.

Unrest after shooting

St. Louis television station Fox 2 showed officers in riot gear lined up across a street, a burning mattress and clouds of smoke or tear gas.

St. Louis Alderman, Antonio French, posted on Twitter that a vacant house and a car were set on fire, and that firefighters were working under heavy police guard.

Dotson the police chief told reporters that Ball-Bey’s gun was stolen and said officers recovered crack cocaine at the scene.

The city police said the officers involved in the shooting were white, aged 33 and 29, each with about seven years on the force.

The shooting came 10 days after the city was flooded with protesters marking the anniversary of the killing of unarmed black teenager Michael Brown by a white police officer on August 9 last year in Ferguson, not far from St Louis.

Brown’s death helped spark a nationwide movement against what protesters say is police violence against minorities.

Wednesday’s shooting also came as activists were in the area to mark the anniversary of the police shooting of another black man in St. Louis, Kajieme Powell. Police say officers shot Powell when he approached them with a knife.

UN peacekeepers face new sex abuse allegations in CAR

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Three more accusations levelled against peacekeepers in CAR a week after Ban Ki-Moon asked UN head of mission to resign.

UN peacekeepers earlier had been accused of sexually abusing children in Bangui and in the eastern part of the country [AP]

UN peacekeepers earlier had been accused of sexually abusing children in Bangui and in the eastern part of the country [AP]

by Al Jazeera

Three young females, including a minor, have accused United Nations peacekeepers of raping them in the Central African Republic, the global body has announced, taking the number of allegations to 13 since the UN stationed troops in the country in September.

The announcement on Wednesday comes a week after Ban Ki-Moon, UN secretary-general, removed the head of the peacekeeping mission in CAR over the handling of a series of similar allegations in the conflict-wracked country.

Vannina Maestracci, spokesperson for the secretary general’s office, told reporters that families of the three young females made the allegations on August 12 and that the alleged rapes occurred in “recent weeks”.

Similarly, a statement from the peacekeeping mission said UN headquarters was “immediately informed” of the allegations and that it was collecting “all available evidence”.

The alleged rapes occurred in the city of Bambari, where peacekeepers from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) are stationed.

The CAR is still battling daily clashes between rival militias in the country’s hinterlands [Reuters]

Congo’s UN ambassador, Ignace Gata Mavita wa Lufuta, told The Associated Press news agency that three members of Congo’s military have been accused and that he had just met with UN officials about looking into the allegations.

He didn’t address the allegations but said it’s “not normal” that vulnerable people would be victims of those meant to protect them.

Congo’s troops serve in no other UN peacekeeping missions, and its nearly 900 troops were accepted into the mission in CAR at a time when few countries were volunteering people to serve in the chaotic country, which has been ripped by unprecedented violence between Christians and Muslims.

Last August, the New York-based Watchlist on Children and Armed Conflict said Congo’s troops, which were already in the country as part of an African Union mission, should be excluded from the UN mission.

The advocacy network pointed out that Congo’s armed forces have been noted in Ban’s annual report on conflict-related sexual violence. They were included again this year.

Last week, following the removal of the head of the CAR peacekeeping mission, Ban met with the Security Council and the heads of all UN peacekeeping missions to discuss new measures to swiftly investigate alleged sexual assaults and hold peacekeepers accountable.

Ban’s actions came after Amnesty International accused UN peacekeepers in CAR’s capital this month of indiscriminately killing a 16-year-old boy and his father and, in a separate incident, of raping a 12-year-old girl.

UN peacekeepers earlier had been accused of sexually abusing children in Bangui and in the eastern part of the country.

The peacekeeping mission is also being investigated over how it handled child sexual abuse allegations against French troops last year, in which children as young as nine said they had traded sex for food.

Maestracci, the UN spokeswoman, said that so far, the peacekeeping mission has received 13 allegations of possible sexual abuse and exploitation since UN troops began arriving last year.

Under an agreement with the UN, countries have the sole responsibility to prosecute their troops taking part in peacekeeping missions, but if they take no action to investigate, the UN can step in. Even then, the UN only has the power to repatriate troops and suspend payments to countries for troops who are accused.

In at least one case of alleged sexual abuse or exploitation by a peacekeeper in CAR, a country repatriated its accused citizen, the UN said.

Around 2.7 million people, more than half the population, are still in need of aid, while 1.5 million people were affected by food insecurity [AFP]

Thai police: Bangkok bomber did not act alone

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Erawan shrine reopens as police release sketch of man suspected to be behind attack that left 20 people dead.

Bangkokbombing

by Al Jazeera

Thai police have released a sketch of the main suspect in a deadly bombing that killed at least 20 people in the capital Bangkok, as the national police chief said the attack was carried out by “a network”.

Police chief Somyot Poompanmoung said on Wednesday that the attacker did not carry out Monday’s attack by himself, without elaborating further.

He made the comment as he headed into a meeting of national police commanders, adding that he was carrying orders from the prime minister who “is worried about the security of people and tourists in Thailand”.

“He didn’t do it alone, for sure. It’s a network,” Poompanmoung told the Associated Press.

Police say two other suspects have been identified in CCTV footage of the blast site.

Officials various times said that they did not rule out any group, including elements opposed to the military government, though they said it did not match the tactics of Muslim fighters in the south or “red shirt” supporters of the previous administration.

Foreigners dead

The sketch released shows a fair-skinned man with thick, medium-length black hair, a wispy beard and black glasses. It is unclear whether the man was Thai or a foreigner.

The attack left at least 11 foreigners dead, with Chinese, Singaporeans, Indonesians and a family from Malaysia among the victims.

More than 100 other people were wounded by the blast that shredded bodies at one of the city’s busiest intersections.

On Tuesday, the police released grainy closed-circuit television (CCTV) footage of a young man wearing a yellow t-shirt.

Police say the sketch could help locate the yellow-shirted man seen in the CCTV footage. A 1 million baht ($28,000) reward has been offered to anyone who can give police information leading to his arrest.

Police also said they would take the sketch to a court and ask that an arrest warrant be issued for a man matching the description.

Shrine reopened

On Wednesday, Buddhist monks led prayers for the reopening of a Bangkok shrine located in busy Ratchaprasong commercial district.

A small explosion on Tuesday by a bridge at the city’s Chao Praya River has been tied to Monday’s bomb.

Colonel Kamthorn Ouicharoen, of the Thai bomb squad police, confirmed the bridge bomb was the same type as the one detonated at the Erawan shrine.

Thailand has experienced a near-decade long political crisis that has seen endless rounds of street violence, but never anything on the scale of Monday’s bomb.

Al Jazeera’s Scott Heidler, reporting from Bangkok, said the bombings came just as tourism is rebounding in Thailand.

“The arrival numbers of the all-important Chinese market doubled for the first half of this year compared to the same period last year,” he said.

About 10,000 additional security forces have been deployed in Bangkok after the bombing, reassuring some tourists.

“At first I was shocked to hear about the blast. After assessing the situation, I think Bangkok might be safer after the bomb,” one Chinese tourist told Al Jazeera.

Sri Lanka PM claims victory over ex-president in polls

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Former President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s attempt to stage a comeback in parliamentary elections has ended in defeat.

Elections Commissioner Mahinda Deshapriya said the vote had been one of the most peaceful in Sri Lanka's history [AFP]

Elections Commissioner Mahinda Deshapriya said the vote had been one of the most peaceful in Sri Lanka’s history [AFP]

by Al Jazeera

Former president Mahinda Rajapaksa’s attempt to stage a comeback in Sri Lanka’s general election has ended in defeat as results showed the alliance that toppled him making decisive gains.

The ruling United National Party (UNP) was likely to fall just short of an outright majority but Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe should still command enough support to form a stable government.

“I offer my grateful thanks to all parties and individuals who worked untiringly during the election period to ensure victory for the people,” Wickremesinghe, 66, said in a statement on Tuesday.

“Let us together build a civilised society, build a consensual government and create a new country.”

If confirmed, the outcome would be a triumph for President Maithripala Sirisena, who beat his former ally Rajapaksa in a presidential vote in January and called early parliamentary polls to secure a stronger mandate for reforms. Rajapaksa was Sri Lanka’s president for nine years until his January 8 election defeat.

Defeat for Rajapaksa will keep Sri Lanka on a non-aligned foreign policy course and loosen its ties with China, which during his rule pumped billions of dollars into turning the Indian Ocean island into a maritime outpost.

Victory over former mentor

With results from 18 of Sri Lanka’s 22 districts in, Wickremesinghe’s UNP had won about 105 seats in the 225-seat parliament.

A total of 196 seats are up for grabs in multi-member constituencies with a further 29 to be allocated by proportional representation in the 225-seat chamber.

Since his surprise victory over his former mentor, Sirisena has struggled to impose his authority over his United People’s Freedom Alliance (UPFA) party and was powerless to prevent Rajapakse’s Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP), from standing as one of its candidates.

Sirisena threatened to invoke his executive powers to prevent his combative predecessor from becoming prime minister, but Rajapakse was banking on a strong showing to force Sirisena to back down.

Rajapaksa was hailed a warrior king for defeating Tamil Tiger separatists to end a nearly 26-year civil war. But he is accused of using his popularity to take control of parliament, the courts, the armed forces and all government institutions.

He was also accused of widespread human rights abuses and of suppressing freedoms.

Elections Commissioner Mahinda Deshapriya said the vote had been one of the most peaceful in Sri Lanka’s history. About 70 per cent of the 15 million registered voters voted in Monday’s elections.

Police spokesman Ruwan Gunasekara said 35 people were arrested countrywide for election law violations.

The mood on the streets was subdued on Tuesday, with celebrations and street processions banned for a week after the polls under Sri Lankan election laws.

Bangkok bomb: Deadly blast rocks Thailand capital

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blast Thailand

by BBC

Bangkok: A bomb has exploded close to a shrine in the centre of the Thai capital, Bangkok, police say.

Local reports suggest at least 12 people have died and at least 20 more have been injured.

The BBC’s Jonathan Head, who is at the scene, says there is a huge amount of chaos, with body parts scattered everywhere.
The attack took place close to the Erawan Shrine in the capital’s central Chidlom district.

The explosion occurred at about 19:00 local time (12:00 GMT), with police saying it may have been caused by a motorcycle bomb.

‘Burnt motorbikes’

Our correspondent says this a very well known shrine in the centre of Bangkok, next to a five-star hotel.

He says people around the shrine were hit by the full force of the blast.

There are burnt motorbikes on the main road, with paramedics and police trying to take the injured away, he says.

The shrine is to the Hindu god Brahma but is also visited by thousands of Buddhists each day.

National police spokesman Lt Gen Prawut Thavornsiri told Agence France-Presse news agency: “I can confirm it was a bomb, we can’t tell which kind yet, we are checking.”

The explosion was on the Ratchaprasong intersection, which has been the centre of political demonstrations in recent years.

Our correspondent says bomb attacks in Bangkok are extremely rare.

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