Thousands of Ecuadorians flee their homes as gang violence worsens

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By Yury Garcia and Alexandra Valencia Reuters | Posted by TOE For one grandmother, it was when bullets began hitting the rooftops of her neighborhood that she decided she would have to leave the housing development where she had lived for nearly 20 years. A sharp rise in fighting between gang factions in Ecuador has prompted thousands ​of families to flee and abandon their homes to the gangs, who strip the houses for drug money or use them to hide kidnapping victims, according to residents and police. One of the areas ‌that has been the site of the heaviest bloodshed is the Nueva Prosperina district in the coastal city of Guayaquil, where fighting between factions of the Los Tiguerones gang last year killed 22 people. Among those who fled was a 66-year-old woman, who, like other residents of the district Reuters spoke to for this story, asked not to be identified for fear of reprisals from the gangs. Armed groups were targeting people indiscriminately, assuming that an...
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Russian missile hits educational institution, kills five in Ukraine’s Odesa

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By Iryna Nazarchuk Reuters

A Russian missile attack on an educational institution in a popular seafront park in the Ukrainian Black Sea port of Odesa on Monday killed at least five people and injured 32, local officials said.

Regional governor Oleh Kiper, writing on the Telegram messaging app, said that in addition to those killed in the attack, one man died after suffering a stroke attributed to the strike.

Kiper said eight of the injured were in serious condition, including a 4-year-old child. Among the injured were another child and a pregnant woman.

Reuters Television footage showed the roof of the ornate building, a private law academy, all but destroyed after the strike. Firefighters were directing water on small fires still burning.

“Monsters. Beasts. Savages. Scum. I don’t know what else to say,” Odesa Mayor Hennadii Trukhanov said in a video posted on Telegram. “People are going for a walk by the sea and they are shooting and killing.”

Pictures posted earlier online showed the building ablaze and smoke billowing skyward.

Video footage, which could not be immediately verified, showed people receiving treatment on the street alongside pools of blood. One photo showed officials examining part of a missile.

A student at the academy who identified herself by her first name, Maria, said the blaze was caused when the missile was intercepted.

“In front of my eyes, a missile was shot down, this was just in front of me. My doors were blown open and the glass was shaking. And then I saw this,” she told Reuters, pointing to the burning building.00:25UN experts say North Korea missile landed in Kharkiv

“Just before this happened, we wanted to go down there for a walk, but thank God we weren’t there when it happened.”

Ukrainian navy spokesperson Dmytro Pletenchuk, in a posting on a military Telegram channel, said the strike was conducted by an Iskander-M ballistic missile with a cluster warhead.

Public broadcaster Suspilne said the academy’s president, a prominent former member of parliament, Serhiy Kivalov, was among the injured.

Odesa has been a frequent target of Russian missile and drone attacks, particular port infrastructure.



from The Times Of Earth https://ift.tt/KVQJhm9

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