At least 31 bodies have been found in the Madagascan capital after protests called by an opponent of the president turned violent, taking the toll in the unrest to 34, officials said on Tuesday.
Firefighters found 25 charred bodies in the rubble of a shopping center ravaged by fire, while six bodies were recovered from a site owned by Madagascan President Marc Ravalomanana.
“There are 25 charred bodies. They got caught in the fire,” Antananarivo’s head fireman Jaona Andrianaivo said.
“We only found them this afternoon as there was a lot of rubble,” he said.
Police spokesman Lala Rakotonirina said the six others died in a stampede as protesters looted the warehouse belonging to Ravalomanana’s own company.
A prisoner was also killed, and 10 other wounded on Tuesday when security forces fired on inmates who tried to break out of a prison in the capital.
Two people died on Monday in the protests, security forces chief Lucien Emmanuel Raharijaona told reporters earlier although he did not elaborate.
The anti-government protests, called by Antananarivo mayor Andry Rajoelina, a vocal government critic, turned chaotic on Monday with protesters raiding and setting fire to buildings including a state-run radio station.
Rajoelina’s deputy said one protestor was shot in the head by guards in front of Ravalomanana’s private TV station MBS, which along with the state radio building had been besieged by an angry mob.
Although Rajoelina called off the demonstrations, he ruled out talks on Tuesday until the person behind the shooting was tried.
Police patrolling Antananarivo streets fired several warning shots in the air to disperse looters, said Armandin Ralaiko, a senior police official.
No demonstrations took place, but groups of opposition supporters gathered earlier in the day at street corners and a city park where the mayor held a huge rally on Saturday.
The growing political unrest forced Ravalomanana, who first came to power after disputed elections in 2001, to cut short a trip to South Africa and rush home on Sunday.
He had earlier called for calm and talks with his opponent who has labelled his regime a dictatorship.
“I call on people to calm down. We need to put aside our pride, our egos. We need to talk,” Ravalomanana said, adding he had already established “some contacts” with his rival.
Rajoelina has ratcheted up opposition to the government since last month, when it shut down his television network Viva for broadcasting an interview with former president Didier Ratsiraka and has become an increasingly outspoken opponent of the president.
He has repeatedly condemned what he says are shrinking freedoms on the Indian Ocean island and also fiercely criticized a massive project to lease vast swathes of farmland to South Korean industrial giant Daewoo.
Madagascar has been dogged over the years by political turmoil. The run-up to the 2006 presidential elections won by Ravalomanana was fraught with unrest, including a series of grenade explosions rocking the capital.
In 2001 the country’s presidential elections also ended in violence and political crisis when then president Ratsiraka refused to accept defeat.
The impasse split the island in two — with two capitals, two governments, and a divided army — until Ravalomanana was officially proclaimed president in May 2002.
Ratsiraka, who ruled Madagascar for 25 years, is currently living in exile in France after the drawn-out political tussle with his rival.
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
TRUMP EFFECT: The win capped one of the most dramatic turnarounds in Canadian political history after the Conservatives had led the Liberals by more than 20 points Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday pledged to win US President Donald Trump’s trade war after winning Canada’s election and leading his Liberal Party to another term in power. Following a campaign dominated by Trump’s tariffs and annexation threats, Carney promised to chart “a new path forward” in a world “fundamentally changed” by a US that is newly hostile to free trade. “We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but we should never forget the lessons,” said Carney, who led the central banks of Canada and the UK before entering politics earlier this year. “We will win this trade war and
Armed with 4,000 eggs and a truckload of sugar and cream, French pastry chefs on Wednesday completed a 121.8m-long strawberry cake that they have claimed is the world’s longest ever made. Youssef El Gatou brought together 20 chefs to make the 1.2 tonne masterpiece that took a week to complete and was set out on tables in an ice rink in the Paris suburb town of Argenteuil for residents to inspect. The effort overtook a 100.48m-long strawberry cake made in the Italian town of San Mauro Torinese in 2019. El Gatou’s cake also used 350kg of strawberries, 150kg of sugar and 415kg of
RSS