World
[naviga:h2]Suicide bomber behind blast[/naviga:h2]
ST. PETERSBURG, Russia — A suicide bomber was behind a blast on the St. Petersburg subway that killed 14 people, Russian investigators said today, while authorities in the Central Asian nation of Kyrgyzstan identified a suspect as a Kyrgyz-born Russian citizen.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the Monday afternoon attack, which came while President Vladimir Putin was visiting the city, Russia’s second biggest and Putin’s hometown.
Russia’s health minister today raised the death toll from 11 to 14 and said 49 people are still hospitalized. Authorities said there were several foreign nationals among those killed and injured but would not offer detail.
Residents have been bringing flowers to the stations near where the blast occurred. Every corner and windowsill at the ornate, Soviet-built Sennaya Square station today was covered with red and white carnations.
Russia’s top investigative body said in a statement that investigators have identified a man whose body parts were found on the train and who is suspected to be a suicide bomber. Kyrgyzstan’s State Committee for National Security identified one suspect as Kyrgyz-born Russian national Akbarzhon Dzhalilov, 21. It was not immediately clear if the two statements related to the same person.
[naviga:h2]Suspected chemical attack kills dozens[/naviga:h2]
BEIRUT — A suspected chemical attack in a town in Syria’s rebel-held northern Idlib province killed dozens of people today, opposition activists said, describing the attack as among the worst in the country’s six-year civil war.
Hours later, a small field hospital in the region was struck and destroyed, according to a civil defense worker in the area. There was no information if anyone was killed in that attack.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group put the death toll from the gas attack at 58, saying there were 11 children among the dead.
Meanwhile, the Idlib Media Center said dozens of people had been killed.
The media center published footage of medical workers appearing to intubate an unresponsive man stripped down to his underwear and hooking up a little girl foaming at the mouth to a ventilator. It was not immediately clear if all those killed died from suffocation or were struck by other airstrikes occurring in the area around the same time.
It was the third claim of a chemical attack in just over a week in Syria. The previous two were reported in Hama province, in an area not far from Khan Sheikhoun, the site of today’s alleged attack.
[naviga:h2]Columbians bury flood victims[/naviga:h2]
MOCOA, Colombia — Lines of people quietly walked the streets of Mocoa, followed by hearses carrying coffins to a cemetery where open graves waited for the next somber burials.
The survivors of the deadly flood that washed through this city in southern Colombia were getting ready on Monday to bury their loved ones after authorities began to release the remains recovered from a disaster that has shaken the country.
Colombian authorities said at least 273 people were killed when rivers surrounding Mocoa overflowed and sent a wall of water and debris surging through the city over the weekend.
The death toll was expected to rise since many more were missing and bodies are still being found.
The Colombian Red Cross says it has received 374 requests for help from families unable to locate loved ones, people whose whereabouts were still unknown three days after the disaster.
