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Dozens feared drowned crossing Mediterranean from Libya, aid group says
Survivors rescued from a deflating rubber dinghy in the central Mediterranean Sea have reported that some 60 people who departed Libya with them a week ago perished during the journey, the humanitarian rescue group SOS Mediterranee said Thursday.
The European charity’s ship Ocean Viking spotted the dinghy with 25 people on board Wednesday. Two were unconscious, and were evacuated by the Italian military for treatment. The other 23 were in serious condition, exhausted, dehydrated and with burns from fuel on board the boat.
“After yesterday’s rescue of 25 people in very weak health condition, a medical evacuation took place in cooperation with the Italian Coast Guards,” said SOS Mediterranee in an update shared Thursday on social media. The two unconscious people could not be roused by members of the rescue team and were flown by helicopter to Sicily, the group said.
SOS Mediterranee spokesperson Francesco Creazzo said that the survivors were all male, 12 of them minors with two of those not yet teenagers. They were from Senegal, Mali and The Gambia.
Johanna de Tessieres/ SOS Mediterranee via AP
Creazzo said the survivors were traumatized and unable to give full accounts of what had transpired during the voyage. Humanitarian organizations often rely on accounts of survivors when pulling together the numbers of dead and missing at sea, presumed to have died.
The survivors’ boat departed from Zawiya, Libya, seven days before the rescue, SOS Mediterranee said.
“Their engine broke after 3 days, leaving their boat lost adrift without water and food for days,” the group shared in another social media post. Citing survivors, that update noted that “at least 60 people perished on the way, including women and at least one child.”
The U.N. International Organization for Migration says 227 people have died along the perilous central Mediterranean route this year through March 11, not counting the new reported missing and presumed dead. That’s out of a total 279 deaths in the Mediterranean since Jan. 1. A total of 19,562 people arrived in Italy using that route in the period.
Last year, about 100 migrants were rescued after a dangerously overcrowded fishing boat sunk in the Mediterranean near the coast of Greece. At least 82 people were killed and hundreds more were never found, according to officials. The tragedy shined a light on the notorious, risky journey across the Mediterranean that thousands of migrants undertake every month in hopes of reaching Europe. Tunisia and Libya are two main departure points.
Two people were wounded in a shooting at an Arkansas mall on Black Friday, one of the busiest shopping days of the year, authorities said.
Little Rock police in a news release called the shooting, which occurred at 1:44 p.m. local time at Park Plaza, an isolated incident rather than an active shooter situation. Police said that it was believed to have started as a “disturbance between two individuals, which escalated into gunfire.”
Both victims are expected to make full recoveries, police said. No arrests were immediately announced.
Little Rock Police Chief Heath Helton initially said in an afternoon news conference that responding officers found one wounded person at the scene and two others arrived at a hospital later. However, police later clarified that only one victim had been taken to an area hospital by private vehicle, not two.
The exact circumstances of the shooting were unclear. Troy Daniell, a manager for Journey’s Kidz shoe store, told the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette he was working when he heard the gunshots “and got all of the customers that were in my store out of there. I got them all in the back of the store and out of there. When I heard the first (shot) I thought something may have fell, but then I heard a few more shots and immediately understood what was happening.”
In a statement, Little Rock Mayor Frank Scott Jr. said that “the careless, senseless and criminal actions of two individuals today jeopardized the lives and safety of residents and visitors. We are praying for the victims of this incident and hoping they make a full recovery.”
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OAK PARK, Ill. (CBS) — An Oak Park police officer was shot and killed Friday morning while responding to a report of a man with a gun leaving a bank. The suspect also was shot by police, and has been taken into custody.
Oak Park Police Chief Shatonya Johnson said Detective Allan Reddins, 40, had been with the Oak Park Police Department since May 2019. He was the first Oak Park officer killed in the line of duty since 1938.
“This is the worst day of any chief of police,” Johnson said. “Our police department, we’re hurting right now. I’m hurting. His family is hurting. Please keep us in your prayers.”
Around 9 a.m., Reddins responded to a call of a man with a gun leaving the Chase Bank in the 1000 block of Lake Street, according to Johnson. Reddins and other officers came across the suspect in the 800 block of Lake Street, and told the man to show them his hands.
The gunman brandished a handgun and shot Reddins in the left side. Officers returned fire, shooting the suspect in the leg.
Reddins was taken to Loyola University Medical Center in critical condition, where he was pronounced dead at 10:10 a.m. The suspect also was being treated at Loyola.
The shooting caught people in Oak Park off guard, and left bullet holes in the windows at the village’s main library, which was closed to the public after the shooting.
A witness said she was at the UPS store nearby when she heard someone storm out of a store and then heard what sounded like gunshots.
“I knew it was gunshots. I didn’t want to believe that,” she said.
Nicholas Gradishar said us he was walking to a friend’s house nearby when he heard gunshots.
“I get down after I hear the shots, and then I come to the library to see it littered with cops,” he said.
Gradishar said he saw police take the suspect into custody after he’d been shot.
“They were checking his pockets. They found a little handgun, but off to the side there was an ARP with a flashlight. So I don’t know which one he used to shoot at the cops, but he had multiple guns on him,” he said.
Gradishar recorded footage of the suspect on the ground with a gun nearby. Moments later, parademics took him away on a stretcher.
“Nothing happens up here. You may find a fight or so, but nothing like this will ever happen here. So it’s wild,” he said.
A police procession took Reddins’ body from the hospital to the Cook County Medical Examiner’s office Friday afternoon. Dozens of police officers and firefighters from Chicago, Oak Park, and other suburbs stood at attention and saluted as the ambulance arrived and Reddins’ body was escorted inside.
Johnson said Reddins leaves behind a 19-year-old son, along with his mother and siblings.
The chief described him as a “natural-born leader, devoted father,” saying she personally conducted Reddins’ background check before hiring him as an officer in 2019.
“I quickly identified that he had a talent that was needed here,” she said. “He closed substantial cases, and helped us to resolve countless incidents. He was a natural,”
Before joining the Oak Park Police Department, Reddins also had served with the Metra Police Department. He’d been a detective in Oak Park since 2022.
“I thought he would make a phenomenal field training officer as well, and I was looking very much forward to him becoming a sergeant. He was just a natural leader,” Johnson said. “He would always take the extra step, go the extra step, and that’s huge, to say what else can be done?”
Investigation into the incident was ongoing Friday evening. Johnson declined to say if the shooting was captured on video, but said Oak Park officers are equipped with body cameras.
Information on Reddins’ funeral arrangements will be posted on the Oak Park village website once they have been made.
