MADRID, May 31 – Seven migrant women and children who died when their boat capsized just metres from shore in Spain’s Canary Islands were buried on Friday at the La Restringa harbour where they had hoped to find safety.
Two five-year-old girls and a 16-year-old were among the dead, emergency services said. The migrant boat capsized as rescuers were escorting it to port at La Restringa on the El Hierro island on Wednesday, the services said.
“I heard the screams and didn’t hesitate. Like any citizen faced with an emergency or an accident, I got in my car, rushed to where the boat was, and helped however I could,” Javier Iglesias, a La Restringa resident, said at the funeral of the seven, which was also attended by surviving migrants.
“What really moves you and leaves an impression is when you see the faces, the expressions of those people who didn’t reach their dream, just five metres from the shore.”
The number of migrants reaching the Canary Islands from West Africa hit an all-time high in 2024, but the number of arrivals has fallen this year, Interior Ministry data shows.
In the first five months of 2024, 4,808 people died on the perilous Atlantic voyage to the Canaries after leaving Africa, according to migrant rights group Walking Borders.
SHIJIAZHUANG, May 31 – An explosion at a chemical plant in Wuyi County, north China’s Hebei Province, claimed five lives and left two injured on Friday, local authorities confirmed Saturday.
The blast occurred around 6:30 p.m. Friday in a workshop where a cleaning vessel exploded, according to the Wuyi county emergency management bureau.
Emergency teams, including fire, medical, police, and emergency management personnel from the city and county levels, rushed to the scene for rescue operations.
Rescue efforts have concluded, and the two injured are reported to be in stable condition. Authorities are investigating the cause of the explosion.
A serviceman of the 65th Separate Mechanized Brigade of the Ukrainian Armed Forces attends a military drill as a recruit near a frontline, amid Russia’s attack on Ukraine, in Zaporizhzhia region, Ukraine, May 26, 2025. REUTERS
KYIV, Ukraine – Russian drone and missile attacks on Ukraine on Saturday killed at least two people, including a 9-year-old girl, officials said, as uncertainty remains about whether Kyiv diplomats will attend a new round of peace talks proposed by Moscow for early next week in Istanbul.
Russian troops launched some 109 drones and five missiles across Ukraine overnight and into Saturday, the Ukrainian air force said. Three of the missiles and 42 drones were destroyed and another 30 drones failed to reach their targets without causing damage, it said.
The girl was killed in a strike on the front-line village of Dolynka in the Zaporizhzhia region, and a 16-year-old was injured, Zaporizhzhia’s Gov. Ivan Fedorov said.
“One house was destroyed. The shockwave from the blast also damaged several other houses, cars, and outbuildings,” Fedorov wrote on Telegram.
A man was killed by Russian shelling in Ukraine’s Kherson region, Gov. Oleksandr Prokudin wrote on Telegram.
Moscow did not comment on either attack.
Russia’s Ministry of Defense said Saturday that it had gained control of the Ukrainian village of Novopil in the Donetsk region, and took the village of Vodolahy in the northern Sumy region. Ukrainian authorities in Sumy ordered mandatory evacuations in 11 more settlements as Russian forces make steady gains in the area.
The new additions bring the total number of settlements under evacuation orders in Sumy, which borders Russia’s Kursk region, to 213.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said some 50,000 Russian troops have amassed in the area with the intention of launching an offensive to carve out a buffer zone inside Ukrainian territory.
Speaking Saturday, Ukraine’s top army chief Oleksandr Syrskyi said that Russian forces were focusing their main offensive efforts on Pokrovsk, Torets and Lyman in the Donetsk region, as well as the Sumy border area.
Syrskyi also said Ukrainian forces are still holding territory in Russia’s Kursk region, a statement that Moscow has repeatedly denied. Russia said on April 26 that it had pushed all Ukrainian troops from the Kursk region after Ukrainian troops seized land there during a surprise incursion in August 2024. “The enemy is holding its best units here,” Syrskyi said referring to Kursk, “which it planned to use in the east.”
Elsewhere, 14 people were injured including four children after Ukrainian drones struck apartment buildings Saturday in the Russian town of Rylsk and the village of Artakovo in the western Kursk region, local acting Gov. Alexander Khinshtein said.
A Ukrainian serviceman walks at the site of a Russian missile strike, amid Russia’s attack on Ukraine, in Sumy, Ukraine April 13, 2025. REUTERS
KYIV – Authorities in Ukraine’s Sumy region bordering Russia on Saturday ordered the mandatory evacuation of 11 villages because of bombardments, as Kyiv feared a Russian offensive there.
“This decision takes into account the constant threat to civilian lives because of the bombardments of border communities,” Sumy’s administration said.
Russia’s defense ministry on Saturday said its forces had taken another Sumy village, Vodolagy, known as Vodolahy in Ukrainian.
Russia in recent weeks has claimed to have taken several villages in the northeastern region, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said this week that Moscow was massing more than 50,000 soldiers nearby in a sign of a possible offensive.
May 31 – Flooding in Nigeria’s Niger State this week has killed 151 people and forced several thousand from their homes, an emergency official told Reuters on Saturday.
Ibrahim Audu Hussaini, director of information at the Niger State Emergency Management Agency, provided the new death toll, which was previously reported at 117 on Friday.
He added that over 500 households had been impacted and more than 3,000 people displaced.
The flooding incident in the central town of Mokwa in Niger State occurred on Wednesday night and continued into Thursday morning. Days later, rescuers were still picking through mud and debris in search of bodies.
Nigeria is prone to flooding during the rainy season, which began in April.
In 2022, the country’s worst wave of floods in more than a decade killed more than 600 people, displaced around 1.4 million and destroyed 440,000 hectares (1.09 million acres) of farmland.
TOKYO, May 31 – An earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 6.1 struck off the coast of Kushiro in Japan’s Hokkaido on Saturday, local weather agency said.
The temblor occurred at 5:37 p.m. local time (0837 GMT), originating at a depth of approximately 20 km, said the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA).
While slight changes in sea level may be observed along Japan’s coastline, there is no concern for significant damage or a tsunami, the JMA said.
Emergency services are monitoring the situation closely, and no immediate reports of injury or structural damage have been issued.
JAKARTA, May 31 – The number of casualties of landslides at a quarry in Indonesia’s West Java province increased to 14, and 11 others are still missing, an official said on Saturday.
Search for the missing victims after the landslides on Friday in the Gunung Kuda mine located in Bobos village of Cirebon Regency is ongoing, said Hadi Rahmat Hardjasasmita, spokesperson for the Disaster Management and Mitigation Agency of West Java province.
“The number of casualties reached 14, and the number of persons being buried is predicted to be eleven,” he told Xinhua.
The search operation also involved soldiers, policemen, the personnel of the local Disaster Management and Mitigation Agency, and those from other government institutions.
“However, large amounts of landslide materials and worries about further landslides during the evacuation are challenging the operation,” he said.
The authorities in the province had warned the firm operating in the mine of violating technical procedures in mining methods, said Vivi Silvia C., a press officer at the Administration Office of West Java province.
A state of emergency status has been applied after the disaster, she told Xinhua.
SYDNEY, May 31 – Police are searching for two attackers after three men were stabbed northwest of Sydney in the early hours of Saturday morning.
Emergency services were called to a street in the city of Dubbo, over 300 km northwest of Sydney, shortly after 3 a.m. local time on Saturday and found three men with stab wounds after they were reportedly attacked by two other men.
A police statement said that a 21-year-old man was treated for stab wounds to his head, back and lower body. Two other men, both aged 29, suffered stab wounds to their upper bodies.
All three were taken to a local hospital in a stable condition.
Police established a crime scene and have commenced inquiries into the cause of the incident and launched a search for the attackers.
SEOUL, May 31 – A fire broke out on a train of Subway Line 5 in South Korea’s capital Seoul at about 8:47 a.m. local time on Saturday, according to multiple media outlets.
According to police and witnesses, a man presumed to be in his 60s or 70s carried a torch and a jerrycan on the subway, and allegedly set fire between Yeouinaru and Mapo stations. The suspect of arson has been arrested by police, according to Yonhap News Agency.
Passengers in the train have been evacuated, with no casualties reported so far. The on-site fire-fighting operation has been completed.
Subway services between Yeouido and Aeogae stations have been suspended due to the incident, according to Seoul Metro.
JAKARTA, May 30 – At least 10 people in Indonesia’s West Java were killed and six injured on Friday following a rock collapse at a quarry, the disaster agency said, with search efforts ongoing to find people buried beneath the rubble.
The collapse took place in Cirebon in West Java, where television footage showed excavators working to move huge rocks and personnel moving bags containing bodies to an ambulance. Kompas TV earlier said about 10 people were missing.
The national disaster management agency said heavy machinery, including three excavators, were also buried under rocks and operations would continue on Saturday. It gave no estimate on the number of people missing.
West Java’s governor, Dedi Mulyadi, on his Instagram account said the site was dangerous and “does not meet safety standards for workers”.
