MONGO, Chad (AFP) – More than 100 inmates escaped a Chad prison during a shoot-out that left three people dead, and wounded a state governor visiting the facility, officials told AFP on Saturday. The break-out occurred late Friday when an uprising happened in the high-security penitentiary five kilometers from the town of Mongo, in the center of the country. “There are around 100 who escaped, three dead and three wounded,” Hassan Souleymane Adam, secretary general of the Guera province in which Mongo is located, said. A local Mongo official, speaking to AFP on condition of anonymity, said prisoners broke into a manager’s office to steal guns. “A shootout with guards ensued, at the same time the governor arrived. He was wounded,” he said. The Mongo official confirmed there were three dead, and put the total number of escaped prisoners at 132.

 

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WASHINGTON (Dispatches) – U.S. Supreme Court has blocked the deportation of Venezuelan immigrants held in northern Texas under an antique wartime law dating back to the 18th century. The top court blocked early on Saturday the Donald Trump administration’s deportations of alleged Venezuelan gang members held under the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 in the Bluebonnet Detention Center “until further order of this court.” “The government is directed not to remove any member of the putative class of detainees from the United States until further order of this court,” the brief order said. The court also ordered the U.S. administration to respond to the emergency appeal once a federal appeals court in Louisiana takes action in the case. Having filed an emergency appeal at the high court on Friday, attorneys for the Venezuelans stated that they were at immediate risk of being removed from the United States and had not been provided sufficient notice to challenge their deportation.

 

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LAGOS (Reuters) – At least 17 people were killed when suspected cattle herders attacked communities in central Nigeria’s Benue State, police said, amid a resurgence of deadly clashes between farmers and herders. Years of clashes have disrupted food supplies from north-central Nigeria, a significant agricultural area. The latest attacks came two days after 11 people were killed in the Otukpo area of Benue and barely a week after gunmen attacked villages and killed more than 50 people in neighboring Plateau State. Since 2019, the clashes have claimed more than 500 lives in the region and forced 2.2 million to leave their homes, according to research firm SBM Intelligence. A separate group of suspected herdsmen shot and killed five farmers around Gbagir in Benue’s Ukum Local Government Area, early on Friday, police said. The attackers opened fire as police were moving in to confront them, police spokesperson Sewuese Anene said in a statement. While officers were engaging the attackers at Ukum, another 12 people were killed in another attack in Logo local council area, about 70 km away, police said.

 

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QUITO (AFP) – Ecuador is on maximum alert over an alleged assassination plot against recently reelected President Daniel Noboa, the government said on Saturday. Noboa won the race in an April 13 runoff vote, but his main rival Luisa Gonzalez has accused him of committing “grotesque electoral fraud.” A military intelligence report saying that assassins entering Ecuador from Mexico and other countries planned to carry out “terrorist attacks” against Noboa was leaked on social media this week. “We strongly condemn and repudiate any intention against the life of the president of the Republic, state authorities or public officials,” Ecuador’s Ministry of Government said in a statement early Saturday. “The state is on maximum alert,” it added. The government accused “criminal structures in complicity with political sectors defeated at the polls” of hatching the plot, though it did not offer any specific names.

 

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BANGKOK (AP) – Basic services have yet to be restored to the areas of Myanmar worst hit by a huge earthquake three weeks ago, and emergency workers recovering bodies and clearing debris are contending with regular aftershocks and lack of resources, humanitarian services say. A situation report issued late Friday by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, or OCHA, said frequent strong aftershocks continue to shake central Myanmar almost daily, increasing fear and uncertainty among affected residents, disrupting response effort s and exacerbating the pressure on already limited resources and services. “Three weeks after catastrophic twin earthquakes hit Myanmar on 28 March, the worst-affected communities are still without safe shelter, clean water and sanitation, stable electricity, health care and essential services,” the report said.

 

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GENEVA (DPA) – At least three people have been killed in northern Italy after heavy rains, authorities say, as snow caused disruption in neighboring Switzerland. Northern Italian regions have been hit hard by severe rainfall, with Piedmont, South Tyrol and Lombardy heavily affected. A father and son died when their car was carried off by floodwaters near Valdagno, between Venice and Lake Garda. A 92-year-old man was separately found dead in his house near Turin on Thursday.