Foreign
Lone Air India Survivor Carries Brother’s Coffin
Air India crash survivor attends funeral of brother who died in crash
The British man who was the sole survivor of last week’s Air India plane crash has helped lay his brother to rest at a funeral in western India.
Vishwashkumar Ramesh’s brother Ajay was also on the ill-fated flight but did not survive the tragedy.
A visibly upset Ramesh was one of the pall bearers who carried his brother’s coffin to the crematorium in the town of Diu, his arm and face still covered in white bandages. He’s spent most of the past five days in hospital.
The London-bound Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner crashed seconds after taking off on Thursday from the western Indian city of Ahmedabad. At least 270 people were killed, most of them passengers.
Mr Ramesh’s mother walked with the coffin in a blue sari along with other mourners, as he held it on his right shoulder.
Several people from the town – which lost 14 other people to the crash – came out for the funeral even as the rain lashed the procession.
No one is clear how Mr Ramesh managed to survive. He even tried to go back to the blazing plane to search for his brother, one of the first responders at the scene told the BBC.
In a new video that emerged earlier this week, ambulance driver Satinder Singh Sandhu is the man seen guiding Mr Ramesh to safety as he walks out of the crash site with flames and thick smoke billowing into the air behind him.
Mr Sandhu, a supervisor with the emergency ambulance services in Ahmedabad, says he had no idea who he was helping, or that Mr Ramesh had escaped from the plane. He only found out later that day on the news that the man was the sole survivor of the crash.
Vishwashkumar Ramesh, 40, was in seat 11A on the flight. His brother is reported to have been sitting a few seats away.
All other passengers and crew were killed and nearly 30 people also died on the ground after the plane hurtled down and crashed into a doctor’s hostel.
But Mr Ramesh miraculously survived, managing to get out of the wreckage through an opening in the fuselage.
The new video shows Mr Sandhu, who’s wearing a blue turban, walk up to Mr Ramesh and guide him to safety.
Mr Sandhu said he was having lunch with his colleagues when he first noticed a “massive fire with thick smoke rising into the sky”.
“At first, we thought it might be a car accident or a gas cylinder blast. Soon, we learned it was a plane crash. I immediately instructed my team to bring an ambulance, and rushed to the site.”
Speaking to BBC Gujarati, Mr Sandhu said that he was just trying to do his job. In his decades-long career, he said he had encountered many challenging situations.
But what surprised him that day was how Mr Ramesh, after being rescued, kept trying to go back to the site of the crash.
“He had no idea what he was doing. He kept going in and out of the complex. We told him to stop, and dragged him away to an ambulance so that he could receive medical care,” Mr Sandhu said.
“That’s when he said to me that his relative was trapped inside and he wanted to go save him. We did not speak a word after that.”
Mr Ramesh later told India’s DD News that he was trying to go look for Ajay.
Pavan Jaishwal Mr Sandhu, seen in yellow turban, guided the sole survivor of the crash to safety. Pavan Jaishwal
Satinder Singh Sandhu said he only realised who Mr Ramesh was when he saw the news later
At the scene, Mr Sandhu spotted a security guard who seemed to have been injured in the impact. His clothes were partially burnt and Mr Sandhu first helped him.
“I also saw a woman. She was screaming in horror. Her son who ran a tea stall had been killed in the crash.”
Moments later he saw Mr Ramesh emerge from the crash site in a white shirt.
He had injuries on his face and burns on his arms and looked visibly upset, Mr Sandhu said.
“At that point, we had no idea who the injured man was. I thought he was one of the doctors who lived in the college. Later, when we saw the news, we realised he was the lone survivor of the crash.”
Chirag, a member of Mr Sandhu’s ambulance team, told PTI news agency that Mr Ramesh was telling someone on a video call that his relatives were at the crash site.
The first responders treated him for his injuries and rushed him to the trauma centre of a hospital nearby.
In his interview with DD News, Mr Ramesh had said he could not believe that he came out of the wreckage alive.
“For a moment, I felt like I was going to die too, but when I opened my eyes and looked around, I realised I was alive.
“I still can’t believe how I survived. I walked out of the rubble.”
The cause of the crash is not yet known. Officials are trying to decode the cockpit voice and flight data recorders – collectively known as the black box – recovered from the wreckage to piece together what happened.
Bbc.com
No fewer than six people, including popular billionaire businessman, Wicknell Chivayo and his wife, Lucy Muteke, have been killed in a helicopter crash.
Naija News learnt that the family spokesperson, Herbert Chivayo, confirmed the deaths to ZBC News, saying those closest to the couple were struggling to come to terms with the loss.
Similarly, the Information, Publicity and Broadcasting Services Permanent Secretary, Nick Mangwana, also confirmed the incident in a statement on 𝕏.
He said the helicopter was carrying the businessman, three other passengers and two pilots when it crashed in Marondera, Mashonaland East on Wednesday, September 30, 2026.
The government extended its condolences to the victims’ families and friends.
The statement read, “The Government wishes to confirm that a helicopter crash has occurred, involving one high-profile businessman, three other passengers, and two pilots.
“Current information indicates that there were no survivors in this crash. The Zimbabwe Republic Police will confirm the names of the victims in due course.
“We extend our deepest condolences and prayers to the victims, their families, and their friends during this difficult time.”
In other news, the Chairman of the Nigeria Democratic Congress (NDC) in Fiidi Council Ward, Makurdi Local Government Area of Benue State, Igbu Job Terhemen, has reportedly been killed by unknown assailants.
Terhemen was allegedly attacked in the early hours of Wednesday and later found unconscious near his residence along the Makurdi-Otukpo Road.
According to Daily Trust, a friend of the deceased, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Terhemen left his home on Tuesday evening to watch a local football match in the Kanshio area of Makurdi.
According to the source, he did not return home after the match, prompting relatives and friends to search for him.
The source said Terhemen was eventually found around 2 am in a bush near his residence, close to the NNPC depot.
A court in The Hague sentenced Kosovo’s former president Hashim Thaci to 25 years in prison on Thursday after finding him guilty of war crimes committed during the late 1990s conflict in which Kosovo broke away from Serbia
The Kosovo Specialist Chambers convicted Thaci, 58, of murder, torture, cruel treatment, and the illegal detention of civilians
The tribunal determined that he bore criminal responsibility as the top commander of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), the ethnic Albanian separatist force that fought Serbian security forces between 1998 and 1999. Presiding judge Charles Smith said Thaci “actively participated in and encouraged crimes.”
The court established that KLA forces under his command murdered 96 people identified as political opponents or perceived collaborators with Serbian authorities. A further 385 people were arbitrarily detained, 303 were tortured, and around 50 others suffered cruel treatment.
Judge Smith told the court: “The scale and nature of the crimes committed were very serious. The so-called intelligence on which many of these victims were arrested, detained and killed was little more than unverified rumours. Based on that information, victims were called and described as spies and collaborators and violently treated.”
The American judge was careful to clarify that the proceedings were “not about the legitimacy of the Kosovo Liberation Army” or Kosovo’s goal of independence. Thaci, who denied all charges, stood in silence as the sentence was delivered. He retains the right to appeal.
Three other former senior KLA figures were tried alongside Thaci. Jakup Krasniqi also received a 25-year sentence, while Kadri Veseli was jailed for 18 years and Rexhep Selimi for 13 years. All four had denied the charges.
The panel acquitted the four men on six counts of crimes against humanity, ruling that prosecutors failed to prove those crimes were part of a widespread and systematic attack on civilians.
The verdicts drew an immediate public response in Kosovo, where Thaci remains a revered figure for many ethnic Albanians. Thousands had gathered in the capital Pristina ahead of the ruling, with crowds filling a central square waving red and black Albanian flags and banners calling for the men’s acquittal. When the guilty verdicts were announced on a big screen, many in the crowd booed and wept.
Thaci had resigned from the Kosovo presidency in late 2020 to face the charges, after nearly three years of trial proceedings. In his closing address to the court in February, he said: “Throughout my life, I stood with the people of Kosovo defending freedom, life and dignity. I was always guided by the Western ideals of democracy, equality and justice.”
Albania’s Prime Minister Edi Rama reacted to the verdict by posting an image of barbed wire stretched across a map of Europe, with a single word: “Unbelievable.”
A new investigation by The New York Times claims Sudan’s military ran an organized program in 2024 to develop and produce chlorine-based munitions, escalating long-standing allegations of chemical weapons use in the country’s war.
According to the report, the Times reviewed nearly 150 documents, plus photos, videos, audio recordings and thousands of messages. The materials describe months of work to design, test and manufacture about 300 bombs filled with chlorine.
Brigadier General Tariq Hussein is named as one of the principal supervisors. The documents detail a munition that combined explosives with large quantities of chlorine, and tests carried out before production.
One of the most serious claims involves the source of the chemical. The dossier alleges that some chlorine was taken from a water-treatment facility in Omdurman, at a time when Sudan is facing cholera outbreaks and a collapse of basic services.
The investigation also points to senior leadership. Voice and text messages reportedly implicate army chief Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Burhan in knowledge of the program, and in orders to “remove all traces” after U.S. pressure and sanctions.
This is not the first time chemical weapons have been alleged in Sudan. Independent.ng reported that the Sudanese Alliance for Rights filed a case at the International Criminal Court against four senior Port Sudan Authority leaders, including al-Burhan, accusing them of using chemical weapons and committing serious violations against civilians. The lawsuit also names Yasser al-Atta, Shams al-Din al-Kabashi and Major General Taher Mohammed, and calls for an urgent ICC investigation.
The U.S. has already acted on earlier findings.
Independent.ng noted that Washington imposed additional penalties in May 2025 over the alleged use of chemical weapons, further linking Sudan’s war to international politics.
Chlorine is permitted for water purification, but using it as a weapon violates the Chemical Weapons Convention, which Sudan ratified. Experts say its civilian availability makes it easier to obtain and harder to monitor than military-grade agents.
With the conflict since April 2023 already causing mass displacement and famine, rights groups are now calling for an independent international investigation with access to sites, documents and the chain of command.
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