Almost 100 dead as Iraq ferry sinks on spring holiday trip
Mosul: Almost 100 people, mostly women and children, died as a ferry packed with families celebrating Kurdish New Year sank in a swollen river in the former jihadist stronghold of Mosul, in Iraq's worst accident in years.
There was an outpouring of grief among residents who only this year resumed the annual festivities on the banks of the Tigris after the northern city's recapture from the Islamic State group.
Prime Minister Adel Abdel Mahdi decreed three days of national mourning as he visited the site of the tragedy. He ordered a swift investigation "to determine responsibilities".
The vessel was crammed with men, women and children crossing the Tigris Thursday to go to a popular picnic area to celebrate Nowruz, the Kurdish New Year and a holiday across Iraq marking the start of spring.
The accident, which struck as the overloaded vessel turned back, also coincided with Mother's Day in Iraq.
The interior ministry, issuing a fresh toll, said 94 people had died and 55 were rescued, after its spokesman Saad Maan said at least 19 children were among the dead.
The premier said 61 women had died in the accident.
While war and jihadist attacks have claimed hundreds of thousands of lives in Iraq in recent years, such accidents are relatively rare. "It's a disaster, no one expected that," said a young man who had just managed to reach the shore.
"There were a lot of people on the boat, especially women and children," he told AFP.
A Mosul security source said the high water levels and overcrowding on the boat, with well over 100 people on board, had been to blame for the disaster.
"The boat sank because there were too many passengers on board," another security official based in Mosul told AFP.
Iraq's justice ministry said it had ordered the arrest of nine ferry company officials and banned the owners of the vessel and the tourist site from leaving the country.
The authorities had warned people to be cautious after several days of heavy rains led to water being released through the Mosul dam, causing the river level to rise.
Videos shared on social media showed a fast-flowing, bloated river and dozens of people floating in the water or trying to swim around the partly submerged boat. Search operations stretched far downstream from the site where the boat sank, according to an AFP journalist.
Hundreds of people who had flocked to the forested area for the first days of spring gathered on the river banks as the disaster unfolded. Ambulances and police vehicles transported the dead and wounded to hospitals in the city of nearly two million people.
Photos of victims, many of them women and children, were posted on the walls of a morgue for families unable to enter because of the large crowd who had gathered to identify their relatives.
One man, scanning over the pictures, stopped abruptly at the image of a woman. In shock, he gasped: "It's my wife", before collapsing in tears.
IS turned Mosul into their de facto Iraqi capital after the jihadists swept across much of the country's north in 2014. The city spent three years under the group's iron-fisted rule until it was recaptured by Iraqi troops backed by a US-led coalition in 2017.
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Sadananda Gowda expresses pain over factionalism in Karnataka BJP, urges central leadership to act
Bengaluru: Senior BJP leader D V Sadananda Gowda on Thursday expressed pain over factionalism in the Karnataka unit of his party and called it a " big tragedy". The former Union Minister also expressed displeasure over the party high command's delay in taking action, despite his letters and urged them to intervene and to act against those indulging in "indiscipline".
"There were Maharashtra and Haryana polls, as polls are a big challenge, it is natural to keep aside party issues in the states, where there are no polls, for later. So there may be some delay, but I don't think they will be silent," Gowda said responding to a question on factionalism within the party and high command's silence on it.
Addressing reporters here, he said, "However, there is truth in your question, because I have written two letters, one earlier and the other recently as dissent started brewing. But there was no reply for both, which made me feel that the central leadership was not paying attention to issues here." "It is a tragedy that Karnataka, which is regarded as the gateway for the BJP to south India, today has several doors (referring to groups within)," he added.
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A group of party leaders led by senior MLA Basanagouda Patil Yatnal, that include BJP MLA Ramesh Jarkiholi are critical of state leadership, especially President B Y Vijayendra, and are even holding parallel agitations over the Waqf land issue, after staying away from protests held by the party on the same issue. Yatnal and Jarkiholi have been openly critical of Vijayendra, accusing him of indulging in "adjustment politics" with the ruling Congress, and trying to keep the party in his clutches, along with his father and veteran leader B S Yediyurappa.
Recalling that there was much stronger groupism in the party earlier between the factions led by stalwarts, who built the party in the state -- late Ananth Kumar and Yediyurappa, Gowda, who had also served as the state president in the past, said, "but the rift never came to the streets then."
"In Karnataka BJP's history, this is the first time that the internal confusions within the party have come to the streets. This is painful. None of the so called self styled senior leaders of the party in the state, including me, are in a situation to set this right, while some are not even trying to set things right as it will benefit them, there are such leaders too in the party here. So high command has to intervene," he added.
Despite the ruling Congress in Karnataka giving issues to the opposition in a "golden bowl", Gowda said, the internal differences in the party is overshadowing it, and this has pained the party workers.
"Now I don't have any other responsibility other than being part of the party's core committee, but I'm pained looking at the situation of the party that gave me everything including positions of governing the state..... This is a big tragedy," he said.
Appealing to the party leadership to have a "serious look" at the party affairs in Karnataka before the Delhi elections, the former CM even requested them not to compromise on discipline. If action is taken against those who are wrong after detailed inquiry, the party will unite once again, he said. "People of the state want BJP."
Pointing to the saffron party's defeat in the recent by-polls in Shiggaon, Sandur and Channapatna assembly segments, Gowda said, people are not discussing Congress' maladministration, but division and groupism in the BJP. "Despite the BJP having good ideas and agenda, we lack a strong system to encash it." BJP's weakness of groupism has become Congress' strength, he added. Replying to a question on Yatnal and team not accepting Vijayendra as president, Gowda said, "The state president was appointed by the national leadership and that decision has to be accepted. If anyone has reservations about it, they should tell the leadership and not discuss it on the streets."
