Israeli hostages get heartfelt tribute at Tel Aviv drag festival

PRAYAGRAJ, India: A stampede at the world’s largest religious gathering in India killed at least 15 people with many more injured, a doctor at the Kumbh Mela festival in Prayagraj told AFP Wednesday.
“At least 15 people have died for now. Others are being treated,” said the doctor in Prayagraj city, speaking on condition of anonymity as they were not authorized to talk to media.
An AFP photographer saw rescuers and worshippers evacuating victims from the scene and people climbing over a barrier.
Deadly crowd crushes are a notorious feature of Indian religious festivals, and the Kumbh Mela, with its unfathomable throngs of devotees, already had a grim track record of deadly crowd crushes before the latest incident overnight.
Local government official Akanksha Rana told the Press Trust of India (PTI) news agency that the stampede began after crowd control barriers “broke.”
The six-week festival is the single biggest milestone on the Hindu religious calendar, and millions of people were expected to be present on Wednesday for a sacred day of ritual bathing at the confluence of the Ganges and Yamuna rivers.

ADDIS ABABA: Ethiopia is waging an “escalating crackdown” on civil society, Human Rights Watch said Wednesday, denouncing the suspension of two independent human rights groups in recent weeks.
In December, a government body overseeing civil society suspended the Ethiopian Human Rights Council (EHRC), the country’s oldest independent rights group, and the Ethiopian Human Rights Defenders Center (EHRDC).
The suspensions were based on “allegations they lacked independence and were acting beyond their mandate,” HRW said in a statement. The government move was “part of their escalating crackdown against civil society.”
“The Ethiopian authorities over the past year have waged a relentless assault against human rights groups,” said Mausi Segun, HRW’s Africa director.
“By suspending groups engaged in critical human rights documentation and advocacy, the government is showcasing its intolerance of independent scrutiny,” she added.
It follows the suspension of three other rights groups in December, the Center for the Advancement of Rights and Democracy, Lawyers for Human Rights and the Association for Human Rights in Ethiopia.
Only the latter has since had its suspension lifted.
Billene Seyoum, spokesperson for Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, said since 2018 — when Abiy came to power — “significant measures” had been taken to create “a more inclusive and legally grounded environment for all actors to engage meaningfully in Ethiopia.”
“This includes transforming a once restricted and tightly controlled civil society space into one that allows organizations to operate freely and in a non-partisan manner, in compliance with the laws of the land,” she added.
The country of around 120 million people in the Horn of Africa is facing several armed conflicts, particularly in the most populous regions of Amhara and Oromia where federal forces are fighting armed militias.
Both federal forces and militias have been accused of human rights violations.