(NEW YORK) — Orcas may be teaching each other to attack boats following a spate of strikes on sailboats off the coast of Europe, some observers say.
Sailors have reported a series of “coordinated” attacks by a group of orcas, including a May 22 strike on a 26-foot vessel sailing off the coast of Cape Spartel, near the Strait of Gibraltar.
“[Six] orcas arrived, 2 adults very big, 4 smaller ones,” sailor JP Derunes wrote in Orca Attack Reports, a Facebook group dedicated to flagging orca activity. “Both rudders destroyed and blocked … Boat to be hauled off later this week.”
That attack followed a nighttime strike on May 4, when a Swiss yacht named Champagne, which was also sailing through the Strait of Gibraltar, was attacked by three orcas. They struck its rudder, eventually sinking it, reported Yacht, a German boating news outlet.
At least 15 human-orca incidents were recorded in 2020, the year in which the aggressive encounters are believed to have begun, according to a study published in the journal Marine Mammal Science. Many of those attacks included orcas biting or striking the rudders of sailboats.
No casualties appear to have been reported in the attacks.
Scientists said spikes in aggression may have been started by a female orca whom scientists have named “White Gladis.”
White Gladis is believed to have suffered a “critical moment of agony” such as a boat collision, which inflicted trauma on the orca, triggering a behavioral switch that other killer whales have learned to imitate.
The majority of orca-sailor encounters have been harmless.
“In more than 500 interaction events recorded since 2020 there are three sunken ships. We estimate that killer whales only touch one ship our of every hundred that sail through a location,” Alfredo López Fernandez, a biologist at the University of Aviero, told Live Science.
According to a study in Biological Conservation, a peer-reviewed journal, “sophisticated learning abilities” have been found to exist in orcas, with imitation found to be particularly significant.
(NEW YORK) — A U.S. nonprofit created after a school shooting is helping troops in Ukraine learn crucial medical care — and some soldiers on the ground credit the new skill set with saving lives.
Stop the Bleed, a nonprofit collaboration from the American College of Surgeons formed in the aftermath of the 2012 mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School, is training Ukrainian soldiers and giving kits that could save lives to troops fighting Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Dr. Roxolana Horbowyj, a Philadelphia-based surgeon, has been teaching Stop the Bleed directly to people in Ukraine via Zoom. Horbowyj said she used to teach the techniques in person in Ukraine before the war started but faced challenges when students did not have tourniquets. Now, she instructs soldiers about how to use everyday items to stanch bleeding.
“We use a sock-like scarf that’s meter by meter, a spoon and a keyring, and they’re very specific steps of what to do. And it works,” said Horbowyj, who is of Ukrainian descent.
The nonprofit also released a YouTube video in Ukrainian to train those who could not be trained in person or virtually.
A Ukrainian soldier who survived in Bakhmut for a month said that the skills from Stop the Bleed were invaluable.
“[The skills] even saved my life sometimes. … If I am writing to you now, then I was successful in them,” said the soldier.
The soldier asked ABC News not to share his or her identity due to safety concerns.
Dr. Aaron Epstein, the founder of the non-governmental organization Global Surgical and Medical Support Group which partners with Stop the Bleed, agreed that the work is critical, saying he’s heard anecdotally that hundreds of trainees have saved lives amid the conflict. treated some of the injured in Ukraine and educated medical personnel on the frontlines.
“These people probably could have left and fled to Europe, but knowing full well that they had some level of medical knowledge as med students or residents chose to stay and try and learn more and kind of that higher level [medical training] to help their fellow Ukrainian citizens,” said Epstein, whose mission is to train those in war zones.
Stop the Bleed distributed bleeding control equipment, including 50,000 combat application tourniquets, after receiving $99,000 in donations. The organization has trained more than 20,000 Ukrainians as of January, according to its website.
But the work comes with risks, including discovery of the new resources by Russian forces.
“They’re much more muted and much more careful — I know they can’t always speak,” Horbowyj said of her more recent visits to train troops. “Some of the classes that we had we might have to take a pause because somebody’s bomb alarm went off.”
Epstein said his team was targeted by a drone in Ukraine, but luckily lost it in a neighboring building.
“It’s just particularly heinous when they deliberately target someone who is trying to help someone else. It just is kind of barbaric,” said Epstein.
Horbowyj said that ambulances and even medics are often targeted.
“The medics will pull someone out and be you know, sheltered behind a rock or something, a drone with a grenade and come find them and drop a grenade on them too,” said Horbowyj.
Epstein said that seeing the atrocities has made him more motivated to help Ukrainians, but also made him more grateful for life in the U.S.
“Whenever I hear med students or residents say, ‘Oh man, I’m so stressed out. I didn’t get my six hours of sleep last night.’ Well, at least you don’t have the Russians coming here to kill you tomorrow,” said Epstein.
Epstein said that his next step is to provide more surgical relief, training and support. But, he noted, the most important thing is “the relief of being there for people.”
Horbowyj told ABC News she hopes to provide frontline medic training in person.
May is National Stop the Bleed Month, which encourages people to learn how to stop bleeding before first responders arrive.
While Ukrainian officials have released very little information on military casualties, there have been an estimated 22,734 civilian casualties including 8,490 deaths and 14,244 people injured since Russia invaded in February 2022, the United Nations said in April.
(LONDON) — Prince Harry, the Duke of Sussex, has lost his bid to challenge a decision that he cannot pay for police protection while he is in the United Kingdom.
A judge ruled Tuesday that Harry cannot bring a second case against the U.K. Home Office, querying their stance that Metropolitan Police protection could not be bought.
Harry, the fifth in line to the throne, has been fighting back against a 2020 decision by the government that denied his family automatic police protection while in Britain after he and his wife Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex, stepped down from their roles as senior working royals.
At the time, the Executive Committee for the Protection of Royalty and Public Figures, known as RAVEC, made a decision that security for the Sussexes would be granted on a case-by-case basis.
A spokesperson for Harry and Meghan declined to comment Tuesday about the court ruling.
Harry, who now lives in California with Meghan and their children Archie and Lilibet, has said he wants police protection for his family while on British soil and is willing to pay for the cost himself, but the Home Office denied that request.
The judge ruled Tuesday that Harry could not seek to challenge that decision.
Harry is still involved in a separate, ongoing case with the Home Office as to whether he should still be entitled to Met Police security while he is in the U.K.
Harry has only returned to the U.K. a handful of times since moving in 2020.
The latest court ruling in the U.K. comes just days after Harry and Meghan claimed they were involved in a “near catastrophic car chase” while being pursued by paparazzi in Manhattan, where Meghan received an award.
A spokesperson for the couple accused paparazzi of being “highly aggressive” and driving on the sidewalk and running red lights during a two-hour “relentless pursuit” of the famous pair. Harry and Meghan were returning from the Ms. Foundation’s annual gala at the Ziegfeld Ballroom on May 16, along with Meghan’s mother, Doria Ragland, when the incident reportedly occurred.
“While being a public figure comes with a level of interest from the public, it should never come at the cost of anyone’s safety,” the spokesperson said.
Police sources, however, have said the episode did not involve the amount of paparazzi the spokesperson claimed.
Police sources told ABC News two New York Police Department detectives were present at the Ziegfeld when Harry and Meghan emerged from the event and drove alongside the couple’s private vehicle to get them home.
Along the way, police sources said photographers on bicycles are visible on security cameras, but not the kind of caravan described by sources close to Harry and Meghan. The police sources didn’t discount the idea that whatever occurred may have been scary for those involved.
Since moving to California, the Sussexes have relied on a privately funded security team.
The family’s current security situation is similar to that of Harry’s late mother Princess Diana, who had to rely on private security protection after her divorce from Harry’s father King Charles III in 1996.
One year later, in 1997, Diana died in a car crash in Paris after the car she was riding in was pursued by paparazzi.
“When Diana died, she didn’t have police protection. She had a private security team at that point,” Victoria Murphy, ABC News royal contributor, said last year. “And I think it’s very clear that Prince Harry feels that the police protection is superior and that that is what he wants for his family.”
(NEW YORK) — More than 50 years ago, a plane carrying 45 passengers and crew, including a Uruguayan rugby team and some of their friends and family, crashed in the Andes mountains in Argentina.
For 10 weeks, the survivors had to deal with the extremes before they were rescued, including subzero temperatures, two back-to-back avalanches and near starvation, left with no choice but to eat from the remains of their deceased friends to stay alive.
“We are dead men walking, but…we are still walking,” Nando Parrado, one of the 16 survivors of the Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571 crash, told ABC News.
Parrado and others who lived through the ordeal share their incredible story of fear, loss and survival in an ABC News Studios documentary “Prisoners of The Snow” premiering on ABC on May 22 at 9 p.m. ET and streaming on Hulu the next day. In addition to interviews with survivors, mountaineers and survival experts, the two-hour program will include photographs taken by the passengers who lived through the 72-day ordeal.
On Oct. 12, 1972, the flight was supposed to take the amateur Old Christians Club rugby team from Montevideo, Uruguay, to Santiago, Chile, for an exhibition match against the Old Boys Club, an English rugby team in Santiago.
Bad weather prevented the team from making it all the way to Santiago, and the plane was forced to land in Mendoza, Argentina overnight.
Despite high winds, the next afternoon, the plane took off again for Santiago. The Fairchild aircraft was unable to climb to the necessary 26,000 feet to fly directly over the Andes Mountain range, so the pilots opted for a U-shaped route where they were able to fly lower through a mountain pass, according to aviation expert and ABC News contributor John Nance.
With the air traffic control clearance, the pilots began their descent. However, they didn’t realize it was too soon, and that they were headed straight in the heart of the Andes, Nance said. The pilot was unable to clear the ridgeline and the airplane hit the mountain.
Upon impact, both wings and the tail tore off. The remaining fuselage slid down the mountain at high speed until it hit the bottom of the valley.
“I was thrown with an incredible force, and as I was fainting, I was realizing that I was alive and the plane had stopped,” Roberto Canessa, one of the survivors, told ABC News.
Twelve people were killed as a result of the crash. The remaining 33 survivors had varying degrees of injury.
Two of the survivors who had medical training, including Canessa who was a medical student at the time, quickly scrambled to tend to the wounded. Parrado’s mother died in the crash and his sister was badly injured. She died days later.
Parrado himself suffered a skull fracture and was in a coma for three days before he woke up.
“I said, ‘I’m not dead. Why? Because I was thirsty. I was thirsty.’ And I said, ‘If I’m thirsty, I’m not dead,'” Parrado recalled.
Parrado and the other survivors would face a struggle to quench their thirst and hunger until their expected upcoming imminent rescue. But that rescue wasn’t coming.
And although they were surrounded by snow, there were no initial means to melt it into drinking water.
“You can eat snow, but the snow hurts your mouth,” survivor Carlos Páez Rodríguez told ABC News.
Eventually, the survivors used metal from the wreckage to construct a device that melted the snow to water using sunlight. But their food supply was limited, according to mountineer Ricardo Pena. Survivors said in those first few days, they would share a little square of chocolate or a little bit of cracker with a little bit of fish in it, and some wine.
By day 10, they learned from the plane’s transistor radio that a search had been called off.
After long discussions and out of desperation, the survivors said the group came to a painful decision to harvest the bodies of the dead passengers for food. It was their only option for survival. They compared it to taking communion.
“We shook our hands and we say, ‘If I die, please use my body. So at least you can get out of here. And tell my family how much I love them,'” Parrado said.
As the group continued to plan for a way to safely look for help, they would face another deadly obstacle on day 17. Two avalanches swiftly raged down the mountain and the fuselage became entombed in snow with everyone inside.
“You don’t see, you don’t hear, you cannot move and you are dying,” Canessa said.
Eight of the initial survivors were killed in the avalanche. The remaining 19 survivors were stuck in a small space between the snow and the bulkhead, a space that would comfortably have fit four.
Their only option for food was to eat from the bodies inside the fuselage that did not survive the avalanche.
“It’s a very, very humiliating thing to eat a dead body,” Canessa said. “I thought of my mother that I had unique chance of telling her not to cry anymore, that I was alive. And to do that, I had to buy time, and to buy time, I had to eat the dead bodies.”
After three days, the survivors said they were able to tunnel their way out of the snow and see daylight.
The survivors were highly motivated to continue exploring ways to get back to civilization.
Canessa, Parrado and Antonio “Tintin” Vizintín, one of their fellow teammates, eventually found the tail end of the plane. In it, they said they found suitcases with some warm clothing, a small amount of food and batteries.
“They were like, well, we could connect that to the radio and make the radio work and call for help,” Peña said. “It was like, if we can make the radio work and call for help, let’s do that instead of risking our lives.”
But they were ultimately unable to get the radio to work.
Eventually, the survivors devised a plan where Parrado, Canessa and Vizintín were to make an escape.
Once this was decided, the survivors ensured that Parrado, Canessa and Vizintín, who they named “the expeditionaries,” ate a larger portion of the food supplies to build up their strength, according to an interview that the survivors told John Guiver, the author of “To Play the Game,” which chronicled their story.
Bolstered by several layers of clothing, and travel gear, including a sleeping bag that was patched together from materials of the plane wreckage, the men set out to be saved on Dec. 12: day 61 of their ordeal.
What they anticipated to be a one-day trek from the valley where the fuselage lay, up to the top of the mountain took them three days.
Parrado was disheartened to see snowy mountains all around them, instead of the green valleys of Chile.
“The most frightening moment of the 10 day trek for me was when I reached the summit of the first mountain and I looked what laid ahead,” Parrado said.
Parrado suggested to Canessa and Vizintin that because the trek was longer than they expected, Vizintin should go down to update the others, and leaving Parrado and Canessa with Vizintin’s food ration.
Parrado and Canessa’s trek down the mountain proved even more treacherous, and Parrado said his shoes began to break. By the eighth day of their journey, the men approached a river bank and found signs of life: including cattle, a cattle track and a rusty soup can.
The trail led them to a pivotal moment in their journey. Cannesa recalled seeing a man riding a horse down the slope of a small mountain. He immediately alerted Parrado who quickly began running down the slope towards the man.
Parrado caught the attention of this man on a horse, Sergio Catalan, but because of the loud roar of the river between them, Canessa said they couldn’t hear each other. However, he said he heard Catalan say the word “mañana,” Spanish for tomorrow, indicating when he would return.
“That dream tomorrow we always had, was real now,” Canessa said.
The next day Catalan and his two sons returned and threw Parrado a rock with some paper attached and a pencil across the river.
Parrado wrote down a message that would ultimately change his fate and the fate of his fellow survivors: “I come from a plane that crashed in the mountains. I am Uruguayan. We have been walking for 10 days. I have 14 friends wounded on the crash site. We need help. We don’t have any food. Please come and get us.”
“As soon as he read my message, he went for help,” Parrado said. “And that was probably the brightest moment in the 72-days.”
Catalan traveled 10 hours on horseback to alert the authorities, and soon the military, police, journalists and others came, according to Parrado.
Alipio Vera, who was a reporter for Televisión Nacional de Chile (TVN) and on the scene, told ABC News, “they were very weak, their voices were barely audible…it was incredible, to see people that were rugby players, who were pretty strong, now they were almost skeletons.”
“I took their blood pressure, respiration, pulse and everything,” said Wilma Koch, the nurse who attended Parrado and Canessa upon their rescue, told ABC News. “At that moment, well, Roberto looked very faint, but with a lot of spirit. But Nando looked better.”
Back at the crash site, the remaining survivors had heard the news about the successful expedition from their radio, and they began to prepare for their own rescue.
Parrado said he led helicopter pilots to the site and the crews arrived on Dec. 22, day 71.
The 14 survivors at the fuselage were taken to safety with two trips over two days. Referring to the helicopters, survivor Carlos Páez Rodríguez recalled: “I saw them as two gigantic birds, bearers of freedom. I cannot explain that moment’s happiness.”
Upon their rescue, the survivors were treated for several conditions including malnutrition and scurvy.
When word began to spread about the survivors eating the dead, they addressed the media as a team.
“Some thought it was good, some thought it was bad, but I couldn’t care less,” Canessa said. “They don’t have any kind of right to judge us.”
Quickly the sensational headlines faded and many public figures, including the Pope, expressed sympathy for their struggles. Their story would be the subject of several books, including ones written by Parrado, Canessa, Strauch and Páez, and was adapted into the 1993 film “Alive.”
The crash would also inspire the fictional Showtime show “Yellowjackets.”
Beyond the fame and spotlight, many of the survivors would go on to lead long lives and have families.
“We trusted each other. We fought for each other,” Parrado said. “So this is a rugby story. Rugby saved my life.”
(NEW YORK) — Researchers have discovered hundreds of new animal and plant species in remote parts of the world previously inaccessible to humans, according to the World Wildlife Fund.
Among the 380 newly found species include animal vertebrates such as a color-changing lizard, a thick-thumbed bat, a poisonous snake named after a Chinese mythological goddess, an orchid that looks like a muppet and a tree frog with skin that resembles thick moss. They were all found in the greater Mekong region in Asia, according to the WWF’s New Species Discoveries report published on Sunday.
Along the Mekong River, which separates Laos and Thailand, lies miles and miles of forests housed in mountainous regions. Without roads, people have no access to the undiscovered species, which causes them to remain a mystery but also allows them to thrive, K. Yoganand, conservation biologist and wildlife ecologist and WWF-Greater Mekong regional wildlife lead, told ABC News.
“These species have been there,” Yoganand said. “It’s just, they’ve escaped, so far, the human destruction.”
Hundreds of scientists from universities, conservation organizations and research institutes around the world discovered 290 plants, 19 fishes, 24 amphibians, 46 reptiles and one mammal in Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam, according to WWF.
The lush evergreen forests drenched regularly by rainfall and hidden in the mountains may contribute to the plethora of plant and animal species that live there, Yoganand said.
Nearly 4,000 vascular plants, fishes, amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals have been discovered in the Greater Mekong region since 1997, according to the report.
One of the species scientists learned of is the Khoi’s mossy frog, a large, mossy-green colored amphibian, which helps it blend into the lichen and moss-covered stony, leafy background. The discovery was described as a “spectacular find” by the WWF.
An extremely venomous snake called the Suzhen’s krait was also found. It was named after the Bai Su Zhen, a snake goddess from a Chinese myth called the Legend of the White Snake, according to the WWF.
Discovered in the Tenasserim Mountains bordering Myanmar, researchers found Thailand’s bent-toed gecko, named after the mythical tree nymph Rukha Deva, who is said to live in trees and protect the forests, according to the WWF. The gecko aggressively opens its mouth and waves its tail side-to-side when threatened, the scientists said.
A semi-aquatic snake now known as Hebius terrakarenorum was found in the Dawna-Tenasserim Landscape between Thailand and Myanmar, according to the report. It is about 2-feet long and was identified entirely from road-kill specimens collected over a decade, as well as a few photos, researchers said.
Human encroachment is already affecting some of the newly discovered species. In Vietnam, agricultural encroachment and logging, as well as collection by communities to use as a traditional cure for abdominal pain and parasitic infection, is threatening the Thai crocodile newt, researchers said.
In Vientiane, the capital of Laos, the habitat of a new species of gecko is also being fragmented by construction projects, according to the WWF.
While many of the discoveries were the result of people surveying a never-before-explored area, some of the discoveries were known species that, after further analysis, researchers determined have several different subspecies, Yoganand said.
In Cambodia, researchers discovered the blue-crested agama, an aggressive lizard that changes color as a defensive mechanism. It was identified by studying lizards found near an Angkor era archeological site, according to the WWF. While the species has been known since the first specimen was collected in Myanmar in the 19th century, genetic analysis conducted in 2021 determined that these actually constitute many different species, Yoganand said.
Hayes’ thick-thumbed myotis, a mouse-eared bat with unusual fleshy thumbs that was named a new species after a specimen sat in a Hungarian museum for 20 years.
“These remarkable species may be new to science but they have survived and evolved in the Greater Mekong region for millions of years, reminding us humans that they were there a very long time before our species moved into this region,” Yoganand said in a statement.
While the Mekong region is a global diversity hotspot it is also experiencing a “vast array of threats,” WWF-US Asian Species Manager Nilanga Jayasinghe said in a statement.
“We must continue to invest in the protection and conservation of nature, so these magnificent species don’t disappear before we know of their existence,” Jayasinghe said.
There are 25 known global diversity hotspots around the world, including the Amazon in Central America and the eastern Himalayas, Yoganand said, adding that he expects the scientific community to keep discovering more and more species.
Immediate action and increased use of new technologies, such as bio-acoustics and genetic sequencing, are needed to help scientists discover more species in the region, Truong Nguyen, a researcher with the Institute of Ecology and Biological Resources at the Vietnam Academy of Science and Technology, said in a statement.
“To reverse the rapid biodiversity loss in the region, more concerted, science based, and urgent efforts need to be made and conservation measures need more attention from governments, NGOs and the public,” Nguyen said.
(SLOVYANSK, Ukraine) — The frontlines in eastern Ukraine are shifting in significant ways, with Russia and Ukraine carrying out offensive operations in and around Bakhmut.
Russian forces inside the city have made further advances and claim to have full control of every district.
Ukraine claims its forces are still fighting in a small area in the western fringe of the city.
Meanwhile, the situation outside Bakhmut is dynamic, with Ukrainian forces reporting a counteroffensive to the north and south of the city.
ABC News was allowed inside a military command center this weekend at an undisclosed location in eastern Ukraine.
Our team watched multiple screens showing live drone feeds down onto the battlefield in eastern Ukraine as a Ukrainian counteroffensive played out in real time near Bakhmut.
Ukrainian soldiers could be seen clearing Russian positions. Dead Russian soldiers were also visible on one of several live video feeds, which are monitored by Ukrainian soldiers.
That operation, which took place on Saturday morning, was one of a series of assaults by Ukrainian forces near Bakhmut in recent days.
Crucially, Ukraine claims it has taken control of higher ground near the city, which could give an important advantage for further attacks.
A Ukrainian commander whose battalion spearheaded an operation south of Bakhmut last week promised there would be more offensive action soon in the area.
The officer, who goes by his callsign “Rolo,” commands as many as 700 men in the 1st Assault Battalion of Ukraine’s 3rd Assault Brigade, which has been operating in and around Bakhmut for several months.
He told ABC News his men stormed Russian positions early in the morning last Wednesday, claiming that, by Thursday, his men had taken half a square mile of land and killed around 50 Russian soldiers. ABC News cannot verify his claims.
“We outplayed them,” he said in an interview in a basement in eastern Ukraine.
The commander would not comment on whether the Ukrainian operation near Bakhmut was the precursor to a more significant counteroffensive by Ukrainian forces.
“Small steps lead to big results,” he said with a smile.
“If you ask me, should we expect more? Yes, we should. If you ask me where, that’s confidential. But you shall see it,” the commander said, adding that new Western weaponry was filtering through to the battlefield.
“We have the initiate now. We dictate the rules,” he boasted. “Now the enemy has to adjust to what we’re doing and act according to our actions.”
ABC News was also shown two US-supplied M113 armored personnel carriers which were badly damaged. According to Ukraine’s 1st Assault Brigade they were used in the operation on Wednesday and Thursday to the south of Bakhmut.
Back at the military command center hidden in a nondescript building in Ukraine’s eastern Donbas, the drone feed showed smoke rising over Bakhmut.
ABC News was unable to spot a building in the city on the live video feed which had not been badly damaged.
Most of the drones feeding the live frontline images back to the screens monitored by soldiers at the command center were commercial drones which can be purchased online, although many of the commercial drones are modified to carry and drop grenades.
The commander at the center, from Ukraine’s Adam Tactical Group, Yevhen Mezhevikin, said Ukrainian forces “in every direction” along the frontline were ready to go on a major counteroffensive “at any moment.”
Speculating that the directions of a future Ukrainian counteroffensive had “already been chosen” by top Ukrainian generals, but were still being kept top secret, he said he was confident about Ukraine’s chances.
He told ABC News that Ukrainian troops experienced successful counteroffensives earlier in the war, and argued that would give them an important edge.
“I’m sure we’ll be able to break through enemy defenses on the frontline and the enemy will have no success,” he said in an interview.
Medics prepare ahead of expected counteroffensive
Doctors and medics at a military field hospital in Ukraine’s eastern Donbas are also preparing for an inevitable spike in casualties when Ukraine launches a larger offensive.
“It is going to be difficult and we’re going to have [an increase in] casualties,” Dr. Oleh Tokarchuk, the lead doctor at the military medical facility, near to the frontlines, told ABC News.
“We’re going to be losing our loved ones and friends but I believe we will be able to make it,” he said.
Four wounded soldiers were brought back from frontline positions in military ambulances to receive treatment at the field hospital, in the roughly 90-minute period ABC News was there.
The soldiers were, according to medics, part of a tank crew which had been hit by Russian artillery.
One of the men had a serious shrapnel wound to his leg. Another, Vasily, who did not give his surname, had a minor injury to his arm.
“An artillery shell landed, some of us tried to take cover, some didn’t,” he said, looking visibly shaken but promising to return to the frontlines once he has recovered.
Tokarchuk said the number of casualties arriving at his facility had significantly reduced since the early months of this year when Russia captured the town of Soledar, near to Bakhmut.
However, he said, his team were ready and prepared for that to change once a major Ukrainian counteroffensive gets underway.
“This is not rocket science,” said Oleh Pankiv, a volunteer at the hospital who helps evacuate medical casualties away from the battle zone.
“When you have assault operations, you will always have many more injured people. But what can we do?” he asked.
“We need to stand our ground. We need to fight against the aggressor. And of course, we need to defend our country,” he added.
(BAJA, Mexico) — At least 10 people were killed and nine were wounded when an apparent team of gunmen ambushed a car rally in Baja, Mexico, about 73 miles from the U.S. border, authorities said.
The horrific attack unfolded just after 2 p.m. on Saturday in San Vicente, near Ensenada, on the Pacific coast of the Baja Peninsula, the Reuters news agency reported.
The violence erupted during the last day of a two-day all-terrain car rally, local officials said. Video purportedly of the shooting was posted on social media, showing off-road vehicles lined up along a road and capturing the sounds of screams and numerous rounds of gunfire.
Several people who appeared to have been shot were seen in the online footage lying on the ground.
Multiple shooters wielding rifles emerged from at least two gray vans at a gas station and opened fire on participants of the car rally gathered there, according to Reuters, citing 911 calls.
Following the volley of gunshots, the perpetrators got back in the vans and fled the scene, which is about 86 miles from San Diego, California, according to Reuters.
There were no reports of any arrests being made.
Ensenada Mayor Armando Ayala Robles said state Attorney General Ricardo Ivan Carpio Sanchez commissioned a special group to investigate the massacre.
The car rally was organized by the group calling itself Cachanillazo, which posted a message to Instagram expressing sympathy to those affected by the tragedy, adding that “unfortunately, what happened during the tour was not in our hands.”
(HIROSHIMA, Japan) — Nearly eight decades after surviving the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, Japan, 85-year-old Keiko Ogura had this message for Russian President Vladimir Putin: “You don’t know what is a nuclear weapon, the reality of a nuclear weapon. So come here and see.”
Ogura spoke to ABC News’ Britt Clennett ahead of the arrivals of President Joe Biden and other leaders in Hiroshima for the annual summit of G7 leaders, held this year in the Japanese city amid new nuclear threats from countries like Russia, North Korea and Iran.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy planned to join the world leaders this weekend for the summit. His presence in Hiroshima is particularly significant amid Putin’s recent decision to move tactical nuclear weapons to Belarus, which neighbors Ukraine.
Putin last year suggested he could use the weapons in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine but subsequently denied he would.
“Threats by Russia of nuclear weapon use, let alone any use of nuclear weapons by Russia, in the context of its aggression against Ukraine are inadmissible,” Biden and the other G7 leaders said Friday in a joint statement, calling for “a world without nuclear weapons.”
Ogura was 8 years old when the U.S. dropped an atomic bomb on the city on Aug. 6, 1945, but she says she can still vividly remember the events of that day.
“First there was a bright flash, and then soon after that, I couldn’t stand. Because soon after that, there was a strong blast — I mean wind, like a typhoon or tornado. And then I was beaten to the street and became unconscious, because of the blast,” Ogura said. When she opened her eyes, everything was dark; gradually she could see that her neighborhood was engulfed in flames, she said.
Ogura met with G7 leaders on Friday during their visit to the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum, according to Japan’s foreign ministry. Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida gave the G7 leaders a private tour of the museum.
According to Japan’s Kyodo News, Kishida later told reporters: “We felt the reality of the atomic bombing and shared a sobering moment that will be etched in our hearts. It was historic from the viewpoint of showing our resolve for a world free of nuclear weapons.”
The bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki prompted Japan’s surrender to the Allies, precipitating the end of World War II. In Japanese, survivors of the bombings are known as “hibakusha.”
During her interview with ABC News, Ogura said this would be her message to Biden: “I say, you have the power and we need a leader…Underneath this land you’re standing there were so many dead souls and so and so, please feel, and please imagine.”
The Hiroshima bombing killed an estimated 140,000 people.
“Black rain, rain contaminated with radiation, dark color, charcoal colored rain fell onto my blouse,” Ogura said.
“Their [the people coming towards her] skin was hanging down from the tip of their finger, and they’re coming like a ghost or a zombie or something…coming to my area, and they started to die,” Ogura said.
“When I recall those days, I can’t help but want to cry,” Ogura continued.
After the G7 leaders toured the museum, they walked to the continuously lit “flame of peace” at the surrounding memorial park, laid wreaths and participated in a tree-planting ceremony. In the background was the Genbaku Dome, the only structure that remained standing in the area where the bomb was dropped.
Biden was the second sitting American president to visit the memorial site. No U.S. president has apologized for the bombing. The White House said that Biden didn’t plan to do so, either. Biden didn’t make any public remarks during his visit to the memorial and museum.
Ogura added, “I know the fear, the reality when the nuclear weapon was used, and I can’t stand this evil existing, the nuclear weapon, even a single weapon existing in this world, on this planet…We need to think about the future generation.”
ABC News’ Karson Yiu, Anthony Trotter, Gamay Palacios and Ben Gittleson contributed to this report.
(NEW YORK) — Western officials said Russia’s forces in Ukraine are so badly depleted that Russia may lack the reserves to effectively respond to a major counteroffensive from Ukrainian troops in the coming weeks.
One official said Russia does not appear to have a dedicated reserve force to react to a major breakthrough from Ukraine.
The assessment, given by Western officials speaking on condition of anonymity to reporters, suggested they back Ukraine’s capacity to attempt an ambitious offensive soon and that the weakened state of Russian forces is increasingly favorable for it, although there was no certainty it would succeed.
While the officials could not say when the counteroffensive would begin, they said the forces Ukraine has gathered and equipped with Western help are now at an “increasingly high level of readiness.”
Russia’s own forces are now so diminished that they are “stretched” and strung out along a more than 1,000-kilometer-long front line, the officials said.
One official cautioned that Ukraine still faced a “monumental” challenge to break through Russia’s lines, saying it would be a “monumental achievement for any army” and warned it was entirely possible the counteroffensive would not achieve its goals.
But, if used effectively, the assault force built up by Ukraine has “the potential for some success” on a scale ambitious enough to alter the outcome of the war, the officials said.
More than trying to retake all of Ukraine’s territory, the key aim for the counteroffensive was to inflict serious enough battlefield defeats on Russian forces to alter President Vladimir Putin’s view of the war. The official said the Kremlin believes it can “win by default” by holding defensive lines and outlasting Western support for Ukraine. The counteroffensive was a chance for Ukraine to convince Putin that was no longer a tenable strategy, officials said.
“The cognitive effect from battlefield activity I think in this case is arguably more important than how many square meters of territory that they manage to achieve,” the official said.
Russia currently has over 200,000 men in Ukraine, according to the officials, and it has built formidable defenses in occupied areas, including extensive minefields that will pose significant obstacles for the counteroffensive.
But the officials said the quality of Russia’s troops manning those defenses was dubious, saying many were badly trained and had poor morale.
Moreover, officials said it appeared Russia had no dedicated reserve force to respond if Ukrainian was able to successfully pierce the line on a large scale.
The Western assessment was notable because it echoes similar warnings from Russian pro-war commentators recently, who have been sounding the alarm around Russia’s preparedness to defend against the counteroffensive.
Some Western countries have previously worried that major Ukrainian successes could trigger Russia to respond with nuclear weapons. But those fears have receded recently and an official said there has been a significant drop-off in Russian nuclear rhetoric.
Analysts are debating whether recent local counterattacks by Ukraine around the city of Bakhmut may be part of the counteroffensive.
Ukraine in the past several days has succeeded in forcing Russian units to retreat on the northern and southern flanks of the city, in the first advances Ukrainian forces have made in months defending the city.
The advances have triggered dire warnings from Yevgeny Prigozhin, the head of Russia’s Wagner mercenary group, whose forces have spearheaded Russian efforts to take Bakhmut. Prigozhin has warned that Ukraine is now attempting to encircle the city.
Wagner is still advancing slowly inside Bakhmut but the Ukrainian successes on the city’s flanks threatens to nullify any eventual capture of the city.
The Ukrainian territorial gains themselves are small — measured in hundreds of meters — but independent analysts as well as Russian pro-war commentators have said they believe Ukraine is counterattacking in Bakhmut to force Russia to pull forces from other areas on the front line, thinning them for a possible main blow.
“Ukrainian formations are fulfilling the main task: forcing Russia’s Armed Forces to stretch its forces and removing the most capable fighting units from other critically important directions,” a prominent Russian military blogger, who publishes on Telegram as “Rybar,” wrote this week.
Ukraine appeared to continue its momentum near Bakhmut on Thursday, advancing again toward the village Sakko i Vanzetti, according to Russian and Ukrainian public statements. The U.S.-based think tank Institute for the Study of War said Ukraine has now “seized the tactical initiative” around Bakhmut.
Gen. Oleskandr Syrskyi, Ukraine’s top ground forces commander, told troops this week that Wagner forces in Bakhmut now felt like “rats in a trap” and the Russian army was now “into a stupor.”
(NEW YORK) — Rescue and relief efforts are underway in Somalia following historic flooding that has left at least 22 people dead and affected more than 460,000 people, according to the United Nations.
The flash and riverine flooding — said to be one of Somalia’s worst in decades — has been triggered by intense Gu seasonal rainfall which caused the Shabelle and Juba Rivers in central Somalia to overflow their banks.
“Floods have washed away livestock, inundated farmland and displaced an estimated 219,00 people,” Petroc Wilton, the head of communications at WFP Somalia, told ABC News. “We have been using chartered flights, boats and tractors to get into flood zones.”
She added, “Gu seasonal rains have caused these floods and increased humanitarian needs.”
At least 22 people have been killed, according to Somalia’s Disaster Management Agency (SoDMA). Somalia has also been experiencing its longest drought on record.
“It will take multiple rainy seasons to reverse the impacts of the drought,” said Wilton, noting that four million livestock have died.
“We are witnessing the Shabelle river’s worst flooding event in the last 30 years. The situation for many displaced families is very precarious right now,” said Ezana Kassa, the head of United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) Somalia. “Livelihoods have been destroyed and the risk of water borne diseases are on the rise.”
Flooding is reported to be greatest in Somalia’s central state of Hirshabelle, where water levels have also forced the closure of government offices, schools and hospitals. Footage from the town of Belet Weyne shows residents wading through waist-deep waters.
“I am at a loss for words at the suffering of my people who have been going through so much without release,” Najima, whose family was forced to flee from Hirshabelle, told ABC News. “My aunt and my cousins have lost everything, their family photos, their valuables, their entire lives.”
She went on, “They are doing well in the circumstances but the devastation is too much to bear. There are no words.”
Scientists and climate activists warn that climate change is contributing to the extreme flooding and drought in Somalia.
“Somalia contributes 0.03% to greenhouse gas emissions. But as I just witnessed, Somalis are among the greatest victims of the chaos caused by the climate crisis,” UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said at a news conference during his recent trip to Somalia in April.
He urged increased humanitarian support to the Horn of Africa to avert a famine crisis.
The UN forecasts as much as 1.6 million people could be impacted by flooding and over 600,000 displaced if heavy rains in Somalia and the Ethiopian highlands continue.
