GUNMEN KILL 24 IN BURKINA FASO
FASO» OUAGADOUGOU, BURKINA Gunmen killed 24 civilians, including a church pastor, and kidnapped three others on Sunday in Burkina Faso, an official said. It was the latest attack against a religious leader in the increasingly unstable West African nation.
The mayor of Boundore commune, Sihanri Osangola Brigadie, said the attack occurred in the town of Pansi in Yagha province. The roughly 20 attackers separated men from women close to a Protestant church. At least 18 other people were injured.
Both Christians and Muslims were killed before the church was set on fire, said a government security official in Dori who spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to speak to the media.
U.K. grapples with severe floods, storm death toll rises to 3. LONDON» Britain issued severe flood warnings Monday, advising of life-threatening danger after Storm Dennis dumped weeks’ worth of rain in some places. A woman was found dead after being swept away by the floodwaters, the storm’s third confirmed victim.
To the east, Dennis’ gale-force winds also left nine people injured in Germany as their vehicles crashed into broken trees littering roads and train tracks. Flooding and power outages were reported elsewhere in northern Europe.
By Monday evening, Britain’s Environment Agency issued seven severe flood warnings in the central English counties of Herefordshire, Staffordshire and Worcestershire. Another 200 lower-level flood warnings were also in place, meaning that flooding was expected.
Some 480 flood warnings and alerts were issued across England on Monday, the highest number on record, the agency said.
Hundreds still flooded from homes in Mississippi capital.
MISS.» The swollen JACKSON,
Pearl River appeared to have crested Monday in Mississippi’s capital, but authorities warned the hundreds of evacuees in the Jackson area not to rush back home until they got the all clear, and a forecast of more rain put counties further south at risk of flooding.
No injuries were reported from the major flooding in central Mississippi and southern Tennessee. But as the high water recedes, officials expect to find damaged roads and problems with water and sewage pipes.
Largest mass graves uncovered in Burundi with 6,000 bodies. KENYA» Authorities
NAIROBI, in Burundi said they have opened six mass graves containing more than 6,000 bodies from unrest that occurred decades ago, the largest such discovery in years of work.
The East African nation has been unearthing such graves from a past that includes massacres along ethnic lines. Some have warned that the work can be sensitive ahead of the presidential election in May.
The country’s truth and reconciliation commission said the latest mass graves to be explored are in central Karusi province. There appear to be at least 18 such graves.
U.K. government adviser quits amid furor over comments on IQ, race. LONDON» An adviser to British Prime Minister Boris Johnson resigned on Monday amid fierce criticism of his past comments linking intelligence to race and suggesting contraception should be made compulsory to avoid “a permanent underclass.”
Andrew Sabisky said he was quitting because he had become “a distraction.”
Sabisky — who has a master’s degree in the psychology of education, according to an online biography — wrote in 2014 that “one way to get around the problems of unplanned pregnancies creating a permanent underclass would be to legally enforce universal uptake of long-term contraception at the onset of puberty. Vaccination laws give it a precedent, I would argue.”