Rebels down Syria copter; crewmen die
BEIRUT — A government helicopter was shot down and its crew killed Friday in Syria’s northwest, where a military offensive against opposition fighters is unfolding, a Syrian military official and activists said.
Turkey-backed National Front for Liberation fighters claimed responsibility for downing the gunship, saying it was targeted in response to the Syrian army’s indiscriminate targeting of civilians.
A military official told Syrian state media outlets that the helicopter was hit by a “hostile rocket” in the western countryside of Aleppo province. The unnamed official said the helicopter crashed and its crew was killed.
A Syrian military offensive in the region is seeking to uproot opposition fighters from the last territory they hold.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which has a network of activists on the ground, said the helicopter was downed Friday in the village of Qibtan al-Jebel, north of Aleppo city. It said two crew members were killed and their bodies were found near the site of the crash.
Syria’s military has used helicopters to drop rudimentary barrel bombs on opposition areas throughout its campaign to reclaim territory. Rights groups have documented and criticized their use in the nine-year war.
Fire kills 15 Haiti children; rescuers late
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — A fire swept through a Haitian children’s home run by a Pennsylvania-based religious nonprofit group, killing 15 children, officials said Friday.
Rose-Marie Louis, a worker at the Orphanage of the Church of Bible Understanding in the Kenscoff area outside Port-au-Prince, the Haitian capital, told The Associated Press that firefighters took about 90 minutes to arrive. The orphanage had been using candles for light because its generator wasn’t working, she said.
About half of the victims were babies or toddlers and the others were roughly 10 or 11 years old, Louis said.
Rescue workers arrived at the scene on motorcycles and didn’t have bottled oxygen or the ambulances needed to transport the children to the hospital, said Jean-Francois Robenty, a civil protection official.
“They could have been saved,”’ he said. “We didn’t have the equipment to save their lives.”
Late Friday afternoon, police raided another home also run by the Church of Bible Understanding and took away several dozen children in a bus over protests from employees.
“‘We are aware of the fire in the children’s home in Haiti,” said Temi J. Sacks, a spokesman for the group, which is based in Scranton, Pa. “It would be irresponsible for us to comment until after all the facts are in.”
U.K. court OKs ending baby’s life support
LONDON — The parents of a baby declared brain dead by doctors have lost the latest round of a legal battle in Britain’s courts to keep him on life support.
Britain’s Court of Appeal on Friday rejected an attempt by Karwan Ali and Shokhan Namiq to overturn a High Court order that doctors could stop treating their infant son, Midrar Ali.
The baby was starved of oxygen by complications at birth, and was born not breathing and without a heartbeat. He has been on a ventilator ever since.
Judges at both courts agreed with doctors that Midrar had experienced “irreversible brain stem death” by Oct. 1, when he was 14 days old. Three appeals judges ruled Friday that doctors could lawfully “cease to mechanically ventilate” the baby.
One of the judges, Andrew McFarlane, said Midrari no longer had a “brain that is recognizable as such.”
“There is no basis for contemplating that any further tests would result in a different outcome,” he said.
The baby’s parents, who live in Manchester in northwest England, do not accept that his condition is irreversible and want the courts to consider opinions from foreign experts.
Their lawyer, David Foster, said the couple was considering an appeal to the Supreme Court.
21 deaths reported in raid at Mali village
BAMAKO, Mali — Gunmen killed at least 21 people early Friday in central Mali in a village that suffered an attack last year, the government said.
The gunmen attacked the village of Ogossagou in the Bankass circle in the central Mopti region, the government said. The attackers burned homes and looted livestock, it said.
Mali’s government condemned the attack, saying it will investigate and bring the perpetrators to justice.
The U.N. mission in Mali said that it sent a quick reaction force to the village, where several were wounded. It also provided air support to prevent further attacks and evacuate the wounded, it said.
The head of the U.N. mission in Mali, Mahamat Saleh Annadif, said he was shocked and angered by the attack.
“At a time when we were receiving positive developments from the north of the country, what is happening in the center is appalling. I strongly condemn it. There is an urgent need to break the spiral of violence in this region,” he said.
The Peuhl organization in Mali, known as Tabital Pulaku, blamed members of the Dogon militia.