HAMPTON, US: Authorities in South Carolina are investigating a shooting at a nightclub early Sunday that wounded at least nine people. It was the second mass shooting in the state and the third in the nation during the Easter holiday weekend.
The South Carolina shootings and one in Pittsburgh, in which two minors were killed early Sunday, also left at least 31 people wounded.
South Carolina’s State Law Enforcement Division is investigating the shooting at Cara’s Lounge in Hampton County. The agency said in an email there were no reported fatalities. No information was immediately available on the severity of the injuries. Hampton County is roughly 80 miles (130 kilometers) west of Charleston. A phone call to the nightclub was not answered.
In Pittsburgh, two minors were killed and at least eight people when shots were fired during a party at a short-term rental property. The “vast majority” of the hundreds of people at the party were underage, the city’s Police Chief Scott Schubert told reporters.
The two shootings come just a day after gunfire erupted at a busy mall in the South Carolina state capital of Columbia, about 90 miles (145 kilometers) north of where Sunday’s nightclub shooting took place. Nine people were shot and five other people sustained injuries while trying to flee the scene at Columbiana Center, Columbia Police Chief W.H. “Skip” Holbrook said Saturday. The victims ranged in age from 15 to 73. None faced life-threatening injuries.
“We don’t believe this was random,” Holbrook said. “We believe they knew each other and something led to the gunfire.”
The only person arrested in the mall shooting so far is Jewayne M. Price, 22, who was one of three people initially detained by law enforcement as a person of interest. Price’s attorney, Todd Rutherford, told news outlets Sunday that Rutherford fired a gun at the mall, but in self-defense. He is facing a charge of unlawfully carrying a pistol because he did not have a permit to carry a weapon, Rutherford said.
Columbia police said on Twitter that a judge agreed Sunday to let Price leave jail on a $25,000 surety bond. He was to be on house arrest with an ankle monitor, police said.
“It was unprovoked by him. He called the police, turned himself in, turned over the firearm that was used in this, and gave a statement to the Columbia Police Department,” Rutherford said, according to WMBF-TV. “That is why he got a $25,000 bond.”
Police said the judge will allow Price to travel from home to work during certain hours each day. Price is forbidden from contacting the victims and anyone else involved in the shooting incident.
South Carolina residents age 21 or older can get a weapons permit, that as of last year, allows them to carry weapons openly or concealed. They have to have eight hours of gun training and pass a background check that includes fingerprinting. Rutherford said Price legally owned his gun, although he did not have a permit to carry it.
The three Easter weekend mass shootings are in addition to other shootings in recent days. Last week, a gunman opened fire in a New York subway car, injuring 10 people. A suspect was arrested the next day. Earlier this month, police said six people were killed and 12 others wounded in Sacramento, California, during a gunfight between rival gangs as bars closed in a busy downtown area just blocks from the state Capitol.
One week ago, a shooting inside a crowded nightclub in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, left a man and a woman dead and 10 people wounded, authorities said. And last month, 10 people were shot at a spring break party in Dallas and several others were injured as they tried to escape the gunfire, police said.
US rocked by 3 mass shootings during Easter weekend; 2 dead
https://arab.news/ppj79
US rocked by 3 mass shootings during Easter weekend; 2 dead
- At least 31 people wounded were wounded in the two shootings early Sunday
Ethiopia’s prime minister accuses Eritrea of mass killings during Tigray war
- Landlocked Ethiopia says that Eritrea is arming rebel groups, while Eritrea says Ethiopia’s aspiration is to gain access to a seaport
- Ethiopia lost sovereign access to the Red Sea when Eritrea seceded in 1993 after decades of guerrilla warfare
ADDIS ABABA: Ethiopia’s government Tuesday for the first time acknowledged the involvement of troops from neighboring Eritrea in the war in the Tigray region that ended in 2022, accusing them of mass killings, amid reports of renewed fighting in the region.
Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, while addressing parliament Tuesday, accused Eritrean troops fighting alongside Ethiopian forces of mass killings in the war, during which more than 400,000 people are estimated to have died.
Eritrean and Ethiopian troops fought against regional forces in the northern Tigray region in a war that ended in 2022 with the signing of a peace agreement.
Eritrea’s Information Minister Yemane Gebremeskel told The Associated Press that Ahmed’s comments were “cheap and despicable lies” and did not merit a response.
Both nations have been accusing each other of provoking a potential civil war, with landlocked Ethiopia saying that Eritrea is arming and funding rebel groups, while Eritrea says Ethiopia’s aspiration is to gain access to a seaport.
“The rift did not begin with the Red Sea issue, as many people think,” Ahmed told parliamentarians. “It started in the first round of the war in Tigray, when the Eritrean army followed us into Shire and began demolishing houses, massacred our youth in Axum, looted factories in Adwa, and uprooted our factories.”
“The Red Sea and Ethiopia cannot remain separated forever,” he added.
Ethiopia lost sovereign access to the Red Sea when Eritrea seceded in 1993 after decades of guerrilla warfare.
Gebremeskel said the prime minister has only recently changed his tune in his push for access to the Red Sea.
Ahmed “and his top military brass were profusely showering praises and State Medals on the Eritrea army and its senior officers. … But when he later developed the delusional malaise of ‘sovereignty access to the sea’ and an agenda of war against Eritrea, he began to sing to a different chorus,” he said.
Eritrea and Ethiopia initially made peace after Abiy came to power in 2018, with Abiy winning a Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts toward reconciliation.
In June, Eritrea accused Ethiopia of having a “long-brewing war agenda” aimed at seizing its Red Sea ports. Ethiopia recently said that Eritrea was “actively preparing to wage war against it.”
Analysts say an alliance between Eritrea and regional forces in the troubled Tigray region may be forming, as fighting has been reported in recent weeks. Flights by the national carrier to the region were canceled last week over the renewed clashes.
