PARIS: French police are holding three young Moldovans suspected of being behind inscriptions of coffins in Paris with the slogan “French soldiers in Ukraine,” prosecutors said on Saturday.
“Investigations are continuing. The possibility of foreign interference has not been ruled out at this stage,” the Paris prosecutor’s office told AFP.
On Friday, eight coffin inscriptions and three others with words written in the Cyrillic alphabet were discovered on building facades in Paris, said a police source.
Three Moldovans were arrested in the same area on the night of Friday to Saturday, “carrying spray paint and stencils that could match,” added the same source, who asked not to be named.
They are now being questioned in police custody.
The latest incident came after coffins were also found inscribed on the Eiffel Tower. President Emmanuel Macron has not ruled out sending troops to Ukraine for its fight against the Russian invasion, angering Moscow.
Red-hands inscriptions were also found last month on the Holocaust memorial in Paris.
The possibility of foreign interference is still being investigated in these incidents. French officials have repeatedly warned of the risks of information and other attacks by Russia over the support of Paris for Ukraine in the war.
France holds three Moldovans over soldier coffin inscriptions: prosecutors
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France holds three Moldovans over soldier coffin inscriptions: prosecutors
- The latest incident came after coffins were also found inscribed on the Eiffel Tower
Bangladesh summons Myanmar envoy after border clashes
- A dozen villages in Bangladesh’s Cox’s Bazar district have been affected by the violence
DHAKA: Bangladesh on Tuesday summoned the ambassador of Myanmar after civil war gun battles in the neighboring country spilled over the border, wounding a Bangladeshi girl.
Heavy fighting in Myanmar’s Rakhine state this month has involved junta soldiers, Arakan Army fighters and Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army militia guerrillas.
Authorities said around a dozen villages in Bangladesh’s Cox’s Bazar district have been affected by the violence.
Twelve-year-old Huzaifa Afnan was struck by a bullet, while a Bangladeshi fisherman had his leg ripped off after stepping on a landmine near the frontier.
“Bangladesh reminded that the unprovoked firing towards Bangladesh is a blatant violation of international law and a hindrance to good neighborly relations,” a Foreign Ministry press statement said.
Myanmar’s ambassador to Bangladesh, U Kyaw Soe Moe, was summoned to the Foreign Ministry on Tuesday, where he expressed sincere sympathy to the injured victims and their families.
“My daughter was supposed to go to school, but she is on a ventilator,” Afnan’s father Jasim Uddin said. “My heart is bleeding for my baby girl.”
More than a million Rohingya have fled their homes in Myanmar, many after a 2017 military crackdown, and now eke out a living in sprawling refugee camps just across the border in Bangladesh.
ARSA, a Rohingya armed group formed to defend the persecuted Muslim minority, has been fighting the Myanmar military, as well as rival Arakan Army guerrillas.
On Monday, Bangladeshi border forces detained 53 ARSA fighters who had crossed the frontier.
Bangladeshi police officer Saiful Islam, commander of the local Teknaf station, said all detainees were being held in jail, except one fighter who was receiving hospital treatment for bullet wounds.
“These individuals have a history of living in the refugee camps in Cox’s Bazar and crossing into Myanmar,” Islam told AFP.
