KHERSON, Ukraine: When Russian artillery pounded a market in southern Ukraine on Tuesday, a safe was blown from the windowsill of the pharmacy where Anya works, hitting her in the head.
She believes it was a stroke of luck.
“The safe hit me and saved me at the same time, because on the other side of the safe there were a lot of holes,” she told AFP, suggesting the metal box had shielded her from other projectiles that had been blasted toward her.
Six people were killed by the Russian strike, which hit a market in the city of Kherson around 9:00 am (0600 GMT), according to the regional prosecutor’s office.
It was the latest attack on a city that has borne the brunt of Moscow’s war for more than two and a half years.
Captured in the first weeks of the invasion in early 2022, residents that stayed there spent more than eight months living under Russian occupation.
In September 2022, Moscow claimed to have annexed the entire Kherson region, despite not having full control over it.
Facing military setbacks and stretched resources, it then withdrew its forces from Kherson city, the regional capital, in November 2022, retreating across the Dnipro river.
The waterway now serves as a de facto front line snaking through southern Ukraine — one that puts Kherson well within reach of Russian artillery stationed on the opposite bank.
Deadly strikes are frequent and locals live on edge.
“Everything happened very quickly. We didn’t understand anything. We only heard an explosion. It went dark, there was dust and something hit me on the head,” said Anya, recalling the blast.
She had stuck a plaster to her forehead where the safe had struck her.
When an AFP video journalist arrived at the market after the strike, debris and broken glass were strewn across the ground and pools of blood were congealing under the autumn sun.
Crates of fruit and vegetables lay on the pavement, abandoned as their sellers fled for cover.
“All those people who suffered, they worked here,” Anya told AFP. “They were our clients, people we knew.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin has demanded that Ukraine abandon the entire Kherson region — as well as parts of Zaporizhzhia, Donetsk and Lugansk that Ukraine still controls — as a precondition to peace talks
Kherson local Gennady was in a hardware kiosk when the artillery hit.
“I didn’t even notice I’d fallen to the floor,” he told AFP.
“Everything here was black. And what was outside — I was afraid to go out.”
‘Everything black’: Russian strike kills six at Kherson market
https://arab.news/nyf75
‘Everything black’: Russian strike kills six at Kherson market
- Deadly strikes are frequent and locals live on edge
- Russian President Vladimir Putin has demanded that Ukraine abandon the entire Kherson region
Bangladesh arrests journalist for ‘anti-state activities’
DHAKA: Bangladesh police on Monday said they had arrested a veteran journalist for alleged “anti-state activities,” accused of promoting the banned party of ousted prime minister Sheikh Hasina.
The arrest, which comes ahead of key elections in February, the first vote since the student-led uprising last year that overthrew the autocratic government of Hasina and her Awami League, sparked concerns from a key rights group.
Anis Alamgir was arrested under the Anti-Terrorism Act along with three others, accused of spreading propaganda in talk shows and social media posts, and conspiring to rehabilitate the Awami League.
The interim government banned Hasina’s Awami League in May under amendments to the Anti-Terrorism Act — a move Human Rights Watch condemned as “draconian.”
“Anis Alamgir has been arrested on accusations of conspiring against the state,” said Kazi Mohammad Rafiq, officer-in-charge of Uttara West police station in the capital Dhaka.
Three others were named in police documents alongside Alamgir, including actress Meher Afroz Shaon.
Rights organization Ain o Salish Kendra condemned the arrest.
“Using a law, originally enacted to prevent terrorist activities, against freedom of expression and journalism is against the fundamental principles of a democratic state,” it said in a statement.
“It’s an attack on freedom of expression.”
Press freedom in Bangladesh has long been under threat, and Hasina’s tenure was marked as one of the worst periods for media freedom in the South Asian nation.
Bangladesh ranks 149 out of 180 countries for press freedom in 2025, according to Reporters Without Borders (RSF), up from 165 a year before.
But RSF also notes that over 130 journalists were subjected to “unfounded judicial proceedings” and five detained, in the “political purge that followed the fall of Sheikh Hasina.”
Those listed as detained pending trial are Ekattor TV’s Farzana Rupa, Shakil Ahmad and Mozammel Babu, as well as freelancer Shahriar Kabir and Shyamal Dutta, editor of Bhorer Kagoj newspaper.
