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Three women were trampled to death during a stampede for an 1 500 rupee cash handout in Colombo Thursday, AFP reports, amid growing desperation among Sri Lankans struggling to make ends meet during a coronavirus lockdown that has smashed the economy.
Some 1 000 people queued outside a businessman's warehouse for his annual handout during the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan, local member of parliament Mujibur Rahman said.
There was a rush for the 1 500-rupee gift - about the same amount as a labourer's daily wage - when the gates opened, he said.
"Some people tried to break the queue and enter," Rahman told AFP.
"That is when the women at the top of the queue fell and were trampled to death."
Nine others were seriously hurt in the stampede and taken to hospital, he said, adding that there was a larger-than-usual crowd during this year's event, which has been taking place for decades.
"People have not earned any money for two months because of the virus lockdown (since 20 March)," Rahman said.
"People are desperate. When they heard about today's donation, over a thousand turned up."
The businessman, who has not been named by authorities, and five of his assistants were arrested for violating the lockdown, Colombo police chief Deshabandu Tennakoon told reporters.
Government cash handouts this month - 5 000 rupees each to 5.14 million families living below the poverty line - also sparked chaotic scenes in villages.
The country has recorded 1 045 infections including nine deaths so far.
Trump's jailed lawyer released because of coronavirus
US President Donald Trump's former personal attorney Michael Cohen was released from prison to home confinement on Thursday, an AFP photographer witnessed, as part of a push to stem the spread of coronavirus among inmates.
Cohen is serving a three-year sentence after admitting paying hush money to two women who say they slept with Trump, for tax fraud and for lying to Congress.
AFP reports that he nodded to the media gathered in front of his Manhattan apartment as he entered wearing a face mask, blazer and a baseball cap.
Once Trump's right-hand man, the 53-year-old lawyer fell out of favor with the president who dubbed him a "rat" after Cohen testified in federal court and to Congress.
In 2018 Cohen admitted a number of crimes including violating campaign finance laws by delivering payments prior to the 2016 election to a porn star and a former Playboy model alleging affairs with the president.
Cohen, the father of two children in their 20s, was serving his sentence at the Otisville Federal Correctional Institution in upstate New York.
A judge initially rejected his bid for early release over the coronavirus pandemic that has ravaged the state and overrun prison facilities nationwide.
But coronavirus-relief legislation allowed Attorney General Bill Barr emergency powers to send some inmates into home confinement without judicial permission.
'Yemen faces coronavirus catastrophe'
Six years of war have wrecked Yemen's health system and left it facing a "catastrophe" from the coronavirus pandemic, international medical charity Doctors Without Borders (MSF) warned, according to an AFP report.
Dozens have already died in the government's interim capital Aden, according to MSF, even though the country has officially registered fewer than 200 cases and 30 deaths.
The city, which is home to 550 000 people, has taken virtually no preventive measures and there are no quarantine facilities for those who test positive.
Yemen's health system has all but collapsed since fighting broke out in 2014, with more than two-thirds of the population dependent on aid for survival, according to the United Nations.
MSF said the number of patients being admitted to its Aden treatment centre - the only dedicated Covid-19 facility in the whole of southern Yemen - "speaks to a wider catastrophe unfolding in the city".
In the first half of May, MSF said at least 68 virus patients had died - more than double the official figure for the entire country since the start of the pandemic.
"Many patients are arriving at the centre already suffering from acute respiratory distress syndrome, making it hard to save their lives and suggesting that many more people are sick at home," MSF said.
The charity added that burial statistics suggested as many 80 people had been dying in Aden every day for the past week, up from a pre-outbreak rate of 10.
Health sources have told AFP that many doctors in Aden have deserted their posts because of a lack of access to protective gear.
"What we are seeing in our treatment centre is just the tip of the iceberg in terms of the number of people infected and dying in the city," said Caroline Seguin, MSF's operations manager for Yemen.
She said the United Nations and donor states had to do more - including finding a way to mobilise health workers and get supplies of protective equipment.
The government, backed by a Saudi-led coalition, is fighting Huthi rebels supported by Iran in a conflict that has killed tens of thousands - triggering what the UN has termed the world's worst humanitarian crisis.
The Huthis stormed the capital Sanaa in September 2014 and Aden was set up as the government's interim seat months later.
But tensions between the central government and another group of rebels in the south have further muddied the waters, with the self-proclaimed Southern Transitional Council declaring self-rule on 26 April.
