Five bodies recovered from sunken superyacht off Sicily as search continues
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(LONDON and ROME) — Five bodies have been recovered from the superyacht that sunk off the Sicilian coast, ABC News has confirmed, with the final missing passenger’s body also now located inside the vessel.
The fifth body had been brought to shore as of early Thursday morning. Two bodies were brought ashore on Wednesday morning, according to the Italian coast guard, while two other bodies were recovered later on Wednesday.
The body of the final missing passenger — believed to be the 18-year-old daughter of the yacht’s owner, British tech tycoon Mike Lynch — has now also been located inside the yacht, though has not yet been brought to shore.
Mike Lynch’s body is believed to have been among those already recovered from the yacht, though the identities of the dead have not been officially confirmed.
Rescue teams are facing a “very hard” operation to find those still missing after the superyacht sunk on Monday, a spokesperson for the onsite fire brigade teams told ABC News.
Luca Cari said on Wednesday that the rescue operation for the people missing from the U.K.-flagged Bayesian was ongoing. The vessel was lost early on Monday in stormy weather around half a mile from the fishing village of Porticello, close to the city of Palermo.
Fifteen people were rescued alive in the immediate aftermath while one body was previously recovered.
“For us, it remains a rescue operation,” Cari told ABC News Wednesday morning, prior to the recovery of the five bodies, when asked if emergency services were transitioning to a recovery operation.
Asked if there was any hope that the missing may be surviving thanks to air pockets inside the sunk vessel, Cari responded: “One can never exclude anything but it seems rather improbable.”
Cari said that 12 of the 18 divers leading rescue efforts on Wednesday are specialized divers who have extensive experience working inside caves.
Divers have been operating inside the yacht for two days, he added.
“But the job is very hard because there are large obstacles and [we] have to work in very narrow spaces,” he said.
“It’s a long process and we can only operate in short spells,” Cari added.
Divers have to be rotated constantly, with each only able to stay underwater for around 12 minutes, he said.
Two Americans — Christopher and Neda Morvillo — were among the missing, ABC News confirmed on Tuesday.
Christopher Morvillo is a partner at law firm Clifford Chance and represented Lynch in his recent fraud case brought by Hewlett Packard. He is a former assistant United States attorney for the Southern District of New York.
Morgan Stanley International Chairman Jonathan Bloomer and his wife Anne Elizabeth Judith Bloomer are also among the six missing passengers.
(FORT BLISS, Texas) — Travis King, the U.S. Army soldier who ran across the border from South Korea to North Korea last year will plead guilty, to desertion and assault charges as part of a plea deal, according to his attorney.
At a court hearing on Sept. 20 at Fort Bliss, Texas, King is expected to plead guilty to five of the 14 charges he is facing. The five charges include one for desertion, three for disobeying a lawful order, and one for assault on a non-commissioned officer.
King’s attorney, Franklin Rosenblatt, disclosed the plea deal in a statement provided today to ABC News. The possibility of a plea deal for King’s case first came to light in mid-July.
“US Army Private Travis King will take responsibility for his conduct and enter a guilty plea,” Rosenblatt’s statement read. “He was charged by the Army with fourteen offenses under the Uniform Code of Military Justice. He will plead guilty to five of those, including desertion.”
“He will plead not guilty to the remaining offenses, which the Army will withdraw and dismiss,” he adds.
“Travis’s guilty plea will be entered at a general court-martial. There he will explain what he did, answer a military judge’s questions about why he is pleading guilty, and be sentenced,” said Rosenblatt. “Travis is grateful to his friends and family who have supported him, and to all outside of his circle who did not pre-judge his case based on the initial allegations.”
At the Sept. 20 hearing a military judge will determine whether to accept the deal and how much time King should serve in a military prison.
In July, 2023 King crossed into North Korea triggering an international incident when he was held by North Korean authorities for more than two months after he dashed into North Korea at the Joint Security Area at the DMZ. Prior to joining the tour group that brought him to the DMZ King had escaped from his Army escort at the airport where he was to have boarded a flight to take him back to the United States.
(NEW YORK) — The Biden administration has announced plans to expand the influential United Nations Security Council by adding two permanent seats for African nations — an initiative that will likely face an uphill battle in the body and could spark pushback from other countries that have long sought permanent membership.
“It’s what our African partners seek, and we believe, this is what it’s what is just,” U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Linda Thomas-Greenfield said in announcing the plan during a speech at the Council on Foreign Relations on Thursday.
But the administration’s plan comes with an important caveat: Unlike the other permanent members of the Council — China, France, Great Britain, Russia, and the U.S. — the African representatives would not have the power to veto any resolution that comes before the body.
The African Union has already rejected the prospect of denying veto power to the new permanent members from the continent, but a senior administration official argued that even without it, the seats would still have great benefits for Africa.
“Representation is a part of it. Permanent representation does offer perspective and the durability of that perspective on the Council that is otherwise not afforded necessarily by a rotating seat,” the official said. “I can tell you that when we have been briefing these ideas to some of those partners in recent days, we have had an enthusiastic reception.”
The official acknowledged there are still “questions that will need to be worked out,” including determining which countries would fill the new spots. Thomas-Greenfield did not explicitly say which U.N. members the administration would endorse but spoke positively about recent contributions from Kenya and Gabon during her remarks.
This is not the first time the administration has sought to expand the Security Council. In 2022, President Biden announced he supported “increasing the number of both permanent and non-permanent representatives,” with representatives from Africa, Latin America, and the Caribbean. He has also endorsed Germany, India, and Japan for permanent spots.
However, Biden’s push to expand the Council — and a host of other U.S. initiatives — have faced consistent gridlock from Russia and China.
A senior official denied that the administration’s new, narrower focus on adding African representatives was an admission that broader expansion and the inclusion of ardent U.S. allies like Germany and Japan was currently unachievable.
“The proposals that we’re putting forward today are additive to what we’ve said over the years,” they said. “But our view on this is that we cannot let the perfect be the enemy of the good, and we can and should still try to achieve a reformed Council that is more representative, is more credible, and ultimately more effective in addressing the challenges and opportunities that the world faces today. “
Thomas-Greenfield also announced that the administration would move to add a new, elected position on the Security Council to serve as an envoy for small developing island nations. If successful, it would be the first cross-regional seat.
The ambassador concluded by declaring that the U.S. was prepared to move forward with “text-based negotiations” aimed at making the vision a reality.
“This may seem weedy, inside-baseball news. But it’s actually a big deal,” she said. “It means we’re ready to work with other countries to negotiate language, prepare amendments, and ready this resolution for a vote in the General Assembly, and ultimately amend the U.N. Charter.”
(LONDON) — The U.S. said it is “gravely concerned” following a “large-scale escalation” of fighting in El Fasher, capital of Sudan’s North Darfur state, amid a civil war that has been raging in the North African country for more than a year.
Initial reports of escalating fighting began to surface on Sept, 12 following what eyewitnesses recount as a multidirectional attack on the city by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) paramilitary group.
The shelling has been consistent, with explosions being heard in the city “several times this week,” Salah, a resident of the city, told ABC News on Tuesday. He asked to be identified by only his first name.
“There are casualties and many civilians have been killed and injured,” Salah said. “People are dying of famine and diseases. It’s a literally catastrophic situation. As I am speaking, the RSF shelling is going on.”
An analysis from the Yale School of Public Health’s Humanitarian Research Lab confirmed the escalation of fighting, finding “unprecedented,” “high-tempo and intense combat activity” ongoing in the North Darfur capital. The report detected “high tempo aerial bombardment” by the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and “structural damage” from RSF bombardment and other combat activity.
“The current levels of high-tempo combat activity are likely to effectively reduce what is left of El-Fasher to rubble,” reads the report.
The U.N. said it has yet to establish the number of civilian casualties in the city.
In a statement, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield said she was “gravely concerned about reports of a serious escalation in RSF’s months-long siege on El Fasher.”
That concern was echoed by America’s Special Envoy to Sudan Tom Perriello who said he is “extremely concerned” by the RSF’s repeated attacks on the North Darfur capital.
Two displacement camps — Abu Shouk and Al Salaam — have been shelled in the RSF’s renewed attacks according to US’ Special Envoy to Sudan.
El Fasher is the largest city in Sudan’s Darfur region and the Sudanese Army’s (SAF) last stronghold in the region. The city has been at the center of a fierce battle as warring parties vie for its control, the Rapid Support Forces besieging the city since May of 2024.
The unprecedented escalation brings renewed threat to “hundreds of thousands” of civilians, according to the U.N. That estimate included internally displaced persons who found refuge in the city, many of whom had been displaced from elsewhere through the course of Sudan’s now 17-month civil war.
“The humanitarian situation is so sad,” Yasin told ABC news over the phone from Tawila, a small town in North Darfur where many fleeing the conflict have sought refuge.
He asked to only be identified by his first name for his safety.
“Prices are spiking for food, medicine end fuel is so rare and expensive,” Yasin said.
“Life in El Fasher was scary because every day there are bombs, shelling and crossfire as well as intense clashes,” he said. “Yesterday evening RSF shelled areas like Mawashy Market, Thoura and Mudarag. These areas are filled with civilians, and the number of human losses till no are unknown because people are hiding.”
The U.N. Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator for Sudan Clementine Nkweta-Salami has expressed “profound sadness and frustration” over the situation, saying the attacks on the city “violate every humanitarian principle.”
“This is heartbreaking and must stop,” Nkweta-Salami said. “There is no excuse for direct attacks on civilians, their assets and essential facilities such as hospitals.”
In a statement sent to ABC News, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), also known as Doctors Without Borders, says nutritional screenings carried out in conjunction with Sudanese health authorities in Zamzam camp, just 15 km south of El Fasher, indicate malnutrition rates that are “likely some of the worst in the world.”
“Not only do the results confirm the disaster that we and other stakeholders have been observing and alerting on for months, they also indicate that every day, things are getting worse and we’re running out of time,” said Michel Olivier Lacharité, head of emergency operations for MSF. “We are talking about thousands of children who will die over the next few weeks without access to adequate treatment and urgent solutions to allow humanitarian aid and essential goods to reach Zamzam.”
The war in Sudan has precipitated one of the world’s worst hunger crises with over 750,000 people experiencing “catastrophic levels of food insecurity.” according to the U.N.
The conflict has killed over 20,000 people according to a senior U.N. official, but local groups warned the true toll is likely much higher. At least 13 million people have been forced to flee their homes since fighting began in April 2023, according to the International Office of Migration (IOM).
“The level of destruction, death, displacement and disease in Sudan is tragic,” said World Health Organisation Director-General Dr. Tedros Ghebreyesus on Tuesday.
The WHO chief was in Chad on Tuesday to join the delivery of a medical supplies convoy across the Chadian border of Adré into Sudan.
Recent flooding has hampered the delivery of aid through the Adré border.
“Chad’s valleys are filled with carcasses of trucks. But we are making progress,” said Toby Harward, the U.N.’s deputy humanitarian coordinator for Sudan.
“I urge RSF to halt its attack, including bombardments destroying infrastructure and threatening civilian life, and fulfil its commitments to the international community to protect civilians,” said Thomas-Greenfield.
