Bangladesh road crashes killed 125,405 people in 13 years, passenger group says

Three tourists died and two others went missing after strong currents swept them away while they were bathing at Himchari beach in Cox's Bazar on Wednesday afternoon, police said. Another member of the group was rescued alive and taken to hospital.

Soleiman, who heads the Himchari police outpost, said several tourists had entered the sea near the museum beside Marina Resort when the current pulled them out. Local residents began a rescue operation and recovered several people. Three were declared dead after being taken to hospital, he said. Police and local volunteers were still searching the water for the two missing tourists in the evening.

Ramu Upazila Nirbahi Officer (UNO) Md Jillur Rahman also confirmed the deaths. He told Bangla Tribune that the tourists were carried away by the waves and that a rescue operation was under way. Reports put the incident in the late afternoon, though accounts of the exact time differed slightly.

The identities of the dead and the missing had not been released on Wednesday night. Police said names would be disclosed after their families had been informed. It was also not clear how many people were in the group, whether any of them were children, or which districts they came from. The condition of the rescued tourist was not immediately available.

Himchari lies about 12 kilometres south of Cox's Bazar town, where hills run down to the sea and the beach is a short drive from the main tourist strip. It is one of the most visited spots on the roughly 120-kilometre coastline, and the stretch attracts crowds during holidays and festivals.

Most of that coastline has no lifeguard cover. The chief of the district administration's beach workers, Belal Uddin, told Bangla Tribune in June that 27 lifeguards and 37 beach workers were deployed along the five-kilometre stretch from Kalatoli to Laboni point. The remaining 115 kilometres to the south, taking in Himchari, Darianagar, Inani, Patuartek, Bahrarchhara and Teknaf, had little or no rescue capacity, he said.

Belal Uddin said at the time that the administration ran campaigns warning people not to bathe in the sea in bad weather, but that tourists often ignored the warnings and entered the water at unprotected spots. Wednesday's deaths raised the same question again: whether warning flags and patrols were in place at the Himchari section when the group went in. Neither the police outpost chief nor the UNO said on Wednesday whether lifeguards were on duty there, or whether red flags had been posted.

The coast has a record of similar accidents. In June, a 22-year-old tourist went missing after he was swept away at Inani, and another tourist drowned at Segal point in Cox's Bazar town on 31 May, Bangla Tribune reported at the time. In the June case, the missing tourist's friend said there were no lifeguards, police officers or other people nearby when the current took him.

Rescue work at Himchari on Wednesday was carried out by local residents and police, according to the outpost chief. It was not clear whether fire service divers or other specialised teams had joined the operation. The search was continuing on Wednesday night.

For the families, the immediate wait is for identification and for news of the two still in the water. For the district administration, the case again puts attention on the long unguarded stretches of beach, where visitor numbers have grown while rescue services have stayed small. Belal Uddin said in June that tourists were ignoring warnings at unprotected spots, and that the administration could not station rescuers along the whole coast.

What happens next depends on the search and on whether the administration reviews safety at Himchari. Police have not said whether they will file a case or order an inquiry into how the group entered the water. The names of the dead and missing, and the exact sequence of events, are still to be confirmed.

President Emmanuel Macron on Wednesday rejected claims by President Donald Trump and other foreign leaders that Muslim migrants were responsible for the rioting that has shaken French cities, describing the assertions as "stupid" and politically motivated.

Speaking to reporters in Doha at the end of a tour of Gulf energy suppliers, Macron said there had been "foreign manipulation of information in the aftermath" of the looting in Paris and other cities last weekend. "And that has led to comments that are as unacceptable as they are stupid, from many people, including foreign leaders," he said. Asked whether he was referring to Trump, Macron replied: "Among others."

Macron said images generated by artificial intelligence had depicted "scenes that never actually happened in France", and that claims the country had been "invaded by hordes of migrants and Islamists" were "completely false". He did not say which images he meant or explain how he had established that they were fake.

The remarks widened a dispute that has run through the US midterm campaign. Trump, campaigning for Republican candidates, has repeatedly tied the French unrest to immigration, saying the violence involved "migrants, jihadists, and communists". He wrote on his Truth Social platform that "France is burning" and urged Macron to "close your borders and take control before it is too late". On Tuesday he also praised French far-right leader Marine Le Pen, the frontrunner in the race to succeed Macron.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who also faces an election, said France had been hit by an "invasion of extremist Islam", according to AFP. French officials have rejected that characterisation. Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot said his office could provide governments with clarification "to help them avoid spreading or amplifying false information and making baseless claims on social media".

The unrest began after nationwide marches on Saturday against the cost of living, in which more than half a million people took part, following four weeks of student protests over conditions in schools. Masked youths clashed with police, looted shops and damaged public buildings. The government acknowledged it had "lost control" of the situation, and authorities imposed nighttime curfews in parts of Paris and several other cities.

Macron's comments were also aimed at critics at home. "The fact is, all the people who are speaking ill of our country right now are people who don't love our country," he said. He argued that foreign leaders in the middle of election campaigns were "using our country for their own political campaigns", sometimes by "naively" repeating AI-generated content.

The crisis has arrived at a difficult moment for Macron, with a presidential election to choose his successor six months away. Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu's government is struggling to pass a cost-cutting budget through a fragmented parliament, and the riots have unsettled financial markets. The yield on France's benchmark 10-year government bond rose above 5 per cent on Wednesday and the Paris stock market fell. Moody's is expected to review France's public debt rating on Friday.

An Ifop survey conducted after the riots put Le Pen ahead in first-round voting intentions by a wide margin, with far-left leader Jean-Luc Melenchon the most likely opponent in a runoff.

Macron said he would chair a meeting of key ministers and intelligence officials on Thursday to receive a "detailed account" of what happened at the weekend. Lecornu, who met union leaders on Wednesday, has promised a "massive" police deployment for further cost-of-living demonstrations called by the Yellow Vest movement for Saturday. Organisers have told authorities they will march from Bastille in Paris, with follow-up nationwide protests planned for 5 November.

Several questions remain unanswered. French police have not established any link between immigrants and the rioting, and analysts have dismissed the claims that migrants were driving the protests. It is also unclear which AI-generated images Macron was referring to, whether Trump will respond directly, and how long the curfews will stay in place. France's neighbours are watching closely: Italy has sent 500 troops to Milan after smaller unrest there, and the United States, China and Germany have issued travel advisories for France.