Portal:Current events/2025 April 17

Armed conflicts and attacks

• Gaza war
  • Rafah offensive
    • The Israel Defense Forces begins the expansion of the recently-established Morag Corridor buffer zone to include the southern Gaza city of Rafah, intending to connect it with the Philadelphi Corridor. Witnesses report the Israeli demolition of structures in Rafah. (Al Jazeera) (RBC Ukraine)
    • At least 37 people, including children, are killed in a series of Israeli strikes against displaced Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, according to the Palestinian Civil Defence agency. (BBC News)
• Red Sea crisis
  • March–April 2025 United States attacks in Yemen
    • The United States Navy launches a wave of missile strikes across Houthi-controlled Yemen, killing at least one person in Sanaa. (AP)
• Somali Civil War
  • 2025 Shabelle offensive, American military intervention in Somalia
    • U.S. airstrikes kill twelve al-Shabaab insurgents in central Somalia, while a separate airstrike destroys an unflagged vessel suspected of carrying weapons for the militant group off the Somali coast. (Reuters) (Middle East Monitor)

Disasters and accidents

• Kočani nightclub fire
  • The death toll from the fire at a nightclub in Kočani, North Macedonia, in March increases to 62 as a burn victim dies in the hospital. (Sloboden Pečat)
• Monte Faito cable car crash
  • Four people are killed and one is injured after the collapse of an aerial tramway on the Monte Faito in Campania, Italy. (Il Messaggero)
• The death toll of the capsized Hong Hai 16 two days ago off Occidental Mindoro, Philippines, rises to four. Seven others are still missing. (Philippine News Agency)
• A middle school student is killed and several others are injured when a school bus returning from a field trip blows a tire, strikes a guard rail, and overturns on Interstate 77 in Chester County, South Carolina, United States. Two other buses travelling back from the field trip maneuvered to avoid crashing into it. Between the three buses, at least 35 students and four adults were injured. (ABC News)

Law and crime

• Tropic Air Flight 711
  • A hijacker is killed and three others are injured when a U.S. citizen hijacks a Tropic Air Cessna 208 Caravan and attacks passengers with a knife before being fatally shot by a passenger with a firearm at Philip S. W. Goldson International Airport in Belize City, Belize. (ABC News) (Airways)
• 2025 Florida State University shooting
  • At least two people are killed and six others are hospitalized in a mass shooting at Florida State University in Tallahassee, Florida, United States. The suspect is arrested by local police. (AP) (The New York Times) (NBC News)
• Illegal drug trade in Turkey
  • Turkish police detain 525 suspected drug dealers in Ankara, in what is the biggest narcotics operation in the country's history, involving thousands of officers, sniffer dogs, drones, and helicopters, according to the interior ministry. (AP) (Türkiye Today)
• The government of Myanmar pardons and releases 4,893 prisoners, including thirteen foreigners who will be deported from the country, and 22 political prisoners, ahead of the country's New Year. (DW) (Radio Free Asia)
• Two people are severely injured in a stabbing attack at an Aldi supermarket in Rochlitz, Saxony, Germany. (DW)

Politics and elections

• Deportation of Kilmar Abrego Garcia
  • U.S. Senator Chris Van Hollen meets with Kilmar Abrego Garcia in El Salvador to push for his release after being denied a meeting hours earlier by the Salvadoran government. (Politico)