50 Killed by Lightning in 2 Days, Elder Hacked to Death

                                    

More than 50 peo­ple across Bang­ladesh have died after being struck by light­ning in the past two days, police said. Many of the dead were farmers who were killed as they worked in their pad­dy fields. Bangladesh is prone to electrical storms but this year they have been par­ticularly severe. Experts suggest a general rise in temperatures and defor­estation may be factors.

Other victims included two students in the capital, Dhaka, who were struck as they played football, and a teenage boy who died when he went to collect mangoes.

About 90 people have been killed by lightning since March, compared to a total of 51 people in the whole of 2015.

Meanwhile, Police in Bangladesh said a 75-year-old Buddhist monk has been hacked to death in the south-eastern district of Bandarban.

An official said the monk’s body was found inside a Buddhist temple. It is the latest in a spate of murders of religious mi­norities, secular activists and academics.

More than 20 people have been killed by sus­pected Islamists in the last three years.

Police said Maung Shue U Chak appeared to have been attacked by at least four people at the temple in Baishari, 350km (220 miles) south-east of the capital Dhaka.

His killing follows the murder of two prominent gay activists, a law student and a university profes­sor in April. In February a Hindu priest was behead­ed in northern Bangla­desh.

The so-called Islam­ic State (IS) group and a Bangladeshi militant group affiliated to al-Qae­da have said they carried out some of the killings.