Ethiopia announced on Friday three days of mourning following a devastating landslide in a southern remote part of the country where more than 250 people lost their lives.

Rescuers are continuing the grim search for bodies in the tiny locality of Kencho Shacha Gozdi, while distraught survivors bury those who perished in the disaster, the deadliest landslide on record in the Horn of Africa nation.

UN humanitarian agency OCHA, citing local authorities, said on Thursday that 257 people have died and warned the toll could reach 500.

“The House of Peoples’ Representatives has announced a three-day national mourning for the people who lost their lives in the landslide accident,” Ethiopia’s parliament said, adding that it would start from Saturday.

The period of remembrance would allow “comfort to their relatives and all the people of our country,” added the statement, shared by the state-run Ethiopian Broadcasting Corporation.

The Ethiopian Disaster Risk Management Commission said earlier Friday that humanitarian aid and rehabilitation was “well under way” in the region.

It said a “structure for emergency disaster response coordination and integration” had been established, putting the number of people needing to be relocated at 6,000.

OCHA had said more than 15,000 people need to be evacuated because of the risk of further landslides, including small children and thousands of pregnant women or new mothers.

Aid had begun arriving, it said, including four trucks from the Ethiopian Red Cross Society.

Officials said most of the victims were buried when they rushed to help after a first landslide, which followed heavy rains Sunday in the area that lies about 480 kilometres (300 miles) from the capital Addis Ababa.

International offers of condolences have flooded in, including from the African Union, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres and World Health

Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, who is Ethiopian.

Africa’s second most populous nation is often afflicted by climate-related disasters and more than 21 million people or about 18 percent of the population rely on humanitarian aid as a result of conflict, flooding or drought.

AFP.

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s campaign, on Tuesday, filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission, saying that U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris could not legally take over funds raised by President Joe Biden’s reelection campaign.

Biden, an 81-year-old Democrat who was in a tight race with Republican challenger Donald Trump, endorsed Harris when he ended his reelection bid on Sunday.

Harris quickly took control of Biden’s campaign accounts and on Monday night wrapped up the nomination by winning pledges from a majority of the delegates who at next month’s party convention will determine the nominee, according to her campaign.

The fight over the accounts, which had roughly $95 million in the bank at the end of June, is part of a multi-pronged effort by Republicans to stymie Harris’ bid to lead the Democratic ticket.

The Trump campaign argued that Harris undertook a “brazen money grab,” according to the filing by David Warrington, the campaign’s general counsel. In the filing, which Reuters said it saw, Warrington said Harris was in the process of committing what he described as the “the largest campaign finance violation in American history.”

Saurav Ghosh, a lawyer at the Campaign Legal Center, a non-partisan watchdog group, has said that because Harris was already part of “Biden for President” as the vice presidential candidate, her claim on the money should be secure.

In any case, election regulators are unlikely to resolve the issue before the Nov. 5 presidential election.

The FEC said they were unable to comment on unresolved enforcement matters.

U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris laid out her argument against Donald Trump at the first rally of her presidential campaign on Tuesday, while a new poll showed her with a slight lead over her Republican rival.

Harris’ campaign has said it had raised $100 million since Sunday, when Biden stepped back from the campaign and endorsed her – exceeding Biden’s remaining tally in just a few days. Her campaign brushed off the FEC complaint.

“Republicans may be jealous that Democrats are energized to defeat Donald Trump and his MAGA allies, but baseless legal claims – like the ones they’ve made for years to try to suppress votes and steal elections – will only distract them while we sign up volunteers, talk to voters, and win this election,” said Harris campaign spokesperson Charles Kretchmer Lutvak.

Two female police officers were also sentenced. Ramatu Kamanda Conteh received a 30-year sentence for harboring Koita.

Ahigh court in Sierra Leone has sentenced 11 people, including soldiers and police officers, to lengthy prison terms for their role in a failed military coup attempt last year.

The court’s verdict follows an attack on November 26, 2023, when gunmen targeted multiple military barracks and a prison, freeing about 2,200 inmates and killing over 20 people.

Reuters reports that, after the failed coup attempt, 12 people were charged with treason in January.

However, on Monday, 11 people were convicted in a unanimous jury verdict on 20 counts, including treason, murder, and unauthorized use of military uniforms.

The twelfth accused, Bai Mahmoud Bangura of the opposition All People’s Congress (APC) party, is being tried separately due to health concerns.

Amadu Koita Makalo, a retired army major and former bodyguard to ex-president Ernest Bai Koroma, was sentenced to multiple terms totaling 40 to 70 years in prison, with the sentences to be served concurrently.

Two female police officers were also sentenced. Ramatu Kamanda Conteh received a 30-year sentence for harboring Koita.

The government said the coup bid was led mostly by bodyguards to Koroma, who was later charged with four related offences, before the government decided to let him leave the country on medical grounds.

However, Koroma condemned the coup attempt and his lawyers called the charges “trumped up” and part of a “political vendetta”.

Tensions have resurfaced in Sierra Leone, nearly two decades after the civil war from 1991 to 2002 that claimed over 50,000 lives.