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A suspected drug boss nicknamed “The Fly” is at the centre of police manhunt after escaping from a prison van in France.

Two prison officers were killed and three others seriously wounded when a convoy transporting prisoner Mohamed Amra from court to jail was ambushed at a motorway tollbooth near Rouen in Normandy by gunmen wearing balaclavas.

Mohamed Amra
Image:
Mohamed Amra

Several hundred police officers have been deployed nationwide to find the 30-year-old convict and gunmen. It is unclear how many assailants were involved.

CCTV footage showed a black Peugeot SUV driving into the front of a white van, with other video showing at least two armed men carrying rifles circling the car in flames on the A154 motorway.

French media reports suggested a second car used during the attack was a Sedan – stolen in the town of Pontault-Combault in northern France – which had been following the convoy and together with the SUV trapped the prison van.

The two cars were later found torched a few miles away.

A day of blockades dubbed “Dead Prisons Day” has been announced in jails across France today as prison officer unions respond in anger to Tuesday’s attack.

Local media on Wednesday reported demonstrations outside of prisons across the country – including in the French capital Paris, Rouen, Nice, Grasse, Draguignan and Amiens.

A fire burns as prison staff block the entrance of a detention centre  in Val De Reuil, France. Pic: Reuters
Image:
Wooden pallets are set on fire as prison staff block the entrance of a detention centre in Val De Reuil, France. Pic: Reuters

In Yvelines 130 people blocked a remand centre and set fire to wooden pallets, Le Parisien reported.

Inside, around 15 prison staff went about their everyday jobs – compared with the 40 usually onsite.

In addition, the day’s prisoner transportations and visits were cancelled, according to the newspaper.

Hubert Gratraud, a union representative, said: “There is an awareness of the dangerousness.

“We need resources and training. We need to get as close as possible to the reality on the ground: anything can happen.”

“People were shot at point-blank range, it was a massacre, a butchery,” said Ronan Roudaut, another union official.

A minute’s silence is also planned across the French criminal justice system including prisons and courtrooms at 11am.

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‘Assassination attempt’

Police sources said Amra was involved in international drug dealing, a suspect in a kidnap and murder case in Marseille, and had ties to the city’s powerful “Blacks” gang.

He had recently been sentenced to 18 months for burglary in the suburbs of Evreux, northwest France, reported BFM TV.

The French broadcaster said his nickname was La Mouche – or “The Fly” in English.

A prison source told Le Parisien that Amra tried to saw the bars off his cell a few days ago – with the convict reportedly put in solitary confinement afterwards.

The publication said he is suspected of having ordered an assassination attempt, linked to drugs, targeting a Frenchman in Spain in the summer of 2023.

It added Amra, born in Rouen in northern France, was also re-evaluated as ‘Escort 3’ risk category, making more guards necessary during transportation.

Read more: Who is ‘The Fly’?

Dangerous fugitive’s mum speaks

His mother told French radio network RTL she had no idea her son had planned an escape.

“I went to Baumettes to see him, he was in solitary confinement, I went to [the prison of] Evreux once. He spoke normally, he didn’t show me anything. I don’t understand,” she said.

“They carry him around from right to left, they put him in solitary confinement instead of judging him once and for all.”

She said she “broke down” and “cried” when she found out what had happened.

“It makes me sick. How can lives be taken like that?” she said of the two fatalities.

“I don’t know what’s going on in his head, he’s not talking to me. He’s my son and he doesn’t talk to me about anything,” she added.

Justice Minister Eric Dupond-Moretti said two of the injured officers were in a critical condition.

“Absolutely everything will be done to find the perpetrators of this despicable crime,” he told BFM TV.

“These are people for whom life means nothing. They will be arrested, judged and punished according to the crime they committed.”

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Climate-vulnerable islands storm out of COP29 negotiation room in row over funding

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Climate-vulnerable islands storm out of COP29 negotiation room in row over funding

Representatives of dozens of climate vulnerable islands and African nations have stormed out of high-stakes negotiations over a climate funding goal.

Patience is wearing thin and negotiations have boiled over at the COP29 climate talks in Azerbaijan, which were due to finish yesterday but are now well into overtime.

After two weeks of talks, the more than 190 countries gathered in the capital Baku are still trying to agree a new financial settlement to channel money to poorer countries to both curb and adapt to climate change.

Talks have now run well into overtime at COP29, but a deal now feels much more precarious.

The least developed countries like Mozambique and low-lying island nations like Samoa say their calls for a portion of the fund to be allocated to them have been ignored.

Samoa’s minister of natural resources and environment Toeolesulusulu Cedric Schuster is one of the representatives who walked out.

“We are here to negotiate but we have walked out… at the moment we don’t feel we are being heard in there,” he said on behalf of more than 40 small island and developing states, whose shorelines are being lost to rising sea levels.

More on Cop29

Shortly after he made a veiled threat of leaving COP29 altogether, saying: “We want nothing more than to continue to engage, but the process must be INCLUSIVE.

“If this cannot be the case, it becomes very difficult for us to continue our involvement here at COP29.”

Evans Njewa, who chairs a group of more than 40 least developed countries, said the current deal is “unacceptable for us. We need to speak to other developing countries and decide what to do.”

The last official draft on Friday pledged $250bn a year annually by 2035.

This is more than double the previous goal of $100bn set 15 years ago, but nowhere near the annual $1.3trn that experts say is needed.

Sky News understands some developed countries like the UK were this morning willing to bump up the goal to $300bn.

Developing countries are angry not just about the finance negotiations, but also on how to make progress on a pledge from last year to “transition away from fossil fuels”.

A group of oil and producing countries, spearheaded by Saudi Arabia, have tried to dilute that language, while the UK and island state are among those that have fought to keep it in.

Mr Schuster said all things being negotiated contain a “deplorable lack of substance”.

He added: “We need to see progress and follow up on the transition away from fossil fuels that we agreed last year. We have been asked to forget all about that at this COP, as though we are not in a critical decade and as though the 1.5C limit is not in peril.”

“We need to be shown the regard which our dire circumstances necessitate.”

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At least 11 killed in Israeli strikes on central Beirut, Lebanese authorities say

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At least 11 killed in Israeli strikes on central Beirut, Lebanese authorities say

At least 11 people have been killed and 63 injured in an Israeli strike on central Beirut, Lebanese authorities have said.

Lebanon‘s health ministry said the death toll could rise as emergency workers dug through the rubble looking for survivors. DNA tests are being used to identify the victims, the ministry added.

State-run National News Agency (NNA) said the attack “completely destroyed” an eight-storey residential building in the Basta neighbourhood early on Saturday.

Footage broadcast by Lebanon’s Al Jadeed station also showed at least one destroyed building and several others badly damaged around it.

The central Basta neighbourhood in Beirut, where four people were killed in an Israeli airstrike
Image:
The central Basta neighbourhood in Beirut, where four people were killed in an Israeli airstrike

Map of Lebanon and Israel

The Israeli military did not warn residents to evacuate before the attack – the fourth targeting the centre this week.

At least four bombs were dropped in the attack, security sources told Reuters news agency.

The blasts happened at about 4am (2am UK time).

A seperate drone strike in the southern port cuty of Tyre this morning killed one person and injured another, according to the NNA.

The blasts came after a day of bombardment of Beirut’s southern suburbs and Tyre. The Israeli military had issued evacuation notices prior to those strikes.

Pic: AP
Image:
Pic: AP

Israel has killed several Hezbollah leaders in air strikes on the capital’s southern suburbs.

Heavy fighting between Israel and Hezbollah is ongoing in southern Lebanon, as Israeli forces push deeper into the country since launching a major offensive in September.

Read more:
No 10 indicates Netanyahu would be arrested
‘Dozens’ of Palestinians killed in Israeli airstrike

US envoy Amos Hochstein was in the region this week to try to end more than 13 months of fighting between Israel and Hezbollah, ignited last October by the war in Gaza.

Mr Hochstein indicated progress had been made after meetings in Beirut on Tuesday and Wednesday, before going to meet Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and defence minister Israel Katz.

According to the Lebanese health ministry, Israel has killed more than 3,500 people in Lebanon and wounded more than 15,000.

It has displaced about 1.2 million people – a quarter of Lebanon’s population – while Israel says about 90 soldiers and nearly 50 civilians have been killed in northern Israel.

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Vladimir Putin vows to increase production of Russia’s ‘unstoppable’ missile – as NATO and Ukraine to hold talks

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Vladimir Putin vows to increase production of Russia's 'unstoppable' missile - as NATO and Ukraine to hold talks

President Vladimir Putin has said Russia will ramp up the production of a new, hypersonic ballistic missile.

In a nationally-televised speech, Mr Putin said the intermediate-range Oreshnik missile was used in an attack on Ukrainian city Dnipro in retaliation for Ukraine’s use of US and British missiles capable of striking deeper into Russian territory.

Referring to the Oreshnik, the Russian president said: “No one in the world has such weapons.

“Sooner or later other leading countries will also get them. We are aware that they are under development.”

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Putin’s warning to the West

Russia war latest: Long-awaited US air defences arrive in Ukraine

He added: “We have this system now. And this is important.”

Detailing the missile’s alleged capabilities, Mr Putin claimed it is so powerful that using several fitted with conventional warheads in one attack could be as devastating as a strike with nuclear weapons.

More on Russia

General Sergei Karakayev, head of Russia’s strategic missile forces, said the Oreshnik could reach targets across Europe and be fitted with either nuclear or conventional warheads – while Mr Putin alleged Western air defence systems will not be able to stop the missiles.

Mr Putin said of the Oreshnik: “There is no countermeasure to such a missile, no means of intercepting it, in the world today. And I will emphasise once again that we will continue testing this newest system. It is necessary to establish serial production.”

Read more from Sky News:
What are storm shadow missiles?
How bionic limps are helping Ukrainian troops

Testing the Oreshnik will happen “in combat, depending on the situation and the character of security threats created for Russia“, the president added, stating there is “a stockpile of such systems ready for use”.

NATO and Ukraine are expected to hold emergency talks on Tuesday.

Meanwhile Ukraine’s parliament cancelled a session as security was tightened following the strike on Dnipro, a central city with a population of around one million. No fatalities were reported.

EU leaders condemn Russia’s ‘heinous attacks’

Numerous EU leaders have addressed Russia’s escalation of the conflict with Poland’s Prime Minister Donald Tusk saying the war is “entering a decisive phase [and] taking on very dramatic dimensions”.

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Russia’s new missile – what does it mean?

Speaking in Kyiv, Czech foreign minister Jan Lipavsky called Moscow’s strike an “escalatory step and an attempt of the Russian dictator to scare the population of Ukraine and to scare the population of Europe”.

At a news conference, Mr Lipavsky gave his full support for delivering the additional air defence systems needed to protect Ukrainian civilians from the “heinous attacks”.

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