In brief: Indonesian crash left no survivors

JAYAPURA, Indonesia – An Indonesian official says that rescuers have managed to reach the crash site of an Indonesian plane that went missing two days ago with 54 people on board and that there were no survivors.

“The plane was totally destroyed and all the bodies were burned and difficult to identify,” National Search and Rescue Agency chief Henry Bambang Soelistyo told the Associated Press. “There is no chance anyone survived.”

He said that so far 38 bodies had been recovered.

Russians blame fighting on Ukraine

MOSCOW – Russia’s foreign minister said Monday that a surge in fighting near Ukraine’s southeastern port city of Mariupol is a likely harbinger of a Ukrainian military offensive eastward into rebel-held territory.

“We are worried by the development of events in recent days that are very strongly suggestive of a preparation for further military actions,” Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told reporters in Moscow, according to state news agency RIA Novosti.

Lavrov said that Ukraine and the pro-Russian rebels had been negotiating for a withdrawal of weapons away from the area, including demilitarization of the town of Shyrokyne, which is near Mariupol and has seen intense fighting.

Report: All sides killing innocents

CAIRO – A leading international rights group said today that all sides fighting in Yemen have left a “trail of civilian death and destruction” in the conflict, killing scores of innocent people in what could amount to war crimes.

In its latest report on the fighting, Amnesty International accused both the Saudi-led coalition carrying out airstrikes in Yemen and the forces on the ground, supporting or opposing the Shiite rebels known as Houthis. The London-based rights group said the violence has been particularly deadly in the southern cites of Taiz and Aden, with dozens of children among those killed.

Yemen’s conflict pits the Houthis and troops loyal to former President Ali Abdullah Saleh against southern separatists, local and tribal militias, Sunni Islamic militants and troops loyal to President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi, who is in exile in Saudi Arabia. The Saudis are leading an Arab coalition that is carrying out airstrikes against Houthi forces.