• Inquiry ordered as Goa CM inspect devastated Arpora nightclub site.
• Sawant vows toughest action against anyone found responsible.
• Officials confirm tourists among victims of the midnight blaze.

At least 23 people were killed in a fire at a popular nightclub in the Indian resort city of Goa, chief minister Pramod Sawant and other officials said early Sunday.

Several tourists were among the dead in the fire, which broke out at about midnight at a club in Arpora in the North Goa district, according to officials cited by the Press Trust of India.

“Today is a very painful day for all of us in Goa. A major fire incident at Arpora has taken the lives of 23 people,” Sawant wrote on X.

“I visited the incident site and have ordered an inquiry into this incident,” he said. “Those found responsible will face most stringent action under the law — any negligence will be dealt with firmly.”

Sawant told journalists at the scene that “three to four” tourists had died. Three people died from burn injuries, while the others died from suffocation, he said.

Goa, a former Portuguese colony on the shores of the Arabian Sea, lures millions of tourists every year with its nightlife, sandy beaches and laid-back coastal atmosphere.

A former UK doctor faces dozens of charges linked to alleged sexual offences against 38 patients who were in his care, including a child under 13, prosecutors have announced.

Nathaniel Spencer, 38, was charged with “a number of serious sexual offences allegedly carried out against patients while he was working as a doctor” in central England, regional prosecutor Ben Samples said on Friday.

They include “assault by penetration and sexual assault against a child”, he noted.

The charges against Spencer, of Birmingham, follow a police probe into the alleged sexual offences at two regional state-run hospitals in Stoke-on-Trent and Dudley between 2017 and 2021.

“Our prosecutors have worked at length to support a detailed and complex investigation by Staffordshire Police, carefully reviewing the available evidence,” Samples said.

They established “that there is sufficient evidence to bring the case to trial and that it is in the public interest to pursue criminal proceedings,” he added.

Spencer, who was a resident doctor — previously known in Britain as a junior doctor — faces 15 counts of sexual assault, 17 assault by penetration charges and one count of attempted assault by penetration.

He is also accused of a further dozen offences involving a child under 13, which include sexual assault and assault by penetration.

Prosecutors and police have not disclosed how many alleged child victims were involved.

Spencer is due to appear at the North Staffordshire Justice Centre on January 20 for his first court hearing.

Gunmen stormed a hostel in South Africa’s capital Pretoria on Saturday, killing a dozen people including a three-year-old child, at a site police said was illegally selling alcohol.

The attack is the latest in a string of mass shootings that have shocked the crime-weary country of 63 million people, which suffers one of the highest murder rates in the world.

“I can confirm that a total of 25 people were shot,” police spokeswoman Athlenda Mathe said.

Ten had died at the scene in Saulsville township, 18 kilometres (11 miles) west of Pretoria, while two died in hospital, she said. The twelfth victim succumbed to injuries on Saturday afternoon.

Three gunmen entered what Mathe described as an “illegal shebeen” inside the hostel at around 4:30am (0230 GMT) and indiscriminately fired at a group of men who were drinking. “Shebeen” is a word used to describe an informal bar or tavern.

One 12-year-old boy and a 16-year-old female were also killed in the attack.

“Quite an unfortunate incident. Police were only alerted to this incident at around 6 o’clock,” said Mathe.

Police said the motive was unknown and no arrests had been made, with a manhunt under way for the unidentified suspects.

“We are having a serious challenge when it comes to these illegal and unlicensed liquor premises,” Mathe said, adding that they are where most mass shootings occur.

“Innocent people also get caught up in the crossfire,” she told public broadcaster SABC.

Entrenched crime 

South Africa, the continent’s most industrialised nation, is grappling with entrenched crime and corruption driven by organised networks.

Shootings are common and are often fuelled by gang violence and alcohol.

Many people own licensed firearms for personal protection but there are many more illegal guns in circulation despite relatively strict gun ownership laws.

Some 63 people were killed each day between April and September, according to police data, one of the world’s highest murder rates.

Most deaths stemmed from arguments, with robberies and gang violence also driving the toll, police said last month.

In October, two teenagers were killed and five others wounded in a gang related shooting in Johannesburg, the country’s financial capital

In another incident in May, gunmen killed eight customers at a tavern in the southeastern city of Durban.

Last year, 18 relatives were shot dead at a rural homestead in the country’s Eastern Cape Province.