The surprise Hamas attack on Israel this Saturday has sparked worry across Asia as dozens of people from nations across the continent were killed or taken hostage.

Thai Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin confirmed in a social media post informing 21 Thai nationals been killed and promised to take care and speed up the return of around 30,000 Thais working in Israel, mainly in the agricultural sector. Media reports pointed 14 Thai nationals been taken hostage by Hamas.

A fireball erupts during Israeli bombardment of Gaza City on Oct. 9. (Photo: AFP)

Meanwhile, the Philippine Department of Foreign Affairs received frantic calls from some hundreds of healthcare workers stationed in hospitals in Israel and the Gaza Strip. Two Filipinos were killed while three others remain unaccounted for. There are around 30,000 Filipinos in Israel, most of them living outside the conflict zone.

Nepal's government has promised to repatriate the bodies of 10 students killed amid appeals to confirm the whereabouts of a student who is reportedly still missing.

Twenty nine people including 13 children have been killed and some 56 people wounded in a military strike on a camp for displaced people in northern Myanmar.

The junta has been accused of carrying out multiple deadly attacks on civilian targets since the Feb. 1, 2021 coup that toppled the civilian government in the civil war-hit Southeast Asian nation. The latest attack was reported in Mung Lai Hkyet camp near Laiza town in the predominantly Christian Kachin state, around 11.30 p.m. on Monday.

In this photo taken on March 9, members of the ethnic rebel group Ta'ang National Liberation Army (TNLA) patrol near Namhsan Township in Myanmar's northern Shan State. (Photo: AFP)

Colonel Naw Bu of the Kachin Independence Army denied having spotted any aircraft and are “looking into whether the military had used a drone” to target the camp near the Chinese border.

Nearly a thousand people, mostly Christians, attended a mass funeral service for those killed, all of them Baptist Christians, on Tuesday. A pastor from the Kachin Baptist Church led the service before burying the bodies. Armed rebel groups, including the Kachin Independence Army, have been fighting against the ruling military junta for decades.

A group of United Nations experts have expressed grave concerns over the trial of 47 pro-democracy figures under Hong Kong’s repressive national security law. The use of mass trials may undermine the practices for ensuring due process and the right to fair trial, four UN special rapporteurs said in a statement on Tuesday.

Democracy advocates and rights campaigners have earlier raised alarms over the trial of 47 activists accused of involvement in a conspiracy to commit subversion to overthrow the pro-Beijing Hong Kong administration.

A flag-raising ceremony to celebrate National Security Education Day at the Hong Kong Police College on April 15, 2021. (Photo: GovHK via HKFP)

The accused allegedly sought to participate in an unofficial legislative primary election in July 2020 that aimed to help the pro-democracy camp select the strongest candidates and win a majority in the then-70-seat legislature.

A total of 279 people have been arrested in Hong Kong as of Sept. 15. Among them, 162 individuals and five companies have been charged under national security law or sedition law, or with other crimes. A total of 90 people have been convicted or are awaiting sentencing.

An Indonesian archbishop has called on Catholics to stop drinking alcoholic beverages and termed alcohol traders as big enemies of the Church, who destabilize social peace and progress.

The circular by Sacred Heart Archbishop Petrus Canisius Mandagi of Merauke in Christian-majority South Papua Province expressed concerns about reported violence caused by alcoholism in several areas in his archdiocese. The letter was addressed to episcopal vicars and parish priests throughout the region to be read out at official Church celebrations.

Archbishop Petrus Canisius Mandagi of Merauke, Indonesia. (Photo: Merauke Archdiocese)

Mandagi spoke to UCA News of his concerns over clashes between ethnic groups as a result of drinking alcohol. Church sources say alcoholism has become a serious issue for the Catholic Church.

Last month, a 68-year-old man died on Flores Island after he was stabbed in a drunken brawl during a thanksgiving party held after a First Communion ceremony.  Merauke Regency prohibits the sale and distribution of liquor in the area but activists say the ban is not effective as government agencies collaborate with bootleggers.

Heavy rain and a glacial lake burst in the eastern Himalayas have left some 94 people dead and scores missing in India and Bangladesh over the weekend.

As of Monday, the death toll in India’s northeastern state of Sikkim rose to 82 while more than 100 remained missing. The dam collapsed after a lake burst in one of the world’s highest mountain peaks.

Indian army personnel conduct a search operation for the missing soldiers in north Sikkim. (Photo: India's Ministry of Defence/handout via AFP)

Rescue workers battled against time and bad weather to airlift thousands of people after the flood washed away hundreds of houses, cars including military trucks and armored vehicles and damaged dozens of bridges and roads.

In Bangladesh, at least 12 people have died after the Teesta, a major transboundary river, inundated dozens of villages. Scientists had earlier warned about possible bursting of the lake in Sikkim, which sits about 5,200 meters above sea level. The disaster is touted worse than the flood in 1968 that killed an estimated 1,000 people.

Catholics, Protestants and other Christian groups joined rights activists in South Korea this Tuesday to call for an end to capital punishment, marking the World Day Against the Death Penalty.

The United Conference on the Abolition of the Death Penalty, a forum that includes members of several Christian denominations and rights groups appealed to political decision-makers to abolish capital punishment as a mark of respect for human life.

South Korean activists hold placards reading 'It is time to abolish the death penalty' during a rally demanding the death penalty be removed from the country's criminal code at the National Assembly in Seoul. (Photo: AFP)

"Attempts to execute people must be stopped, and the campaign to abolish the death penalty in Korea must continue," the group said in a statement. South Korea has not executed anyone since 1997 and therefore Amnesty International categorizes it as an abolitionist country in practice.

However, the death penalty continues to be the toughest sentence in the country’s criminal justice system. At least 59 people are on death row, all of them convicted of murder.

Family members of a murdered Pakistani Christian woman have welcomed a court handing down life in jail for a Muslim man, who shot her dead for refusing to renounce her faith and marry him. Allah Rakha, the father of the victim Sonia Allah Rakha, said the verdict has brought relief for the tragic killing of his 24-year-old daughter in November 2020.

An Islamabad sessions court sentenced the main accused Muhammad Shahzad to 25 years imprisonment last month. But it acquitted three others accused in the case. Despite the verdict, Rakha pointed out that his family was facing multiple hardships and appealed for financial help from the community.

A young Pakistani girl who escaped a forced marriage plays a local game in the Madyan valley of Swat, in the country's northwest in this file image. A court has sentenced a Muslim to life imprisonment for murdering a young Christian woman for refusing to marry him in 2020. (Photo: AFP)

Christians make up about 1.6 percent of some 231 million people in Muslim-majority Pakistan. Forced conversion and marriage of Christian and Hindu girls by Muslims are common, rights groups allege.

Annually at least some 1,000 women from minority communities are abducted and forcibly converted and married to Muslim men, published records show.

A new center dedicated to the Vietnamese Our Lady of Lavang will be opened soon in Portugal’s Fatima.

Archbishop Giuse Nguyen Nang, president of the Catholic Bishops' Conference of Vietnam will preside at the official inauguration of the House of Our Lady of Lavang near the Shrine of Our Lady of the Rosary of Fatima on Oct. 14.

Archbishop Joseph Nguyen Chi Linh of Hue and local priests celebrate a Mass at the National Shrine of Our Lady of Lavang in Quang Tri province, in Vietnam on Oct. 7. (Photo courtesy of tonggiaophanhue.org)

The ceremony will be attended by Portuguese Church officials including Bishop José Ornelas Carvalho of Leiria-Fátima, who serves as president of the Portuguese bishops’ conference, and Vietnamese Catholic delegations from Europe, North America, and Australia. Nang said the “exciting initiative” will serve as “a bridge between churches in Vietnam and Portugal and a place where all Catholics of Vietnamese origin come to seek divine love and mercy through Mother Mary’s generous hands.”

The house will commemorate the fascinating work of Portuguese missionaries in Vietnam. Among them, he added, was Father Francisco de Pina, who made great contributions to quoc ngu, the Romanized Vietnamese script.

Tibetans have expressed alarm and dismay following the closure of some of the holiest Buddhist sites and beefing up security measures during the National Day holiday period by the pro-Beijing administration.

Radio Free Asia reported the famous Jokhang Temple, Potala Palace, and monasteries in the Tibetan capital Lhasa being shut down for visitors during a time when thousands throng to the sites, irking the Tibetans.

Chinese tourists on the roof of the Jokhang Temple in Tibet on Sept 10, 2016. The temple and other religious sites in Tibet’s capital Lhasa were closed to the Tibetan public and pilgrims during the observation of China’s National Day. (File Photo: AFP)

Two unnamed residents complained that the religious shrines in Lhasa were closed for eight days of public holiday marking the 74th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China.

This year, authorities also began searching for people traveling on public transportation. Those without proper documents were not allowed to stay in Lhasa.

The Chinese officials have allegedly forced Buddhist monks in Tibetan monasteries to undergo political re-education on the Chinese National Day celebrated on Oct. 1.

China annexed Tibet in 1949 after the communist takeover, claiming the region has been always an integral part of China.