Five international soldiers who were on holiday leave during a temporary assignment at Fort Leonard Wood drowned when their car went off a dark, rural highway in southwest Missouri.
Five international soldiers who were on holiday leave during a temporary assignment at Fort Leonard Wood drowned when their car went off a dark, rural highway in southwest Missouri.
The soldiers were returning to the fort from Osage Beach on Saturday night when their car was swept off near Crocker, about 15 miles northwest of Fort Leonard Wood, Pulaski County Sheriff Ron Long said.
All five soldiers were attending officer education at the Maneuver support center of excellence, a programme that brings troops from other countries to the installation to study engineering, military policing and chemical defence.
The victims were identified on Wednesday as Egypt’s Maj. Mohammad Hassan Ibrahim, Jordan’s Maj. Akram Abu Al-rub, Algeria’s Capt. Ahmed Moussouni, Egypt’s Capt. Ahmed Abdelghani, and Capt. Hasman Hussin from Malaysia. Fort officials said the bodies are being returned to the men’s home countries for burial.
The bodies of four of the trainees were recovered Sunday and the fifth was found Tuesday.The men were driving back to the fort after a shopping trip, he said. A witness reported seeing the car go off the road late on Saturday and quickly lost sight of the car floating away.
Missouri and Illinois brace for more flooding on Thursday as rain-swollen rivers, some at record heights, overflowed their banks, washing out hundreds of structures and leaving thousands of people displaced from their homes.
Days of downpours from a winter storm that spawned deadly tornadoes in Texas and significant snowfall in New England has pushed rivers in the US Midwest to levels not seen in decades, the weather officials said.
