© Agence France-Presse
International
Turkey-Syria quake: Two-month-old baby among those rescued as death toll rises to 25,000
Rescuers pulled a two-month-old baby and an elderly woman from the rubble on Saturday, five days after an earthquake devastated Turkey and Syria, leaving more than 25,000 dead.
Tens of thousands of local and international rescue workers are still scouring through flattened neighbourhoods despite freezing weather that has compounded the misery of millions now in desperate need of aid.
However, Austrian soldiers and German rescue workers called off their searches for several hours in southern Hatay, citing a difficult security situation and clashes between local groups.
In the midst of destruction and despair, miraculous tales of survival continue to emerge.
“Is the world there?” asked 70-year-old Menekse Tabak as she was pulled out from the concrete in the southern city of Kahramanmaras — the epicentre of Monday’s 7.8-magnitude tremor — to applause and cries praising God, according to a video on state broadcaster TRT Haber.
In the city of Antakya, a two-month-old baby was found alive 128 hours after the quake, state news agency Anadolu reported.
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A two-year-old girl, a six-month pregnant woman, plus a four-year-old and her father, were among those rescued five days after the quake, Turkish media reported.
In southern Turkey, families clutched each other in grief at a cotton field transformed into a cemetery, with an endless stream of bodies arriving for swift burial.
Compounding the anguish, the United Nations has warned that at least 870,000 people urgently need hot meals across Turkey and Syria. In Syria alone, up to 5.3 million people may have been made homeless.
A border crossing between Armenia and Turkey opened for the first time in 35 years on Saturday to allow five trucks carrying food and water into the quake-hit region.
– ‘Clashes between groups’ –
Turkey’s disaster agency said over 32,000 people from Turkish organisations are working on search and rescue efforts. In addition, there are 8,294 international rescuers.
However, Austrian soldiers on Saturday suspended rescue operations in Hatay over a “worsening security situation”, an army spokesman told AFP. Two dog handlers later resumed work under protection from the Turkish army.
A similar decision to halt rescue operations was taken in Germany by the Federal Agency for Technical Relief (TSW) and an NGO specialising in helping victims of natural disasters, ISAR Germany, according to an NGO spokesman.
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“There are more and more reports of clashes between different factions, shots have also been fired,” said ISAR spokesman Stefan Heine.
The UN rights office had on Friday urged all actors in the affected area — where Kurdish militants and Syrian rebels operate — to allow humanitarian access.
The outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party, which is considered a terrorist group by Ankara and its Western allies, announced a temporary halt in fighting to ease recovery work.
Medical Aid For Aleppo
In Syria, where years of conflict have ravaged the healthcare system and parts of the country remain under the control of rebels, aid has been slow to arrive.
World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus took a flight full of emergency medical equipment into the quake-stricken city of Aleppo on Saturday.
Tedros toured damaged areas of the city tweeting: “I’m heartbroken to see the conditions survivors are facing — freezing weather and extremely limited access to shelter, food, water, heat and medical care”.
The Syrian government said it had approved the delivery of humanitarian assistance to quake-hit areas outside its control in Idlib province. A convoy was expected to leave on Sunday.
In Damascus, Suleiman Khalil, an official at the transport ministry, said 57 aid planes had landed at Syrian airports this week.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has urged the Security Council to authorise the opening of new cross-border aid points between Turkey and Syria. The council will meet to discuss Syria, possibly early next week.
Turkey said it was working on opening two new routes into rebel-held parts of Syria.
The winter freeze has left thousands of people either spending nights in their cars or huddling around makeshift fires that have become ubiquitous across the quake-hit region.
– Anger builds –
In Turkey, five days of grief and anguish have been slowly building into rage at the poor quality of buildings as well as the government’s response to the country’s worst disaster in nearly a century.
Officials in the country say 12,141 buildings were either destroyed or seriously damaged in the earthquake.
“Damage was to be expected, but not the type of damage that you are seeing now”, said Mustafa Erdik, a professor at Istanbul-based Bogazici University.
Turkish police on Saturday detained 12 people, including contractors, over collapsed buildings in the southeastern provinces of Gaziantep and Sanliurfa, local media reported.
Officials and medics said 22,327 people had died in Turkey and 3,553 in Syria. The confirmed total now stands at 25,880.
International
Moscow attacks Ukraine with drones, missiles
Moscow attacks Ukraine with drones, missiles
Kyiv said Tuesday that Russia had launched a barrage of drones and missiles across Ukraine, conceding that there were successful strikes in the east of the country and near the capital.
Authorities did not elaborate on what had been hit but in the wider Kyiv region, the governor said debris from a downed projectile had damaged a private home and wounded a woman.
Moscow said its forces had used attack drones and precision weapons in a “combined” assault on a military airfield and a munitions production facility, claiming that the targets were struck.
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The Ukrainian air force said Russia had launched 21 missiles of various types and 40 drones in the barrage, adding that seven missiles and 16 unmanned aerial vehicles were downed.
“As a result of the Russian attack, there were ballistic missile hits in Sumy and Kyiv regions,” the air force said.
Russia has launched aerial attacks on Ukraine at night almost every day since its forces invaded in February 2022, targeting military and civilian infrastructure, too, like energy facilities.
Ukraine has stepped up its own drone and missile attacks inside Russian territory in response, and urged its Western allies to supply more air defence systems.
A Ukrainian drone attack in western Russia caused a fuel spill and fire at an oil depot, a Russian regional governor said earlier Tuesday.
Moscow attacks Ukraine with drones, missiles
International
Catholic priest sentenced to 11 years for criticising his president
Catholic priest sentenced to 11 years for criticising his president
A Catholic priest in Belarus on Monday was convicted on charges of high treason for criticising the government and handed an 11-year sentence, in the first case of politically-driven charges against Catholic clergy since Belarus became independent after the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991.
The conviction and sentencing of Rev. Henrykh Akalatovich comes as Belarusian authorities have intensified their sweeping crackdown on dissent ahead of the Jan. 26 presidential election that is all but certain to hand authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko a seventh term in office.
The Viasna Human Rights Centre said Akalatovich, 64, rejected the treason charges. The group has listed him among 1,265 political prisoners in the country.
“For the first time since the fall of the Communist regime, a Catholic priest in Belarus was convicted on criminal charges that are levelled against political prisoners,” said Viasna’s representative Pavel Sapelka. “The harsh sentence is intended to intimidate and silence hundreds of other priests ahead of January’s presidential election.”
Akalatovich, who has been in custody since November 2023, was diagnosed with cancer and underwent surgery just before his arrest. The priest from the town of Valozhyn in western Belarus, who was critical of the government in his sermons, has been held incommunicado, with prison officials turning down warm clothing and food sent to him.
Arkatovich is among dozens of clergy — Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant — who have been jailed, silenced or forced into exile for protesting the 2020 election that gave Lukashenko a sixth term. The disputed vote that the opposition and the West said was marred with fraud triggered mass protests,. The authorities then responded with a sweeping crackdown that saw more than 65,000 arrested and thousands beaten by police.
Catholic and Protestant clergy who supported the protests and sheltered demonstrators at their churches were particularly targeted by repressions. Belarusian authorities openly seek to bring the clergy into line, repeatedly summoning them for “preventive” political talks, checking websites and social media, and having security services monitor sermons.
While Orthodox Christians make up about 80% of the population, just under 14% are Catholic and 2% are Protestants.
Lukashenko, who has ruled Belarus for nearly 30 years and describes himself as an “Orthodox atheist,” lashed out at dissident clergy during the 2020 protests, urging them to “do their jobs,” and not fuel unrest.
Lukashenko is one of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s closest allies, allowing Russia to use his country’s territory to send troops into Ukraine in February 2022 and to deploy some of its tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus.
Catholic priest sentenced to 11 years for criticising his president
International
Second South Korea Jeju Air flight suffers landing problem
Second South Korea Jeju Air flight suffers landing problem
A Jeju Air flight from Seoul on Monday was forced to return after encountering a landing gear problem, the airline said, a day after South Korea’s most deadly plane crash.
The Boeing 737-800 involved in the latest incident was the same model as the Jeju Air plane that crashed on Sunday killing 179 people after coming down without its landing gear engaged.
Jeju Air Flight 7C101, which departed Seoul’s Gimpo International Airport for Jeju island “at around 6:37 am, returned to Gimpo at 7:25 am” after a landing gear issue was detected shortly after takeoff, the South Korean airline said.
“Shortly after takeoff, a signal indicating a landing gear issue was detected on the aircraft’s monitoring system,” Song Kyung-hoon, head of the management support office at Jeju Air, told a news conference.
“At 6:57 am, the captain communicated with ground control, and after taking additional measures, the landing gear returned to normal operation. However, the decision was made to return to the airport for a thorough inspection of the aircraft.”
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Local media reported that 21 passengers chose not to board an alternate flight to Jeju, citing concerns over safety and other reasons.
Jeju Air’s 41 plane fleet includes 39 Boeing 737-800 aircraft.
Seoul said on Monday it would conduct a special inspection of all 101 Boeing 737-800 planes in operation in the country, with US investigators, possibly including from plane manufacturer Boeing, joining the probe into the crash.
“We are reviewing plans to conduct a special inspection on B737-800 aircraft,” said Joo Jong-wan, head of the aviation policy bureau at the South Korean transport ministry.
Joo added that the government plans to “implement rigorous aviation safety inspections in response to the (landing gear) incidents”.
In Sunday’s crash at Muan, the Boeing 737-800 carrying 181 people from Thailand to South Korea made a mayday call and belly-landed before crashing into a barrier and bursting into flames.
Everyone on board Jeju Air Flight 2216 was killed, save two flight attendants pulled from the wreckage.
Second South Korea Jeju Air flight suffers landing problem
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