AL-MUKALLA: Rescuers are trying desperately to reach three Yemeni families buried under earthquake rubble in a southern Turkish city, authorities said on Tuesday.
The disaster that killed thousands in Syria and Turkiye on Monday has also left at least 50 Yemenis injured and their property destroyed.
A spokesperson for the Yemen Students Union in Turkiye, Anas Al-Mazabi, told Arab News that a woman had been pulled from the wreckage of a building as rescuers continued attempts to save three Yemeni families buried under debris in Malatya in the south of the country.
No deaths have been reported among at least 300 Yemenis living in earthquake-hit centers in Turkiye.
The Yemeni Embassy and the union have set up emergency facilities and hotlines, and asked Yemenis to report any missing relatives or friends.
Al-Mazabi said that a special operations center is monitoring information and maintaining contact with Yemenis trapped in regions devastated by the earthquake.
An aid team has been sent to Hatay province and an evacuation team to Iskenderun to help Yemenis, he added.
Hotlines have been swamped with calls from anxious Yemenis in Turkiye and Yemen searching for relatives and friends after earthquake-affected regions experienced Internet and mobile phone blackouts.
“We attempted to comfort them about the situation and (told them) that if their children do not respond, it is because communication has been disrupted and does not imply that their circumstances are awful,” Al-Mazabi said.
Official Yemeni media said that Rashad Al-Alimi, president of the Presidential Leadership Council, and other council members phoned the Yemeni Ambassador to Turkiye, Mohammed Saleh, for an update on the situation facing Yemenis and ordered him to offer all required help.
Thousands of Yemenis, including politicians, tribal leaders, military personnel and journalists, fled to Turkiye and nearby countries after the Iran-backed Houthis took control in Yemen in 2014.
Hundreds of Yemeni students attend Turkish institutions around the country.
Separately, Al-Alimi reiterated his council’s commitment to helping a UN mission establish peace in Yemen and secure a comprehensive agreement to end the war.
During a meeting with UN Yemen envoy Hans Grundberg in Aden, Al-Alimi called for greater international pressure on the Houthis to comply with efforts to end the war.
Grundberg landed in the city on Tuesday as he embarked on a fresh mission to push for a renewal of the UN-brokered truce that collapsed in October and to persuade Yemeni factions to embrace a peace agreement.
The UN envoy’s arrival in Yemen follows a visit to Riyadh, where he discussed peace efforts, and economic and humanitarian operations with the GCC Secretary General Jasem Al-Budaiwi and the Saudi Ambassador to Yemen Mohammed Al-Jabir.
Attempts to restore peace in Yemen suffered a severe blow in October when the Houthis refused to extend the UN-brokered truce or open roads to the besieged city of Taiz.
The militia also launched drone attacks on oil installations in southern Yemen in an attempt to force the Yemeni government to share oil profits and pay public workers in regions they control.
3 Yemeni families buried under quake rubble in Turkiye
https://arab.news/6m5dj
3 Yemeni families buried under quake rubble in Turkiye
- No deaths have been reported among at least 300 Yemenis living in earthquake-hit centers in Turkiye
- The Yemeni Embassy and the union have set up emergency facilities and hotlines
Syria Kurds chief says ‘all efforts’ being made to salvage deal with Damascus
- Abdi said the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), the Kurds’ de facto army, remained committed to the deal
- The two sides were working toward “mutual understanding” on military integration and counter-terrorism
DAMASCUS: Syrian Kurdish leader Mazloum Abdi said Thursday that “all efforts” were being made to prevent the collapse of talks on an agreement with Damascus to integrate his forces into the central government.
The remarks came days after Aleppo saw deadly clashes between the two sides before their respective leaders ordered a ceasefire.
In March, Abdi signed a deal with Syrian President Ahmed Al-Sharaa to merge the Kurds’ semi-autonomous administration into the government by year’s end, but differences have held up its implementation.
Abdi said the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), the Kurds’ de facto army, remained committed to the deal, adding in a statement that the two sides were working toward “mutual understanding” on military integration and counter-terrorism, and pledging further meetings with Damascus.
Downplaying the year-end deadline, he said the deal “did not specify a time limit for its ending or for the return to military solutions.”
He added that “all efforts are being made to prevent the collapse of this process” and that he considered failure unlikely.
Abdi also repeated the SDF’s demand for decentralization, which has been rejected by Syria’s Islamist authorities, who took power after ousting longtime ruler Bashar Assad last year.
Turkiye, an important ally of Syria’s new leaders, sees the presence of Kurdish forces on its border as a security threat.
In Damascus this week, Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan stressed the importance of the Kurds’ integration, having warned the week before that patience with the SDF “is running out.”
The SDF control large swathes of the country’s oil-rich north and northeast, and with the support of a US-led international coalition, were integral to the territorial defeat of the Daesh group in Syria in 2019.
Syria last month joined the anti-IS coalition and has announced operations against the jihadist group in recent days.
