ISTANBUL: At least 22 people drowned, including seven children, when a rubber boat carrying migrants sank off Turkiye’s northwest province of Canakkale, the local governor’s office said on Friday, adding that search and rescue efforts continued.
In a statement, the Canakkale governor’s office said that two people had been rescued by the coast guard and two others had survived “by their own means” after the boat capsized.
It said a plane, two helicopters, and a total of 18 vessels from the coast guard and other rescue authorities were involved in the search and rescue efforts, along with 502 personnel.
Footage from Kabatepe port showed a boat taking part in search and rescue operations returning to port with body bags on the deck. Health workers and security personnel could be seen carrying the body bags off the boat and onto ambulances waiting there.
Earlier, Canakkale Governor Ilhami Aktas told the state-run Anadolu news agency that the four rescued migrants were admitted to hospital.
It was not immediately clear how many migrants were on the boat, the governor told Anadolu.
Migrant boat sinks off Turkiye, children among 22 dead
https://arab.news/jbp6q
Migrant boat sinks off Turkiye, children among 22 dead
- Two people had been rescued by the coast guard and two others had survived “by their own means“
- Footage from Kabatepe port showed a boat taking part in search and rescue operations
Medical charity ‘may have to halt Gaza operations in March’
- MSF called this demand a “scandalous intrusion” but Israel says it was needed to stop extremists from infiltrating into humanitarian structures
PARIS: Banned from the Gaza Strip with 36 aid bodies, medical charity Doctors Without Borders said on Saturday it will have to end its operations there in March if Israel does not reverse its decision.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called on Friday for Israel to end a ban on humanitarian agencies that provided aid in Gaza, saying he was “deeply concerned” at the development.
Israel confirmed on Thursday that it was barring 37 major international humanitarian organizations from entering the Gaza Strip, accusing them
of failing to provide the list of their employees’ names, which is now officially required for “security” reasons.
FASTFACT
MSF has approximately 40 international staff in the Gaza Strip and employs 800 Palestinian staff across eight hospitals.
MSF called this demand a “scandalous intrusion” but Israel says it was needed to stop extremists from infiltrating into humanitarian structures.
“To work in Palestine, in the occupied Palestinian territories, we have to be registered ... That registration expired on Dec. 31, 2025,” said Isabelle Defourny, a physician and president of MSF France, on France Inter.
“Since July 2025, we have been involved in a re-registration process, and to date, we have not received a response. We still have 60 days during which we could work without being re-registered, and so we would have to end our activities in March,” if Israel maintains its decision, she said.
MSF has approximately 40 international staff in the Gaza Strip and employs 800 Palestinian staff across eight hospitals.
“We are the second-largest distributor of water (in the Gaza Strip). Last year, in 2025, we treated just over 100,000 people who were wounded, burned, or victims of various traumas. We are second in terms of the number of deliveries performed,” the president of MSF France said.
According to her, the Israeli decision is explained by the fact that NGOs “bear witness to the violence committed by the Israeli army” in Gaza.
The UN chief “calls for this measure to be reversed, stressing that international non-governmental organizations are indispensable to life-saving humanitarian work and that the suspension risks undermining the fragile progress made during the ceasefire,” his spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said in the statement.
“This recent action will further exacerbate the humanitarian crisis facing Palestinians,” he added.
Several NGOS have said the requirements contravene international humanitarian law or endanger their independence.
On Thursday, 18 Israel-based left-wing NGOs denounced the decision to ban their international peers, saying “the new registration framework violates core humanitarian principles of independence and neutrality.”
In November, authorities in Gaza said more than 70,000 people had been killed there since the war broke out.
Nearly 80 percent of buildings in Gaza have been destroyed or damaged by the war, according to UN data, leaving infrastructure decimated.
About 1.5 million of Gaza’s more than 2 million residents have lost their homes, said Amjad Al-Shawa, director of the Palestinian NGO Network in Gaza.
