DAMASCUS: Syrian authorities said some 100 square kilometers (40 square miles) of forest had “turned to ash” in wildfires as firefighters from neighboring Jordan arrived Sunday to battle a fourth day of blazes in the province of Latakia.
Syrian emergency workers have faced tough conditions including high temperatures, strong winds, rugged mountainous terrain in the coastal province and the danger of explosive war remnants, in a country worn down by years of conflict and economic crisis.
An AFP correspondent in Latakia’s Rabiaa region saw emergency workers battling a blaze near homes, while vast swathes of forest and olive groves were burnt and smoke filled the air over a long distance.
Jordanian civil defense teams crossed into Syria on Sunday morning, the Syrian ministry for emergencies and disaster management said, after Turkiye sent assistance a day earlier.
Minister Raed Al-Saleh said on X that “hundreds of thousands of forest trees over an estimated area of around 10,000 hectares (25,000 acres) in 28 locations have turned to ash.”
He later decried “a real environmental disaster” at a press conference in the province.
More than 80 teams including civil defense personnel have been helping battle the blaze, he said, noting local organizations and residents were also providing assistance, in addition to teams and firefighting aircraft from neighboring Jordan and Turkiye.
Saleh said it would take days to declare the blazes completely extinguished once the fire was brought under control, calling them “catastrophic.”
Syria’s defense ministry said the air force was assisting, publishing images of a helicopter collecting and dropping water.
Jordan’s public security directorate said in a statement that the “specialized firefighting teams from the civil defense... have been provided with all the modern equipment and machinery necessary to carry out their duties to the fullest extent.”
Swathes of forested area and farmland have burnt and some villages evacuated as the fires raged including near the Turkish border.
The United Nations deputy envoy to Syria Najat Rochdi said in a statement Sunday on X that Damascus “needs more international assistance” to face the fires.
A statement from the UN resident and humanitarian coordinator for Syria Adam Abdelmoula said that “UN teams are on the ground conducting urgent assessments to determine the scale of the disaster and to identify the most immediate humanitarian needs.”
Nearly seven months after the ousting of longtime ruler Bashar Assad, Syria is still reeling from more than a decade of civil war that ravaged the country’s economy, infrastructure and public services.
With man-made climate change increasing the likelihood and intensity of droughts and wildfires worldwide, Syria has also been battered by heatwaves and low rainfall.
In June, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization told AFP that Syria had “not seen such bad climate conditions in 60 years.”
Syria fights ‘catastrophic’ fires for fourth day
https://arab.news/2q4dx
Syria fights ‘catastrophic’ fires for fourth day
- Syrian emergency workers have faced tough conditions including high temperatures, strong winds, rugged mountainous terrain in the coastal province
Israeli snipers shooting children ‘like a game’ at Gaza aid centers: British surgeon
- Prof. Nick Maynard: Different body parts being targeted depending on day of the week
- ‘I’ve never had so many patients die because they can’t get enough food to recover’
LONDON: Israeli soldiers are opening fire on children in Gaza at aid distribution centers, targeting different body parts depending on the day of the week, a British doctor has said.
Prof. Nick Maynard, a gastrointestinal surgeon working at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, told the BBC that he and his colleagues are encountering “clear patterns of injury” in young casualties, including “certain body parts on different days, such as the head, legs or genitals.”
Speaking to the “Today” program on BBC Radio 4, Maynard said: “On one day they’ll all be abdominal gunshot wounds, on another they’ll all be head gunshot wounds or neck gunshot wounds, on another they’ll be arm or leg gunshot wounds.”
He added: “It’s almost as if a game is being played, that they’re deciding to shoot the head today, the neck tomorrow, the testicles the day after.”
Maynard said the victims at the aid distribution sites run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, which he called “death traps,” tend more often than not to be teenaged boys.
“These are mainly from the militarized distribution points, where starving civilians are going to try and get food but then report getting targeted by Israeli soldiers or quadcopters,” he added.
“A 12-year-old boy I was operating on died from his injuries on the operating table — he’d been shot through the chest.”
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READ MORE: British surgeon in Gaza describes wounded Palestinians dying due to malnutrition
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GHF sites, backed by the US and Israel, are manned by private contractors and Israeli soldiers.
At least 875 Palestinians seeking food at the centers have been killed by live fire since May, according to the UN.
Maynard said levels of malnutrition seen in young patients are affecting their ability to recover from their wounds.
“The repairs that we carry out fall to pieces, patients get terrible infections, and they die,” he added. “I’ve never had so many patients die because they can’t get enough food to recover.”
The BBC said other medics working in central and southern Gaza had also reported patterns of gunshot wounds in people shot at GHF centers.
Ancient statue returns to Turkiye 65 years later
- “It was a long struggle … we won,” Culture and Tourism Minister Mehmet Ersoy said
- “We brought the ‘Philosopher Emperor’ Marcus Aurelius back to the land where he belongs“
ISTNABUL: Turkiye has repatriated an ancient statue believed to depict Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius from the United States as part of efforts to recover antiquities illegally removed from the country, the government announced on Saturday.
The bronze statue, smuggled from the ancient city of Boubon — now the province of Burdur in southwest Turkiye — in the 1960s, was returned to Turkiye after 65 years, according to Turkish officials.
“It was a long struggle. We were right, we were determined, we were patient, and we won,” Culture and Tourism Minister Mehmet Ersoy said.
“We brought the ‘Philosopher Emperor’ Marcus Aurelius back to the land where he belongs,” he added.
This unique artefact, once exhibited in the United States, was repatriated to Turkiye based on scientific analyzes, archival documents and witness statements, added the minister.
“Through the combined power of diplomacy, law, and science, the process we conducted with the New York Manhattan District Attorney’s Office and the US Homeland Security Investigations Unit is more than just a repatriation; it is a historical achievement,” Ersoy said.
“Marcus Aurelius’s return to our country is a concrete result of our years-long pursuit of justice.”
The headless statue had been on display at the Cleveland Museum of Art from April to July, before its return to Turkiye.
Ersoy said Turkiye was determined to protect all its cultural heritage that has been smuggled out.
“We will soon present the Philosopher Emperor to the people of (Turkiye’s capital) Ankara in a surprise exhibition,” he announced.
21 dead in Iran as coach overturns: state media
- The accident, the cause of which remains unclear, occurred near Kavar
- Iranian media showed images of a coach lying on its side on a mountain road
TEHRAN: At least 21 people were killed and nearly 30 injured when a coach overturned in southern Iran on Saturday, state media reported.
The accident, the cause of which remains unclear, occurred near Kavar, a town about 1,000 kilometers (600 miles) from the capital, Tehran.
“Unfortunately, 21 deaths have been recorded,” Kavar Hospital director Mohsen Afrasiabi told state television, adding that 29 people were injured.
Iranian media showed images of a coach lying on its side on a mountain road.
Iran has a poor road safety record, with nearly 20,000 deaths from traffic accidents in the 12 months to March, according to official news agency IRNA.
Unidentified drone kills PKK member, injures another near Iraq’s Sulaymaniyah, sources say
- Officials said this is the first attack of its kind in months
BAGHDAD: An unidentified drone attack killed a member of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) and injured another near Iraq’s Sulaymaniyah on Saturday, security sources and local officials said, the first attack of its kind in months.
Six local officials detained over Iraq deadly mall fire
- The ministry said: “There was clear negligence among several officials and employees” in Kut
- Three local officials, including the head of civil defense in Kut, had been detained
BAGHDAD: Iraq has detained six local officials and suspended other public employees following a fire that killed 61 people at a shopping mall earlier this week, authorities said Saturday.
The blaze, which broke out late Wednesday in a newly opened shopping mall in the eastern city of Kut, is the latest fatal disaster in a country where safety regulations are often ignored.
After an initial investigation, the interior ministry said “there was clear negligence among several officials and employees” in Kut, located around 160 kilometers (100 miles) southeast of Baghdad.
It added that three local officials, including the head of civil defense in Kut, had been detained, and 17 employees suspended from work until further notice.
The Commission of Integrity, an anti-graft body, said later that security forces had detained three more officials “over the violations that led to the fire” at the Corniche Hypermarket Mall, including the head of the violations department at Kut’s municipality.
Officials say their investigation is ongoing, and the number of detainees may change.
Safety standards in Iraq’s construction sector are often ignored, and the country — its infrastructure weakened by decades of conflict — frequently experiences fatal fires and accidents.
Fires increase during the blistering summer as temperatures approach 50 degrees Celsius (122 degrees Fahrenheit).
The cause of the mall fire was not immediately known, but one survivor told AFP an air conditioner had exploded on the second floor before the five-story building was rapidly engulfed in flames.
Several people told AFP they lost family members — and in some cases whole families — who had gone to shop and dine at the mall days after it opened.
