Turkey-Syria earthquake: Trapped boy given water by rescue workers

Published

3 years ago

February 8, 2023

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Heart-wrenching footage has captured the moment rescue workers gave a little boy water with a bottle cap before pulling him out of wreckage nearly 45 hours after the Turkey-Syria earthquake.

The young child, named as Muhammed Ahmed from Syria, had been trapped underneath rubble following the 7.8 magnitude quake since the early hours of Monday.

Istanbul mayor Ekrem Imamoglu shared a clip on Twitter of the hard-to-watch moment.

“Well done Muhammed. Our search and rescue team rescued Syrian citizen Muhammed Ahmed from the rubble in Antakya,” he said.

Turkey-Syria earthquake – live updates

The video shows the dehydrated little boy drinking water out of the bottle cap, carefully given to him by a rescue worker, as he was trapped underneath rubble from the neck down and unable to use his arms.

He can be heard crying in between sips as he signals for more water.

It comes as hopes of finding more survivors trapped in the rubble are fading, with the death toll rising to more than 11,000.

Stretched rescue teams have toiled through Turkey and Syria in a bid to find more signs of life in the aftermath of one of the world’s deadliest earthquakes in more than a decade.

Ilan Kelman, professor of Disasters and Health at University College London, said the window for post-earthquake search-and-rescue is “rapidly closing”.

More on the earthquake from Sky News:
Gruesome, technical work: How an earthquake search and rescue mission is conducted
Video: Crowd erupts as children saved
Man travels from Wales to Turkey to find family buried in rubble

“Typically, few survivors are pulled out after 72 hours – yet every life saved is essential and some people are extricated after many days,” he said.

“Time is always the enemy, as seen in Turkey and Syria. People die due to immediate medical needs such as bleeding to death or succumbing to crush injuries; due to aftershocks that collapse precarious structures with people underneath.”

He added that many people could die from hypothermia due to the plummeting temperatures or lack of food and water while awaiting rescue.

Search teams from more than two dozen countries have joined tens of thousands of local emergency personnel in the mass rescue operation – while aid pledges have poured in from around the world.

In the Turkish city of Malatya, bodies were placed side by side on the ground, covered in blankets, while rescuers waited for funeral vehicles to pick them up, according to former journalist Ozel Pikal, who saw eight bodies pulled from the ruins of building.

Mr Pikal, who took part in the rescue efforts, believes some of the victims have frozen to death as temperatures dipped to -6C.

“Today isn’t a pleasant day because as of today there is no hope left in Malatya,” he said. “No one is coming out alive from the rubble.”

He said a hotel building collapsed in the city and more than 100 people could be trapped, and there is a shortage of rescuers in the area, while the cold has slowed down rescue efforts by volunteers and government teams.

Road closures and widespread damage in the region have also affected mobility and access.

“Our hands cannot pick up anything because of the cold,” Mr Pikal said. “Work machines are needed.”

World

Famine declared in Gaza City – and projected to expand to two other areas in the next month

Published

5 hours ago

August 22, 2025

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Famine declared in Gaza City - and projected to expand to two other areas in the next month

A famine has been declared in Gaza City and the surrounding neighbourhoods.

The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) – a globally recognised system for classifying the severity of food insecurity and malnutrition – has confirmed just four famines since it was established in 2004.

These were in Somalia in 2011, and in Sudan in 2017, 2020, and 2024.

The confirmation of famine in Gaza City is the IPC’s first outside of Africa.

“After 22 months of relentless conflict, over half a million people in the Gaza Strip are facing catastrophic conditions characterised by starvation, destitution and death,” the report said, adding that more than a million other people face a severe level of food insecurity.

Over the next month conditions are also expected to worsen, with the famine projected to expand to Deir al-Balah and Khan Younis, the report said.

Nearly a third of the population (641,000 people) are expected to face catastrophic conditions while acute malnutrition is projected to continue getting worse rapidly.

Over the next year, the report said at least 132,000 children will suffer from acute malnutrition – double the organisation’s estimates from May 2024.

Israel says no famine in Gaza

Volker Turk, the UN Human Rights chief, said the famine is the direct result of actions taken by the Israeli government.

“It is a war crime to use starvation as method of warfare, and the resulting deaths may also amount to the war crime of wilful killing,” he said.

COGAT, the Israeli military agency that coordinates aid, has rejected the findings.

Israel accused of allowing famine to fester in Gaza

Tom Fletcher, speaking on behalf of the United Nations, did not mince his words.

Gaza was suffering from famine, the evidence was irrefutable and Israel had not just obstructed aid but had also used hunger as a weapon of war.

His anger seeped through every sentence, just as desperation is laced through the report from the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC).

Conditions are expected to worsen, it says, even though the Gaza Strip has been classified as a level 5 famine. There is no level 6.

But it took only moments for the Israeli government to respond in terms that were just as strident.

Read Adam Parsons’ analysis here.

Israel’s foreign ministry said there is no famine in Gaza: “Over 100,000 trucks of aid have entered Gaza since the start of the war, and in recent weeks a massive influx of aid has flooded the Strip with staple foods and caused a sharp decline in food prices, which have plummeted in the markets.”

Another UN chief made a desperate plea to Israel’s prime minister to declare a ceasefire in the wake of the famine announcement.

Tom Fletcher, UN under-secretary general for humanitarian affairs, said famine could have been prevented in the strip if there hadn’t been a “systematic obstruction” of aid deliveries.

“My ask, my plea, my demand to Prime Minister Netanyahu and anyone who can reach him. Enough. Ceasefire. Open the crossings, north and south, all of them,” he said.

The IPC had previously warned famine was imminent in parts of Gaza, but had stopped short of a formal declaration.

The latest report on Gaza from the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) says there were almost 13,000 new admissions of children for acute malnutrition recorded in July.

The latest numbers from the Gaza health ministry are 251 dead as a result of famine and malnutrition, including 108 children.

But Israel has previously accused Hamas of inflating these figures, saying that most of the children who died had pre-existing health conditions.

World

Suspect arrested over Nord Stream attacks served in Ukraine’s army, Sky News understands

Published

5 hours ago

August 22, 2025

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Suspect arrested over Nord Stream attacks served in Ukraine's army, Sky News understands

The Ukrainian suspected of coordinating attacks on the Nord Stream pipelines had served in Ukraine’s Secret Service and in the Ukrainian Army’s special forces, Sky News understand.

Serhii K., 49, was arrested in northern Italy on Thursday following the issuance of a European arrest warrant by German prosecutors.

It is not known whether he was still serving at the time of the pipeline attack in 2022 and Ukraine’s government has always denied any involvement in the explosions.

According to sources close to the case, the suspect has been found in a three-star bungalow hotel named La Pescaccia in San Clemente, in the province of Rimini.

When military officers from Italy’s Carabinieri investigative and operational units raided his bedroom, he didn’t try to resist the arrest.

The hotel’s employees have been questioned, but no further evidence or any weapons were found, the sources added.

Serhii arrived on Italy’s Adriatic coast earlier this week, and the purpose of his trip was a holiday. He was found with his two children and his wife.

At least one of the four people within his family had a travel ticket issued in Poland. He crossed the Italian border with his car with a Ukrainian license plate last Tuesday.

He was travelling with his passport, and he used his real identity to check into the hotel, triggering an emergency alert on a police server, we have been told.

After the arrest, he was taken to the Rimini police station before being moved to a prison in Bologna, the regional capital, on Friday.

Deputy Bologna Prosecutor Licia Scagliarini has granted the German judicial authorities’ requests for Serhii’s surrender, but Sky News understands the man told the appeal court that he doesn’t consent to being handed over to Germany.

He also denied the charges and said he was in Ukraine during the Nord Stream sabotage. He added that he is currently in Italy for family reasons.

While leaving the court, he was seen making a typical Ukrainian nationalist ‘trident’ gesture to the reporters.

The next hearing is scheduled for 3 September, when the Bologna appeal court is set to decide whether Serhii will be extradited to Germany or not. He will remain in jail until then.

In Germany, he will face charges of collusion to cause an explosion, anti-constitutional sabotage and the destruction of structures.

German prosecutors believe he was part of a group of people who planted devices on the pipelines near the Danish island of Bornholm in September 2022.

Serhii and his accomplices are believed to have set off from Rostock on Germany’s north-eastern coast in a sailing yacht to carry out the attack.

The explosions severely damaged three pipelines transporting gas from Russia to Europe. It represented a significant escalation in the Ukraine conflict and worsening of the continent’s energy supply crisis.

According to a US intelligence report leaked in 2023, a pro-Ukraine group was behind the attack. Yet, no group has ever claimed responsibility.

Sky News understands Genoa’s Prosecutor’s Office in northern Italy has requested their colleagues in Bologna to share the information related to Serhii.

Anti-terrorism prosecutors are investigating another alleged sabotage linked to the Russian shadow fleet oil tanker Seajewel, which sank off the port of Savona last February.

On Thursday, they asked an investigative police unit to figure out whether there is a link between that episode and the Nord Stream attacks.