Headlines
Earthquakes in Turkey, Syria Claims Hundreds of Lives
A 7.8-magnitude earthquake hit Turkey and Syria early on Monday, killing hundreds of people as they slept, levelling buildings, and sending tremors that were felt as far away as the Island of Cyprus and Egypt.
One of the largest to strike Turkey in at least a century wiped out entire sections of major cities in a region filled with millions of people who have fled the civil war in Syria and other conflicts.
The head of Syria’s National Earthquake Centre, Raed Ahmed, told pro-government radio that this was “historically, the biggest earthquake recorded in the history of the centre”.
At least 245 people died in government-controlled parts of Syria, as well as the northern areas held by pro-Turkish factions, according to the health ministry and a local hospital.
At least 284 people died in Turkey, Vice President Fuat Oktay said on Monday, adding that more than 2,300 people had been injured and that search and rescue work was continuing in several major cities.
The rescue was being hampered by a winter blizzard that covered major roads in ice and snow.
Television images showed shocked people in Turkey standing in the snow in their pyjamas, watching rescuers dig through the debris of damaged homes.
– Election test for Erdogan –
The quake struck at 04:17 am local time (0117 GMT) at a depth of about 17.9 kilometres (11 miles) near the Turkish city of Gaziantep, which is home to around two million people, the US Geological Survey said.
Turkey’s AFAD emergencies service centre put the first quake’s magnitude at 7.4, adding that it was followed by more than 40 aftershocks.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who will be under intense pressure to oversee an effective response to the disaster heading to a tightly-contested May 14 election, conveyed his sympathies and urged national unity.
“We hope that we will get through this disaster together as soon as possible and with the least damage,” the Turkish leader tweeted.
US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said Washington was “profoundly concerned”.
“We stand ready to provide any and all needed assistance,” Sullivan said.
The earthquake struck a restive, predominantly Kurdish area of Turkey near Syria, a country gripped by more than a decade of violence that has killed hundreds of thousands and displaced millions.
– ‘People under rubble’ –
Images on Turkish television showed rescuers digging through the rubble of levelled buildings in the city of Kahramanmaras and neighbouring Gaziantep, where entire sections of cities were destroyed.
A fire lit up the night sky in one image from Kahramanmaras, although its origin remained unclear.
Buildings also crumbled in the cities of Adiyaman, Malatya and Diyarbakir, where AFP reporters saw panicked people rush out on the street.
Kahramanmaras Governor Omer Faruk Coskun said it was too early to estimate the death toll because so many buildings were destroyed.
“It is not possible to give the number of dead and injured at the moment because so many buildings have been destroyed,” Coskun said. “The damage is serious.”
A famous mosque dating back to the 13th century partially collapsed in the province of Maltaya, where a 14-story building with 28 apartments also collapsed.
In other cities, anguished rescuers struggled to reach survivors trapped under the debris.
“We hear voices here — and over there, too,” one rescuer was overheard as saying on NTV television in front of a flattened building in the city of Diyarbakir.
“There may be 200 people under the rubble.”
– Dam warning –
The Syrian health ministry reported damage across the provinces of Aleppo, Latakia, Hama and Tartus, where Russia is leasing a naval facility.
AFP correspondents in northern Syria said terrified residents ran out of their homes after the ground shook.
Even before the tragedy, buildings in Aleppo, Syria’s pre-war commercial hub, often collapsed due to the dilapidated infrastructure after more than a decade of war as well as little oversight to ensure safety of new construction projects, some built illegally.
Naci Gorur, an earthquake expert with Turkey’s Academy of Sciences, urged local officials to immediately check the region’s dams for cracks to avert potentially catastrophic flooding.
Turkey is in one of the world’s most active earthquake zones.
President Bola Tinubu has nominated Ibok-Ete Ekwe Ibas, the immediate past sole administrator of Rivers State and a former Chief of Naval Staff, as a non-career ambassador.
Tinubu also nominated Ita Enang, a former senator; Chioma Ohakim, former First Lady of Imo State; and Abdulrahman Dambazau, former Minister of Interior and ex-Chief of Army Staff, as non-career ambassadors.
The United States Department of State on Wednesday announced that it is outlining new measures to address violence against Christians in Nigeria and other countries.
The policy, according to a statement released by the department, targets radical Islamic terrorists, Fulani ethnic militias, and other actors responsible for killings and attacks on religious communities.
“The United States is taking decisive action in response to the mass killings and attacks on Christians carried out by radical Islamic terrorists, Fulani militias, and other violent groups in Nigeria and beyond,” said Secretary of State Marco Rubio in a statement.
According to the statement, a new policy under Section 212(a)(3)(C) of the Immigration and Nationality Act allows the State Department to restrict visas for individuals who have “directed, authorised, significantly supported, participated in, or carried out violations of religious freedom,” and, when appropriate, extend those “restrictions to their immediate family members.”
The briefing, led by House Appropriations Vice Chair and National Security Subcommittee Chairman Mario Díaz-Balart, included members of the House Appropriations and House Foreign Affairs Committees, as well as religious freedom experts.
Participants included Representatives Robert Aderholt, Riley Moore, Brian Mast, Chris Smith, US Commission on International Religious Freedom Chair Vicky Hartzler, Alliance Defending Freedom International’s Sean Nelson, and Dr Ebenezer Obadare of the Council on Foreign Relations.
President Bola Tinubu recently approved Nigeria’s delegation to the new US–Nigeria Joint Working Group, formed to implement security agreements from high-level talks in Washington led by National Security Adviser Nuhu Ribadu.
The move follows growing concerns over terrorism, banditry, and targeted attacks on Christians in Nigeria, prompting increased US scrutiny and warnings about the protection of vulnerable faith communities.
On November 20, the US House Subcommittee on Africa opened a public hearing to review Trump’s redesignation of Nigeria as a Country of Particular Concern, placing the country under heightened scrutiny for alleged religious-freedom violations.
Lawmakers examined the potential consequences of the designation, which could pave the way for sanctions against Nigerian officials found complicit in religious persecution.
The Punch
United States of America lawmakers have sharply contradicted the Nigerian government’s position on the ongoing massacres in the country, describing the violence as “escalating,” “targeted,” and overwhelmingly directed at Christians during a rare joint congressional briefing on Tuesday.
The closed-door session – convened by House Appropriations, Vice Chair Mario Díaz-Balart, as part of a Trump-ordered investigation – examined recent killings and what Congress calls Abuja’s “deeply inadequate” response.
President Trump has asked lawmakers, led by Reps. Riley Moore and Tom Cole, to compile a report on persecution of Nigerian Christians and has even floated the possibility of U.S. military action against Islamist groups responsible for the attacks.
At the briefing, Vicky Hartzler, chair of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, warned that “religious freedom [is] under siege” in Nigeria, citing mass abductions of schoolchildren and assaults in which “radical Muslims kill entire Christian villages [and] burn churches.” She said abuses were “rampant” and “violent,” claiming Christians are targeted “at a 2.2 to 1 rate” compared with Muslims.
While acknowledging Nigeria’s recent move to reassign 100,000 police officers from VIP protection, Hartzler said the country is entering a “coordinated and deeply troubling period of escalated violence.” She urged targeted sanctions, visa bans, asset freezes and tighter conditions on U.S. aid, insisting Abuja must retake villages seized from Christian communities so displaced widows and children can return home.
The strongest rebuke came from Dr. Ebenezer Obadare of the Council on Foreign Relations, who dismissed Abuja’s narrative that the killings are not religiously motivated. He called the idea that extremists attack Muslims and Christians equally a “myth,” stressing the groups operate “for one reason and one reason only: religion.” Higher Muslim casualty figures, he argued, reflect geography, not equal targeting.
Obadare described Boko Haram as fundamentally anti-democratic and accused the Nigerian military of being “too corrupt and incompetent” to defeat jihadist networks without external pressure. He urged Washington to push Nigeria to disband armed religious militias, confront security-sector corruption and respond swiftly to early warnings.
Sean Nelson of ADF International called Nigeria “the deadliest country in the world for Christians,” claiming more Christians are killed there than in all other countries combined and at a rate “five times” higher than Muslims when adjusted for population. He said extremists also kill Muslims who reject violent ideologies, undermining Abuja’s argument that the crisis is driven mainly by crime or communal disputes.
He pressed for tighter oversight on U.S. aid, recommending that some assistance be routed through faith-based groups to avoid corruption. Without “transparency and outside pressure,” he said, “nothing changes.”
Díaz-Balart criticised the Biden administration’s reversal of Trump’s designation of Nigeria as a “country of particular concern” in 2021, saying the decision had “clearly deadly consequences.” Lawmakers from the Appropriations, Foreign Affairs and Financial Services committees signaled further oversight actions as they prepare the Trump-directed report.
Hartzler pointed to recent comments by Nigeria’s Speaker of the House acknowledging a “coordinated and deeply troubling period of escalated violence,” calling it a rare moment of candor. She also welcomed the redeployment of police officers as “a promising start after years of neglect.”
But she stressed that these gestures are far from sufficient, insisting the Nigerian government must demonstrate a real commitment to “quell injustice,” act swiftly on early warnings, and embrace transparency.
The Nigerian Embassy did not immediately respond to a request for comment, according to source.
