Race to Identify Türkiye Quake Victims

Rescuers carry Muhammed Alkanaas, 12, to an ambulance after they pulled him out five days after the Monday earthquake in Antakya, southern Türkiye, late Saturday, Feb. 11, 2023. (AP Photo/Can Ozer)
Rescuers carry Muhammed Alkanaas, 12, to an ambulance after they pulled him out five days after the Monday earthquake in Antakya, southern Türkiye, late Saturday, Feb. 11, 2023. (AP Photo/Can Ozer)
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Race to Identify Türkiye Quake Victims

Rescuers carry Muhammed Alkanaas, 12, to an ambulance after they pulled him out five days after the Monday earthquake in Antakya, southern Türkiye, late Saturday, Feb. 11, 2023. (AP Photo/Can Ozer)
Rescuers carry Muhammed Alkanaas, 12, to an ambulance after they pulled him out five days after the Monday earthquake in Antakya, southern Türkiye, late Saturday, Feb. 11, 2023. (AP Photo/Can Ozer)

Tuba Yolcu is desperate for news of her missing aunt and scours a sports hall where victims of a powerful earthquake that hit her hometown in Türkiye lie in body bags.

"We hear (the authorities) will no longer keep the bodies waiting after a certain period of time, they say they will take them and bury them," she said.

"God willing we will find her," Yolcu said, with worry etched on her face.

Monday's 7.8-magnitude tremor struck Kahramanmaras in the country's southeast, unleashing catastrophe in the region and Syria, killing at least 28,000 people, AFP said.

Anguished families flock to sports halls, hospital morgues or cemeteries in the severely hit city -- where bodies are piling up -- in a bid to find their missing relatives.

"Every unidentified body will eventually be returned to their family," a prosecutor said, trying to soothe the families.

"Don't worry, blood samples are taken from each and every missing body," he assured.

Families -- who cannot reach their loved ones during the rescue work -- check one by one bodies either in bags or wrapped in blankets.

"We show the faces to their immediate relatives," a crime scene investigator in a hazmat suit told AFP at a large grave outside the city.

Funeral cars deliver a stream of bodies, burying them one by one.

"If the identity is unknown, we take fingerprints and tooth samples and compare them with their relatives," said the investigator, who carries a camera around his neck.

About 2,000 bodies have been identified at the cemetery, which is filled with freshly dug graves.

- 'Let's go back' -
Next to the wooden headstones at the makeshift cemetery, where some are wrapped by scarves, people mourn their relatives.

One woman sits near the grave, unable to stop crying.

Missing bodies are stored lower down, where investigators take pictures and notes.

Yusuf Sekman, from the religious affairs directorate, said the unidentified bodies are also divided according to where their collapsed building was located.

This allows relatives to "also look, based on the recovered body's address", he said.

"Their samples are taken, and noted down on body bags" to help with identification.

Health Minister Fahrettin Koca said on Friday he hoped the missing bodies would be identified and said the government was doing everything it could.

"We upload unidentified patients' photographs to a special software in order to match," Koca said.

Unfortunately for Yolcu, her aunt was not at the sports hall since an official said all the bodies have been identified.

When the quake struck, her aunt was in the city but Yolcu was in a village.

"We cannot find her body," she said, adding that she won't stop looking.

As she stepped out of the hall, she turned back to her husband and said: "Let's return to the rubble", hoping that perhaps her aunt had yet to be pulled out.



Iran's Khamenei Rejects Trump's Call for Unconditional Surrender 

This handout picture released by the office of Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei shows him speaking to members of Iran's air force in Tehran on February 7, 2025. (AFP photo / Handout / Khamenei.ir)
This handout picture released by the office of Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei shows him speaking to members of Iran's air force in Tehran on February 7, 2025. (AFP photo / Handout / Khamenei.ir)
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Iran's Khamenei Rejects Trump's Call for Unconditional Surrender 

This handout picture released by the office of Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei shows him speaking to members of Iran's air force in Tehran on February 7, 2025. (AFP photo / Handout / Khamenei.ir)
This handout picture released by the office of Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei shows him speaking to members of Iran's air force in Tehran on February 7, 2025. (AFP photo / Handout / Khamenei.ir)

Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei said in a statement read by a television presenter on Wednesday that his country will not accept US President Donald Trump's call for an unconditional surrender.

In his first remarks since Friday, when he delivered a speech broadcast on state media after Israel began bombarding Iran, Khamenei said peace or war could not be imposed on the country.

"Intelligent people who know Iran, the Iranian nation, and its history will never speak to this nation in threatening language because the Iranian nation will not surrender," he said.

"The Americans should know that any US military intervention will undoubtedly be accompanied by irreparable damage."

Thousands of people were fleeing Tehran on Wednesday after Israeli warplanes bombed the city overnight, and a source said Trump was considering options that include joining Israel in attacking Iranian nuclear sites.

Israel's military said 50 Israeli jets had struck around 20 targets in Tehran overnight, including sites producing raw materials, components and manufacturing systems for missiles.

A source familiar with internal discussions said Trump and his team were considering a number of options, which included joining Israel in strikes against Iranian nuclear sites.

Iran had conveyed to Washington that it would retaliate against the United States for any direct participation, its ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva, Ali Bahreini, said. He said he already saw the US as "complicit in what Israel is doing".