Yemeni doctor among Turkiye quake victims

Aerial photo shows the destruction in Hatay city center, southern Turkiye, on Feb. 7, 2023. (AP)

• The embassy said it had received alerts about more Yemenis missing after the quake, but did not specify their number
• At least five Yemenis are believed to be trapped under rubble

AL-MUKALLA: A Yemeni doctor working in southern Turkiye and his wife were among the thousands killed by the earthquake that devastated the region, authorities said.
The Yemeni Embassy in Ankara said on Tuesday that Hamedi Al-Ghazali and his wife were in the city of Malatya in the Eastern Anatolia region when the magnitude-7.8 quake struck in the early hours of Monday.
The embassy said it had received alerts about more Yemenis missing after the quake, but did not specify their number.
At least five Yemenis are believed to be trapped under rubble.
The Yemeni Students Union in Turkiye described Al-Ghazali as an exceptional student who received his Ph.D. in medicine from Recep Tayyip Erdogan University in the Turkish city of Rize in 2021 and went to Malatya as a resident doctor two months ago.
The union said that five Yemenis, all students or their families, were still missing under debris in earthquake-hit areas.
About 300 Yemeni students and their families are believed to have been affected by the quake, including at least half that number who were injured or lost property.
Following the Houthi takeover of Yemen in 2014, thousands of Yemeni politicians, tribal leaders, military personnel and journalists fled to Turkiye amid fears of militia violence in their home districts.
In a separate development, two military officers were killed and five others injured by a roadside bomb set by Al-Qaeda on Tuesday in the Omaran valley in Yemen’s southern Abyan province.
Local officials said the blast ripped through a car, killing Col. Abdullah Saad Barajelah and Meshal Abdul Majed Al-Aleani, both military commanders of the Fifth Reinforcement and Support Brigade.
More than 70 Yemeni troops, including many officers, have been killed since late August when the pro-independence Southern Transitional Council launched a military offensive in the southern provinces of Shabwa and Abyan to drive Al-Qaeda out of its long-held strongholds.
According to some analysts, Al-Qaeda has collaborated with local tribesmen to plant land mines and IEDs along roads and carry out hit-and-run operations that have killed or wounded more than 200 troops.
Local military leaders said they will continue their offensive until both provinces are free of Al-Qaeda, despite the mounting number of casualties.
Yemen’s army said on Wednesday that sporadic fighting between government troops and the Houthis erupted outside the southern city of Taiz, the latest in a series of militia raids on troops defending the beleaguered city.
The army also announced on Tuesday that it had shot down a Houthi drone over its positions east of Hazem, capital of the northern province of Jouf.