More than 100 killed in air strike on Yemen prison: ICRC

More than 100 people are believed to have been killed in an air strike by the Saudi-led military coalition on a detention center in Yemen, the International Committee of the Red Cross said Sunday.

The coalition said it targeted a facility run by the Huthi rebels that "stores drones and missiles", but the rebels said the attack had leveled a building they used as a prison.

The United Nations said 52 detainees were among the dead, with a further 68 still missing.

"Casualties are most likely to increase as rescue efforts are still ongoing," it said.

The ICRC rushed to the scene in the city of Dhamar with medical teams and hundreds of body bags.

"The location that was hit has been visited by ICRC before," Franz Rauchenstein, its head of delegation for Yemen, told AFP from Dhamar. "It's a college building that has been empty and has been used as a detention facility for a while."

"What is most disturbing is that (the attack was) on a prison. To hit such a building is shocking and saddening – prisoners are protected by international law."

Rauchenstein said that over 100 people were estimated to be dead, and that at least 40 survivors were being treated for their injuries in hospitals in the city, south of the capital Sanaa.

ICRC teams collecting bodies were also "working relentlessly to find survivors under the rubble", he said, but cautioned that the chances of finding any were very slim.

Footage obtained by AFP showed heavy damage to the building and several bodies lying in the rubble, as bulldozers worked to clear away huge piles of debris.

The coalition intervened in 2015 to support the government after the Iran-aligned Huthis swept out of their northern stronghold to seize Sanaa and much of Yemen -- the Arab world's poorest nation.

Fighting since then has already claimed tens of thousands of lives and sparked what the United Nations calls the world's worst humanitarian crisis.

'STAGGERING' CASUALTIES 

The UN's humanitarian coordinator in Yemen called Sunday's air strike "horrific" and said aid groups had been forced to divert critical medical supplies, intended for treating cholera outbreak, to Dhamar hospitals.

"We have no choice," Lise Grande said. "The scale of the casualties is staggering."

Both sides stand accused of actions that could amount to war crimes.

The coalition has been blacklisted by the UN for the killing of children, while Saudi Arabia and its allies accuse the Huthis of using civilians as human shields in densely populated areas. 

Before the ICRC's comments, the coalition had insisted the strike was conducted against "a military compound which was a legitimate military target".

It said secondary explosions indicated the building was used to store weapons and that the Huthis were masking its identity by "claiming it was a secret prison".

"This is a traditional Huthi tactic and a violation of the laws of armed conflict. This site was not registered with the United Nations" and was not on the coalition's "no strike list" of sites provided by the UN and other agencies, coalition spokesman Turki Al-Malki said in a statement.

The coalition said it "took all precautionary measures to protect civilians".

But Huthi television channel Al-Masirah said dozens had been killed and wounded in seven air strikes that hit the building.

"The enemy targeted prisoners on purpose in Dhamar, many of whom were preparing to be released under a prison swap deal," Huthi rebel chief Abdelmalek al-Huthi said in a televised speech on Sunday.

The UN's Yemen envoy Martin Griffiths said Sunday's deaths were a "tragedy".

"The human cost of this war is unbearable," he said. "We need it to stop. Yemenis deserve a peaceful future."

The attack in Dhamar comes weeks after a new front opened in Yemen's complex war, pitting 2 of Riyadh's allies against each other in a struggle for control of the south.

The United Arab Emirates, a key member of the coalition backing the Yemeni government, has also trained and supported secessionists who seek an independent southern Yemen. 

The southern forces last month seized control of the interim capital Aden in the south, in a see-sawing battle with government troops that has drawn warnings that the country could break apart entirely.

The government has accused the UAE of backing a "coup".

Analysts say the fight for the south is a key test for Saudi Arabia, which hopes to mediate a ceasefire so it can focus on its main mission of battling the Huthis who are aligned with its arch foe Iran.

source: news.abs-cbn.com

Obama denounces Aleppo 'horror' as evacuation suspended

ALEPPO, Syria – Responsibility for atrocities committed in Aleppo lies with Syria and its Russian and Iranian backers, US President Barack Obama said Friday as Damascus suspended the evacuation of civilians and fighters from the city's last rebel-held areas.

Denouncing the "horror" in Aleppo, Obama called for impartial observers and warned President Bashar al-Assad that he would not be able to "slaughter his way to legitimacy".

"The world as we speak is united in horror at the savage assault by the Syrian regime and its Russian and Iranian regime on the city of Aleppo," he told an end-of-year news conference.

"This blood and these atrocities are on their hands."

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon earlier warned that Aleppo had become "a synonym for hell" and said the United Nations urged "all necessary measures" for a safe resumption of the evacuation.

The Security Council could vote as early as this weekend on a French-drafted proposal to allow international observers in Aleppo and ensure urgent aid deliveries.

US Ambassador Samantha Power said after a closed-door council meeting that UN officials were ready to be sent quickly to Aleppo.

"The presence of independent observers can deter some of the worst horrors," she said.

French Ambassador Francois Delattre said: "The immediate priority is to save lives, to stop the massacres and to avoid a new Srebrenica," referring to the massacre of Bosnian Muslims during the Balkan wars.

Russian Ambassador Vitaly Churkin, however, argued that it would take weeks to send monitors to Aleppo.

- Besieged villages –

Turkey and a Syrian military source said the evacuation from the city had been suspended but was not yet over, while Moscow insisted the operation was "complete", with all women and children moved from the city.

Amid the confusion, a convoy of evacuees that had already left the east when the operation was suspended was forced to turn back, an AFP correspondent said.

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), supervising the evacuations, said it was looking into reports of shooting before the convoy was turned back.

The delicate operation to bring the last civilians and rebels out of east Aleppo began on Thursday and continued overnight, with thousands leaving in buses and ambulances.

But on Friday morning it was abruptly suspended, with the government accusing rebels of violating the terms of the deal.

State television said rebels had tried to smuggle out heavy weapons and hostages.

The opposition accused the government of suspending the operation in a bid to secure the evacuation of residents from Fuaa and Kafraya, two villages under rebel siege in northwest Syria.

The government and Iran have reportedly sought to add an evacuation of civilians from the villages to the terms of the Aleppo deal.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said pro-government fighters had blocked the road the convoy had been using and rebels were refusing the evacuation of residents of Fuaa and Kafraya.

Evacuating the last rebel pocket in Aleppo had been scheduled to start on Wednesday, but was delayed by a day because of government objections, including over Fuaa and Kafraya.

Clashes resumed for several hours before the deal was revived, and buses and ambulances began transporting evacuees to rebel territory in western Aleppo province.

- Video message –

The Observatory estimated some 8,500 people had left before the operation was suspended, including around 3,000 rebels.

Syrian state media reported a figure of around 8,000.

Ahmad al-Dbis, a doctor helping coordinate the evacuation of the wounded, said at least 500 evacuees had wounds or illnesses requiring treatment.

From a staging area near the town of Khan al-Aasal people were travelling further west, heading either to camps for the displaced or to stay with relatives or friends.

The departures began a month to the day after government forces launched a major offensive to retake all of Aleppo and secure the regime's biggest victory in more than five years of conflict.

In a video message Thursday, Assad said the "liberation" of Aleppo was "history in the making".

But US Secretary of State John Kerry said what had already happened there was "unconscionable", raising concerns for the "tens of thousands of lives that are now concentrated into a very small area of Aleppo".

It is unclear how many people remain in east Aleppo, with tens of thousands fleeing to territory held by the government or Kurds in recent days, but perhaps tens of thousands are still inside.

- 'Heart-breaking' -

The evacuations have been emotional for departing residents desperate for relief after months of bombardment and siege, but also tearful at the prospect of potentially permanent exile.

In the dust of one bus window, someone traced: "One day we will return".

"The scene was heart-breaking," said Marianne Gasser from the ICRC Syria. "People are faced with impossible choices. You see their eyes filled with sadness."

A blast at a Damascus police station, meanwhile, was caused by a seven-year-old girl being sent in carrying "a bomb" that was detonated remotely, state news agency SANA said.

It was believed to be the first time such a young child has been used to detonate an explosive device in the war.

A police source told the Al-Watan daily that she asked to use the bathroom and the explosives detonated.

More than 310,000 people have been killed since the conflict began with anti-government protests in 2011, and over half the population has been displaced, with millions becoming refugees.

Diplomatic efforts -- including several rounds of peace talks in Geneva -- failed to make progress in resolving the conflict, which reached a turning point last year when Russia launched an air war in support of Assad.

source: news.abs-cbn.com

Buses evacuate thousands of exhausted Aleppo residents in ceasefire deal

Buses evacuate thousands of exhausted Aleppo residents in ceasefire deal

* Medical convoy attacked earlier

* Operation to evacuate fighters, residents under way

* Recapture of city would give Assad biggest victory of war

* Wider conflict far from over

ALEPPO, Syria/BEIRUT - Thousands of people were evacuated on Thursday from the last rebel bastion in Aleppo, the first to leave under a ceasefire deal that would end years of fighting for the city and mark a major victory for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

A first convoy of ambulances and buses with nearly 1,000 people aboard drove out of the devastated rebel-held area of Aleppo, which was besieged and bombarded for months by Syrian government forces, a Reuters reporter on the scene said.

Syrian state television reported later that two further convoys of 15 buses each had also left east Aleppo. The second had reached the rebel-held area of al-Rashideen, an insurgent said.

The International Committee of the Red Cross said late on Thursday that some 3,000 civilians and more than 40 wounded people, including children, had already been evacuated.

ICRC official Robert Mardini told Reuters there were no clear plans yet for how to ship out rebel fighters, who will be allowed under the ceasefire to leave for other areas outside government control.

Women cried out in celebration as the first buses passed through a government-held area, and some waved the Syrian flag. Assad said in a video statement the taking of Aleppo - his biggest prize in more than five years of civil war - was a historic moment.

An elderly woman, who had gathered with others in a government area to watch the convoy removing the rebels, raised her hands to the sky, saying: "God save us from this crisis, and from the (militants). They brought us only destruction."

Wissam Zarqa, an English teacher in the rebel zone, said most people were happy to be leaving safely. But he said: "Some of them are angry they are leaving their city. I saw some of them crying. This is almost my feeling in a way."

Earlier, ambulances trying to evacuate people came under fire from fighters loyal to the Syrian government, who injured three people, a rescue service spokesman said.

"Thousands of people are in need of evacuation, but the first and most urgent thing is wounded, sick and children, including orphans," said Jan Egeland, the U.N. humanitarian adviser for Syria.

Staffan de Mistura, the U.N. special envoy for Syria, said about 50,000 people remained in rebel-held Aleppo, of whom about 10,000 would be evacuated to nearby Idlib province and the rest would move to government-held city districts.

Behind those fleeing was a wasteland of flattened buildings, concrete rubble and bullet-pocked walls, where tens of thousands had lived until recent days under intense bombardment even after medical and rescue services had collapsed.

The once-flourishing economic center with its renowned ancient sites has been pulverized during the war that has killed more than 300,000 people, created the world's worst refugee crisis and allowed for the rise of Islamic State.

'PLACE THEM ALL IN IDLIB'

The United States was forced to watch from the sidelines as the Syrian government and its allies, including Russia, mounted an assault to pin down the rebels in an ever-diminishing pocket of territory, culminating in this week's ceasefire.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said on Thursday that the Syrian government was carrying out "nothing short of a massacre" in Aleppo. U.N. aid chief Stephen O'Brien will brief the Security Council on Friday on the Aleppo evacuation.

The Syrian White Helmets civil defense group and other rights organizations accused Russia of committing or being complicit in war crimes in Syria, saying Russian air strikes in the Aleppo region had killed 1,207 civilians, including 380 children.

In a letter submitted to the U.N. Commission of Inquiry on Syria and seen by Reuters on Thursday, the groups listed 304 alleged attacks carried out in the Aleppo area primarily between July and December and said there was a "high likelihood" of Russia responsibility.

The Russian U.N. mission was not immediately available to comment on the allegations. Russia has said it stopped air strikes in Aleppo in mid-October.

In Aleppo's rebel-held area, columns of black smoke could be seen as residents hoping to depart burned personal belongings they do not want to leave for government forces to loot.

A senior Russian general, Viktor Poznikhir, said the Syrian army had almost finished its operations in Aleppo.

But the war will still be far from over, with insurgents retaining their rural stronghold of Idlib province southwest of Aleppo, and the jihadist Islamic State group holding swathes of the east and recapturing Palmyra this week.

Rebels and their families would be taken towards Idlib, a city in northwestern Syria that is outside government control, the Russian Defence Ministry said.

Idlib province, mostly controlled by hardline Islamist groups, is not a popular destination for fighters and civilians from east Aleppo, where nationalist rebel groups predominated.

A senior European diplomat said last week the fighters had a choice between surviving for a few weeks in Idlib or dying in Aleppo. "For the Russians it's simple. Place them all in Idlib and then they have all their rotten eggs in one basket."

Idlib is already a target for Syrian and Russian air strikes but it is unclear if the government will push for a ground assault or simply seek to contain rebels there for now.

The International Rescue Committee said: "Escaping Aleppo doesn't mean escaping the war ... After witnessing the ferocity of attacks on civilians in Aleppo, we are very concerned that the sieges and barrel bombs will follow the thousands who arrive in Idlib."

SHI'ITE VILLAGES
The evacuation deal was expected to include the safe passage of wounded from the Shi'ite villages of Foua and Kefraya near Idlib that are besieged by rebels. A convoy set off to evacuate the villages on Thursday, Syrian state media said.

Efforts to evacuate eastern Aleppo began earlier in the week with a truce brokered by Russia, Assad's most powerful ally, and Turkey, which has backed the opposition. That agreement broke down following renewed fighting on Wednesday and the evacuation did not take place then as planned.

A rebel official said a new truce came into effect early on Thursday. Shortly before the new deal was announced, clashes raged in Aleppo.

Government forces made a new advance in Sukkari - one of a handful of districts still held by rebels - and brought half of the neighborhood under their control, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a monitoring group.

The Russian Defence Ministry said - before the report of the government forces' advance in Sukkari - that the rebels controlled an enclave of only 2.5 square km (1 square mile).

The evacuation plan was the culmination of two weeks of rapid advances by the Syrian army and its allies that drove insurgents back into an ever-smaller pocket of the city under intense air strikes and artillery fire.

By taking control of Aleppo, Assad has proved the power of his military coalition, aided by Russia's air force and an array of Shi'ite militias from across the region.

Rebels have been backed by the United States, Turkey and Gulf monarchies, but that support has fallen far short of the direct military assistance given to Assad by Russia and Iran.

Russia's decision to deploy its air force to Syria more than a year ago turned the war in Assad's favor after rebel advances across western Syria. In addition to Aleppo, he has won back insurgent strongholds near Damascus this year.

source: news.abs-cbn.com

Google, Facebook join Red Cross to find thousands missing in Nepal

NEW DELHI/LONDON - German development worker Caroline Siebald and her boyfriend Charles Gertler, an American glaciologist, were on a rafting trip in Nepal when the earthquake struck and initially panicked about how to let their families know they were safe.

After about 30 attempts, Gertler, 25, managed to get a phone call through to his mother in Massachusetts in the United States, and she registered them as safe on Facebook's "Safety Check". Within minutes, their friends and families saw the news.

"I had messages from my best friends in kindergarten saying 'Oh my God, I'm so glad you're alive'", Siebald, 22, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

From migrant Nepali domestic workers in India to IT professionals in Brazil, people across the globe have taken to social media sites such as Facebook and Google to look for missing relatives and pass on news of survival in Nepal.

In India, which has the highest population of Nepali migrants in the world, many have been frantically trying to phone home, horrified as they watch television pictures showing bodies being pulled out of the rumble of collapsed buildings.

"I don't know anything about my son who is in a village with my parents far from Kathmandu. I am calling on the phone all the time, but I can't get through. I can't eat, sleep or work," said Usha Tamang, a nanny of Nepali nationality working in Delhi.

Elsewhere in the world, others are searching for relatives and friends who were visiting the Himalayan nation during its peak tourism season.

An estimated 300,000 foreign tourists were in the country, several hundred of whom were on Mount Everest, when Saturday's 7.9 magnitude quake struck, killing more than 3,700 people.

TRACING THE MISSING

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) was one of the first agencies to launch an online platform to trace the thousands of people who are missing.

The family tracing service publishes lists of names and information on people who are safe and well, hospital patients, people who are looking for relatives, sought persons or those who are dead.

Individuals can access these lists directly on the webpage to look for the names of their family members or register themselves as safe or in danger.

Facebook has also launched its Safety Check tool https://www.facebook.com/safetycheck/nepalearthquake for Nepal, drawing praise from Facebook members.

"It's a simple way to let family and friends know you're okay. If you're in one of the areas affected by the earthquake, you'll get a notification asking if you're safe, and whether you want to check on any of your friends," Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg posted.

"When disasters happen, people need to know their loved ones are safe. It's moments like this that being able to connect really matters."

An IT professional in Brazil was one of many who said that the initiative had helped her trace her family.

"My father and friends are in the area and one of the first contact points we had to get some news was Facebook. This media is not always about likes and fun," the woman wrote in response to Zuckerberg's post.

"When you or someone in your family is in danger, you'll try ANY kind of contact and I'm glad Facebook helped me today. Connection is what matters."

Another application, the Google Person Finder https://google.org/personfinder/2015-nepal-earthquake/, first launched after the 2010 Haiti earthquake, uses SMS to allow anyone to search or update information on missing people.

On Saturday Jacqueline Brown registered Angus Brown, 46, from London, as safe. "Angus has emailed, he is in Lumboche with Martin. Both are fine, warm and have food," she said. The service is currently tracking about 5,800 people.

Telecommunications firms and tech companies such as Apple, Microsoft and T-Mobile, joined the relief effort by either waving call and text fees, facilitating donations or making donations outright.

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com