Category World News

Whole villages in southeast Afghanistan’s mountains have been reduced to stone and mud piles.

Residents of Kunar province are mourning their families and trying to figure out how they can possibly live after losing everything, almost a week after the devastating earthquake that hit the province.

More than 2, 200 people died last weekend when a magnitude 6.0 tremor struck the remote mountainous area.

According to Ali Hashem of Al Jazeera’s Kunar province, the epicenter of the earthquake, “the victims have two choices: to leave or to die.”

At least 10 people were hurt in strong aftershocks that followed the earthquake, which sparked fears of more devastation and destruction.

In the earthquake, Gul Rahim’s family lost 63 people, including his 5-year-old daughter Fatima.

When the earthquake struck at midnight, we were asleep at home. He told Al Jazeera while seated on the ruins of his home and carrying several bags of whatever items he could recover, “All the houses collapsed and everyone was screaming”.

My youngest daughter was crying, “Frother, get me out of here,” but I managed to escape. He said, his voice trembling with grief, “She had passed away by the time we reached her.”

She was my most devoted and youngest daughter.

Rahim claimed that the earthquake also claimed 100 or so lives from his neighbors.

There were numerous dead and injured. He continued, “The earthquake was terrifying and causes people to feel depressed.

The majority of the victims are from Kunar province, where most people reside in mud-brick and wooded homes dotted with imposing mountains and steep river valleys.

At least 6,700 homes have been destroyed, according to the World Health Organization (WHO) as of September 3.

Rahim claimed to be living in a tent and was concerned about “heavily snowfall” coming his way as the area would soon experience winter.

He said, “We most need proper homes to survive the cold.” I urge everyone to support us, including Muslims and non-Muslims. Even our livestock and chickens, which we no longer own, have been lost. Nothing is still there.

Rescue efforts continue.

Many communities are still without power due to steep roads, repeated aftershocks, and limited aid.

“Recounted Al Jazeera’s Hashem,” the song says, “Getting here was a harrowing experience.” After hours of searching the cliffside roads, we were finally able to drive on the winding roads until we reached the top.

Hope was waning as rescuers “were operating around the clock” in search of survivors, according to Hashem. The official death toll isn’t fixed, but it will likely increase as more people continue to go missing, he said.

According to WHO, relief work has been hampered by landslides and road closures. The organization has filed an appeal for $4 million to fund “life-saving health interventions” as well as “supporting residents’ water, sanitation, and hygiene activities.

Volunteer Abdulrahman Sharafat told Al Jazeera, “They need food assistance, safety, and medicine for the children.”

Because it is near the intersection of the tectonic plates of India and Europe, Afghanistan is prone to powerful earthquakes. More than 2, 000 people died in the western province of Herat as a result of an earthquake of magnitude 6.0 in October 2023.

Carlo Acutis, who passed away from leukaemia in 2006 at the age of 15, is to be buried in St Peter’s Square on Sunday.

Carlo was born in London, England, in 1991, to Italian parents. He used his computer skills to record online miracles and other aspects of the Catholic faith.

Catholic youth around the world were drawn to the story of the cyberapostle, who is alleged to have attended Mass daily and shown kindness to bullied children and homeless people. He will now have his status at the same level as Francis of Assisi.

The teenager’s body is found in a glass-walled tomb in Assisi, a medieval city and pilgrimage site in the central region of Umbria, in jeans and a pair of Nike trainers, and is surrounded by tens of thousands of people annually.

Carlo, according to the Vatican, has performed two miracles since his death, the first of which was the recovery of a Costa Rican student who had suffered a pancreatic malformation. Both parents pleaded with the teenager for assistance.

The mother of Carlo, Antonia Salzano, claimed that her son had the ability to see that “every person is unique and unrepeatable, originals and not photocopies,” according to the AFP news agency.

Leo will celebrate the anniversary of Pier Giorgio Frassati, an Italian man who was known for helping those in need and passed away from polio in the 1920s with a ceremony scheduled for April, which was later postponed due to Pope Francis’ death.

Carlo’s sainthood was brought forward by Francis because he believed the church needed a person like him to convert young Catholics to the faith while addressing the benefits and drawbacks of the digital era.

In a 2019 document, Francis wrote, “Carlo was well aware that the entire apparatus of communications, advertising, and social networking can be used to lull us, to make us addicted to consumerism and to buying the most recent thing on the market.”

He was aware of how to communicate values and beauty using the new communication technology.

Leo inherited the cause, and he also cited artificial intelligence as one of humanity’s greatest challenges.

The website about alleged Eucharistic miracles that Carlo founded is his most well-known tech legacy, which is available in nearly 20 different languages.

After warning Palestinian residents to leave the area or risk being killed as a result of the ongoing siege and widespread starvation in the area, the Israeli army bombed another high-rise in Gaza City.

In a map released on Saturday, the Israeli military designated more high-rise buildings as targets. In the Tal al-Hawa neighborhood, it bombed the 15-story Soussi Tower, which is opposite a building belonging to the UN Refugee Agency (UNRWA).

Given how long the people are allowed to evacuate, “These attacks are causing panic among the people.” According to Hani Mahmoud, a journalist from Gaza City, “Half an hour or an hour is not enough time for people to leave these buildings.”

Without providing any further details, the Israeli military claimed in a statement that Hamas used the buildings to gather intelligence to track down the Israeli army. Additionally, it claimed that armed Palestinian organizations had dug a tunnel and planted “numerous explosive devices” there.

The claims were refuted by the Gaza-based government media office, which called them “part of a systematic deception used by the occupation to justify the targeting of civilians and infrastructure” and forced Palestinians to flee their homes. Israel allegedly destroyed 90% of Gaza’s infrastructure, according to the statement.

In response to Israel’s plan to seize Gaza City despite international criticism, the 12-storey Mushtaha Tower, which was bombed and ground zero on Friday, was close by.

The Israeli military has killed at least 68 Palestinians and injured 362 others in the Gaza Strip over the past day, according to the enclave’s Ministry of Health on Saturday afternoon.

23 aid workers were killed and 143 were hurt by Israeli forces, totaling 23. Israel-caused starvation also claimed the lives of at least six more Palestinians, bringing the total number of starvation deaths during the war’s nearly two years to 382, including 135 children.

Since Israel’s initial attacks on southern Israel on October 7, 2023, at least 64, 368 Palestinians have been killed and 162 have been wounded.

Israel bombs the area and establishes a new “humanitarian zone.”

According to sources at Nasser Hospital in the Khan Younis area of southern Gaza, an Israeli airstrike on a tent that housed displaced people in the area claimed the lives of at least two Palestinians and many others.

The Israeli army designated this area as a “humanitarian” or “safe” zone in the beginning of the conflict, but it has since been bombed repeatedly, killing hundreds of displaced civilians.

The Israeli army had announced the establishment of another similar area in al-Mawasi, which runs along Gaza’s Mediterranean coast, just before the most recent bombings. It claimed that the area would have facilities like field hospitals, water lines, desalination facilities, and food distribution.

According to a report from Deir el-Balah in central Gaza, Palestinians don’t trust the so-called humanitarian area because tents there have already been attacked by Israel numerous times and aren’t safe.

However, residents of Gaza City have few other choices: if they stay, they run the risk of dying, and if they leave, they face road dangers and may need to move their valuables south.

After weeks of ground assaults, those who have returned to their homes in Zeitoun, a neighborhood in Gaza City, discovered everything they owned destroyed.

Aqeeel Kishko, a resident, told Al Jazeera, “What we have built in 50 years was flattened in five days.” Buildings, roads, and infrastructure remain intact. We are walking on both dead bodies and ruins with our loved ones.

Nohaa Tafish claimed that the largest urban center in Gaza would never be resurrected.

What would people go back to? She said, “There can’t be anything else to go back to.”