(LONDON and ISTANBUL) — A predawn fire at a hotel in the Kartalkaya Ski Resort in Turkey killed at least 76, with another 51 injured, Turkey’s Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya said Tuesday.
“We are in deep pain,” Yerlikaya told reporters during a press conference.
The fire ignited after 3 a.m. on Tuesday at the Grand Kartal, a hotel at the resort in Northwestern Turkey.
A city official told ABC News that after the fire broke out in the middle of the night, around 3:27 a.m. local time, most of the victims, including children, appeared to have lost life due to suffocation.
There were 238 registered guests in the 12-story hotel at the time of the fire, according to the interior minister.
The fire department had not reported a negative situation regarding the fire adequacy of the hotel until Tuesday, Yerlikaya said, adding that an investigation is ongoing.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said an administrative and criminal investigation is underway.
“All necessary steps will be taken and are being taken to shed light on all aspects of the incident and to hold those responsible accountable,” he said.
ABC News’ Somayeh Malekian contributed to this report.
(NAIROBI, Kenya) — As cute and confident as Pardamat now seems, the little elephant had a difficult start to life.
“Pardamat was found next to the dead body of his mother,” Edwin Lusichi, head keeper at the Sheldrick Wildlife Trust’s nursery in Nairobi, Kenya, where Pardamat is being cared for, told ABC News. “His mother had a big wound that had been caused by human beings.”
The story is similar for many elephants across the country — victims of what’s known as “human-wildlife conflict,” which has surpassed poaching as the No. 1 cause of illegal elephant death in Kenya, according to conservation groups.
Conservation groups say the growing human population, combined with drought and resource scarcity linked to climate change, are increasingly causing people and elephants to compete for things like space, food and water.
A common scenario involves elephants raiding and destroying crops in search of food. Some vulnerable farmers, desperate to protect their livelihoods, retaliate by spearing the elephants.
“The shopping malls, the roads, have been built on lands that used to belong to elephants and their migration routes,” Lusichi said. “So the resources are not there for humans and wildlife, and so animals are forced to get into human properties.”
According to some conservation groups, the issue has been exacerbated by the proliferation of new commercial farms growing crops like avocados for the West and China.
Every year, hundreds of people around the world are killed or injured by elephants due to conflict between humans and elephants, conversation groups said.
In southern Kenya, such conflict has become so common that some rangers now patrol farmlands on a nightly basis.
“On a busy night, on a dry season, even 20 elephants can come and raid,” Daniel Kutata, a ranger for the nonprofit conservation organization Big Life Foundation, told ABC News. “Farmers will be losing their crops, which they are depending on to earn a living, so yeah, there is a lot of pressure. We need both farmers and elephants to be safe.”
Big Life has installed an electric fence to help keep elephants within their protected areas. The organization reports that this initiative has significantly improved the situation, although some elephants have learned how to get around it.
A Maasai farmer who spoke to ABC News shortly after his tomato farm was raided told us he lost months of hard work and approximately $4,000 — that’s about eight times the average monthly salary in Kenya.
Save the Elephants, a research and conservation organization headquartered in Nairobi, has been working with local farmers to develop creative solutions to the problem.
ABC News spoke with farmer Jonas Makima, who nearly gave up on his business due to elephants raiding his crops.
“If an elephant gets onto the farm and raids everything, then it means now, you’ll not have food for the family, you’ll not have money for education for my children,” Makima said.
Makima told ABC News that during crop season, every night is a battle. He has set up all sorts of contraptions around his farm to keep the elephants away, including a watch tower, a sound cannon, and “chili bombs.”
However, Makima said his most effective tool is his beehive fence. A project by Save the Elephants found that elephants avoid crops up to 86% of the time during peak seasons because they are terrified of bees.
With Kenya’s population expected to double by 2070, Makima is now working with Save the Elephants to teach farmers across Africa that peaceful coexistence between people and elephants is possible with the right tools.
“People need to be educated, people need to know what to do when they encounter these animals in their farms,” Lusichi said. “And people need to know that these animals also have a right to life, a right to their space, so these habitats should not be invaded and occupied and used by people.”
Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post via Getty Images
(WASHINGTON) — French President Emmanuel Macron used his visit to the U.S. to publicly push back on President Donald Trump’s repeated attacks on Ukraine, fact-checking his American counterpart in real-time and urging caution in talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
During their joint Oval Office appearance on Monday, Macron interrupted Trump when the latter said that Europe was being paid back 60% of the aid it contributed to Kyiv over the last three years of war.
Touching Trump’s arm to interject, Macron said, “No, in fact, to be frank, we paid. We paid 60% of the total effort: it was through, like the U.S., loans, guarantees, grants,” Macron said. “And we provided real money, to be clear.”
After Macron’s comments, Trump smiled and replied, “If you believe that, it’s okay with me.”
In a Fox News interview that also aired on Monday, Macron warned Trump to “be careful” in the nascent U.S.-Russia talks intended to end Moscow’s 3-year-old war, without the direct involvement of Ukraine or European allies.
“I think the arrival of President Trump is a game-changer,” Macron said. “And I think he has the deterrence capacity of the U.S. to reengage with Russia.”
“We want peace,” the French president continued. “And I think the initiative of President Trump is a very positive one. But my message was to say be careful because we need something substantial for Ukraine.”
Trump’s repeated demands that Kyiv repay U.S. aid given since the beginning of Russia’s invasion have strained American ties with Ukraine and with its European allies.
The White House has framed its proposed deal to secure access to hundreds of billions of dollars worth of Ukrainian resources as part of Trump’s push to recoup American wartime investment. Ukrainian officials said Monday that the deal is close to being finalized.
Trump said Monday he will soon meet with Zelenskyy, signaling the U.S. and Ukraine were “close” to a deal giving the U.S. access to profits from Ukraine’s valuable mineral resources and that Zelenskyy would come to Washington to sign it.
“I will be meeting with President Zelenskyy. In fact, he may come this week or next week to sign the agreement,” Trump said.
The president continued to focus on what he considers Ukraine’s unfair approach to U.S. and American aid during Russia’s war.
Trump again falsely claimed the U.S. has given Ukraine $350 billion during this period — a figure publicly disputed by Zelenskyy. The Kiel Institute for the World Economy estimates that the U.S. has committed about $119 billion. The majority — $67 billion — was in the form of military equipment.
The institute says that European nations — meaning the European Union, the U.K., Iceland, Norway and Switzerland — have collectively contributed around $138 billion to Ukraine, $65 billion of which was military equipment.
ABC News’ Alexandra Hutzler and Ellie Kaufman contributed to this report.
(LONDON) — Multiple people are dead and nearly two dozen injured after a tourism submarine crashed in the Red Sea off the coast of Egypt, officials said.
The crash occurred Thursday morning, less than a mile off the coast of Hurghada, during an underwater excursion to see the coral reef, according to the Russian consulate in Hurghada.
Six people — all Russian nationals — were killed, according to the Red Sea Gov. Gen. Amr Hanafy.
Twenty-three people were transported to area hospitals with injuries including wounds, bruises, sprains and shortness of breath, according to the governor. Four of the patients were in intensive care, he said.
The submarine was carrying 50 people total at the time, according to Hanafy. There were 45 tourists of various nationalities — including Russian, as well as Indian, Norwegian and Swedish — and five Egyptian crew members, he said.
Local authorities are investigating the cause of the accident and are in communication with the crew, Hanafy said.
The submarine is owned by an Egyptian national and held a valid license and necessary certifications, according to Hanafy.
Hurghada is a popular tourist destination for beachgoers along the Red Sea and is well known for its scuba diving and snorkeling.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
ABC News’ Morgan Winsor and Nasser Atta contributed to this report.
