Powerful earthquakes that rocked Turkish areas near the Syrian border killed five Ukrainian citizens last week. This was announced by the press secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of our state Oleg Nikolenko on Facebook.

In particular, he confirmed that among the victims was a family from Zaporozhye. Currently, the Ukrainian embassy is preparing to return the bodies of the dead to their homeland..

Nikolenko also said that the second group of consuls would go to the tragedy zone, which would coordinate the search for missing citizens, provide support to the victims and organize the evacuation of people from earthquake sites to Ukraine or other regions of Turkey..

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According to him, 136 Ukrainians have already been found and 37 have been evacuated..

" 7 are considered missing, their search continues (2 may be under the rubble, our units of the State Emergency Service are involved in the search). 1 person was hospitalized, his condition is stable,"

He added that in the near future diplomats are going to evacuate another 22 citizens of our state from the disaster zone..

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Earthquake near Turkey: hundreds of people died, thousands were injured.

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Earlier, UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs Martin Griffiths said the death toll from aftershocks in Turkey and Syria could double or more..