AL-MUKALLA: At least three passengers died and dozens more were injured, some seriously, after a bus carrying 47 people plunged off a cliff in Yemen.

The vehicle reportedly slid off a muddy road between the besieged city of Taiz and the southern port city of Aden, sparking renewed calls for an end to the Iran-backed Houthi siege of Taiz.

Local officials and media said the Mercedes-Benz coach, operated by Nur Transportation, was traveling down a steep road in Lahij governorate’s Al-Qabbaytah District on Saturday evening when the crash happened.

AHATLAR, Turkey: Sitting on the stairs of his house overlooking the Black Sea, the father of a dead miner accepts condolences from relatives and neighbors. His scarred Turkish village lost three of its young men in this Friday’s mining disaster.

Three out of 41 miners killed in the coal mine explosion in the town of Amasra on Friday were from Ahatlar, a village on its outskirts, where funeral services were held on Sunday.

RAQQA, SYRIA: It has been five years since the Syrian Democratic Forces hoisted their flag in the main square in Raqqa, which, for four years, had been the capital of Daesh. The streets and squares of Raqqa had witnessed horrendous atrocities — beatings, torture, beheadings, and other unspeakable acts.

Global media, which watched the operation to liberate the city with bated breath, almost immediately packed up and fled once Raqqa was freed from the terror group, leaving the people alone again in the rubble of their once great city.

AL-MUKALLA: Yemeni government officials and human rights groups have called for an independent international investigation into the deaths of 18 children with leukemia who were injected with expired drugs at a hospital in Houthi-held Sanaa.

Local media reports, independent organizations and family members said that health workers at Kuwait University Hospital administered doses of the chemotherapy drug methotrexate to about 50 cancer-hit children in late September, killing at least 18 of them and sending others to intensive care units.

BEIRUT: Amnesty International has urged Lebanese authorities to halt plans to return Syrian refugees to their country involuntarily.

The call follows Beirut’s announcement that it will start sending refugees back to Syria in batches this month.

Lebanon received around $5.83 billion in humanitarian aid between 2013 and 2018 specifically allocated for Syrian refugees.