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Soldiers died from gas exposure during a mission to recover a Turkish soldier missing in the cave since 2022.<\/em><\/p>\n Twelve Turkish soldiers have died after inhaling methane gas during a mission in northern Iraq, the Turkish Ministry of National Defence says.<\/p>\n \u201cFour other of our heroic comrades in arms, affected by methane gas, have died \u2026 bringing the total number of victims to 12,\u201d the ministry said in a post on X on Monday.<\/p>\n According to it, the incident took place on Sunday as troops searched for the remains of a soldier killed by fighters belonging to the Kurdistan Workers\u2019 Party (PKK) in 2022.<\/p>\n PKK has been labelled a terrorist group by Turkiye, the European Union and the United States. It fought for Kurdish autonomy for years, a fight that has been declared over now.<\/p>\n Nineteen soldiers were exposed to the gas inside a site once used by armed fighters as a hospital.<\/p>\n The condition of the remaining seven soldiers was not clear immediately. \u201cI wish a speedy recovery for our heroes affected by methane The soldiers were conducting a sweep operation inside a cave at an altitude of 852 metres (2,795 feet) in the Metina region, part of Turkiye\u2019s ongoing Operation Claw-Lock targeting the PKK positions in northern Iraq.<\/p>\n Though the gas is not considered toxic, methane can become deadly in confined spaces due to suffocation risks. The ministry has not clarified how the gas accumulated inside the cave.<\/p>\n Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan expressed his \u201cgreat sorrow\u201d over the incident and extended condolences to the families of the fallen.<\/p>\n Defence Minister Yasar Guler travelled to the area to oversee inspections and attend ceremonies for the deceased.<\/p>\n News of the deaths emerged as a delegation from the pro-Kurdish DEM party was visiting jailed PKK founder Abdullah Ocalan as part of the ongoing negotiations with the Turkish government.<\/p>\n The decades-long conflict between Ankara and the PKK has killed more than 40,000 people since 1984.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Soldiers died from gas exposure during a mission to recover a Turkish soldier missing in the cave since 2022. Twelve Turkish soldiers have died after inhaling methane gas during a mission in northern Iraq, the Turkish Ministry of National Defence says. \u201cFour other of our heroic comrades in arms, affected by methane gas, have died<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10231,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[3113,267,867,390,3114,3112,150,2418,1642,3115],"class_list":{"0":"post-10230","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-politics","8":"tag-cave","9":"tag-conflict","10":"tag-gas","11":"tag-iraq","12":"tag-kills","13":"tag-methane","14":"tag-news","15":"tag-northern","16":"tag-soldiers","17":"tag-turkish"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10230","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10230"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10230\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/10231"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10230"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10230"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10230"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
gas,\u201d Turkish Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya wrote on X.<\/p>\n