Teenager, two men rescued in Turkey nearly 11 days after quake

Turkish rescuers pulled a 14-year-old boy and two men nearly 11 days after the huge earthquake, a minister said on Friday, as rescue efforts wind down.

Osman, 14, was rescued 260 hours after the 7.8-magnitude tremor struck Turkey's southeast and Syria, Health Minister Fahrettin Koca said on Twitter.

He shared an image of the adolescent with his eyes open on a stretcher and said Osman had been taken to a hospital in Antakya in the quake-devastated Hatay province.

Rescuers found Osman after hearing sounds in the rubble, Anadolu state news agency reported.

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One hour later, rescuers elsewhere saved two men aged 26 and 33 in Antakya, Koca said, also sharing images of the men receiving treatment from health workers.

The DHA news agency named the men as Mehmet Ali Sakiroglu, 26, and Mustafa Avci, 33, and said they had been rescued from the same building's rubble.

"I'm well, there are no issues," Avci says during a call to a loved one in a video shared by Koca.

The unseen man on the other end of the line breaks down before Avci asks, "How are my mother and others?"

"They're all well, they're waiting for you," the man on the other end of the line shouts, as a small smile of relief appears on Avci's face.

The quake has killed more than 41,000 people in Turkey and Syria, injured tens of thousands of others and left millions without shelter in freezing temperatures.

The tremor struck 11 provinces in Turkey. Turkish officials have said rescue efforts in three provinces, Adana, Kilis and Sanliurfa, have been completed.

Syrian govt forces, rebels clash

Meanwhile, Syrian government forces and rebels have clashed overnight in northwest Syria for the first time since an earthquake devastated the region on Feb. 6, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported on Friday.

The northwest, one of the region's most badly affected by the earthquake that hit Syria and Turkey, is controlled by insurgents opposed to the government of President Bashar Al Assad in Damascus.

The Observatory said government forces had shelled the outskirts of the rebel-town of Atareb. This coincided with clashes with heavy machine guns between government and rebel forces at a nearby frontline, it said.

Observatory Director Rami Abdulrahman said 235 people in Atareb and the nearby areas had died in the earthquake.

More than 4,400 people were reported killed by the earthquake in the northwest, according to a UN agency, the bulk of the fatalities in Syria.

Government and rebel forces also clashed in another part of the northwest near the government town of Saraqeb, while government forces shelled the outskirts of two villages in Hama province, the Observatory reported.

Reuters could not independently verify the reports.

The World Health Organisation has said it was particularly concerned about the welfare of people in the northwest, where many people have felt abandoned as supplies almost invariably head to other parts of the sprawling disaster zone.

The Syrian conflict has killed hundreds of thousands of people, uprooted more than half the population and forced millions abroad as refugees since 2011.

More than 4 million people were already dependent on aid in northwestern Syria before the earthquake.

Agence France-Presse