At least 112 killed in US-Israel attacks on Kurdistan province in Iran, with 969 injured, local officials say.

At least 112 people have been killed so far in United States-Israel attacks on Iran’s Kurdistan province, according to a local official quoted by state media, a dark twist as Washington encourages Iranian Kurdish forces across the border in Iraq to launch a ground operation into Iran.

The head of the Kurdistan Provincial Emergency Department on Friday said at least 969 people were injured in the attacks.

Twenty-seven people are currently hospitalised in standard wards, while five are in intensive care units, the official, who remained unnamed, added.

Kurds are an Indigenous ethnic minority of the Mesopotamian region, spread mainly across southeastern Turkiye, northeastern Syria, the semi-autonomous Kurdish region of northern Iraq, northwestern Iran and southwestern Armenia, sharing a distinct language and culture but lacking a state of their own.

They are also estimated to make up nearly 10 percent of Iran’s population, though no official figure exists.

The US-Israeli attacks on Iran’s Kurdistan province come amid speculation that President Donald Trump has been in direct talks with Iranian and Iraqi Kurdish groups, and that Washington aims to use them militarily on the ground to help trigger a popular uprising.

However, Trump last week said he did not want the Kurds to launch an offensive against Iran, saying the US did not want to “make the war any more complex than it already is”.

Iranian Kurdish opposition movements, many of which maintain close relations with Iraqi Kurdish factions, have long resisted Tehran while operating from bases in northern Iraq and areas along the Iran-Iraq frontier. Collectively, these groups are estimated to field several thousand fighters.

Last week, Iranian forces launched an operation against Kurdish groups in their semi-autonomous region of neighbouring Iraq.

The Iraqi Kurdish regional government has denied involvement in any plans to arm Kurdish groups and send them into Iran.

Strikes target multiple countries, including Saudi Arabia and Qatar, overnight with interceptions reported.

Iran has pressed on with sustained missile and drone attacks across the Gulf region, despite repeated protests from its neighbours, in ongoing retaliation in the war launched by the United States and Israel.

Tehran’s strikes targeted multiple countries, including Saudi Arabia and Qatar, late on Friday and in the early hours of Saturday.

Saudi Arabia’s Ministry of Defence said in multiple statements that several drones were intercepted and destroyed in the east and north of the country as it fended off attacks.

The ministry also said late on Friday that the country’s armed forces intercepted a ballistic missile launched towards the al-Kharj governorate.

Meanwhile, The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported on Saturday that five US Air Force refuelling planes were damaged in recent days while on the ground at an airbase in Saudi Arabia.

According to the WSJ, quoting unnamed US officials, the aircraft were damaged in an Iranian attack.

It did not say when the attack occurred, adding that US Central Command (CENTCOM) declined to comment on the report.

Meanwhile, Qatar’s Ministry of Defence reported missile attacks and issued temporary evacuation measures.

An intercepted missile strike was announced at about 2am (11:00 GMT), while another one was reported later in the morning.

Separately, Qatar’s Ministry of Interior shared an update advising that temporary precautionary evacuation measures issued only apply to “residents in the specified areas who received notifications through the National Alert System”.

“Safe alternative accommodations have been provided for those affected, while some have chosen to move to safe places of their own choice, until the security threat passes,” the ministry said.

Blast over Doha

Al Jazeera’s Dmitry Medvedenko, reporting from Doha, said that there was a large blast over the skies above the city at about 1:30am on Saturday (22:30 GMT on Friday).

“It was felt all across the city,” Medvedenko said, adding: “For the first time in two weeks of this conflict, certain parts of the city actually received evacuation orders about an hour before the attack happened.”

“Many people had to spend a few hours in basements, not allowed to return to their homes. This was unprecedented,” our correspondent also said.

Meanwhile, the Kuwait National Guard shot down a drone “in one of the areas under its responsibility for securing the country”, the Government Communication Centre said.

“This action comes as part of ongoing efforts to enhance security, protect vital sites, and counter any potential threats,” the communications centre said in a post on X.

The Dubai Media Office said that falling debris struck the facade of a building in its central area, after an attack was “successfully” shot down.

No fire occurred and no injuries were reported, and the situation was now contained, the media office said, without specifying if it was caused by a missile or a drone.

Iran has been launching missile and drone attacks across the Gulf region, targeting US assets and military bases as well as commercial and civilian sites.

Seoul’s Joint Chiefs of Staff say approximately 10 ballistic missiles were fired by Pyongyang.

North Korea has fired multiple ballistic missiles from its west coast as the United States and South Korean forces stage their annual military exercises, according to Japanese and South Korean defence forces.

Japan’s Ministry of Defence said on Saturday that the missiles were fired at about 1:34pm local time (04:34 GMT) in a northeastern direction, according to a statement posted on X.

Japan estimates that the missiles reached a maximum altitude of 80 kilometres (50 miles) and flew approximately 340 kilometres before landing near the east coast of the Korean Peninsula, outside Tokyo’s exclusive economic zone.

Early reports indicate that no damage has been reported by nearby aircraft or ships, the post said.

South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff separately confirmed that Pyongyang had fired approximately 10 ballistic missiles towards the East Sea, which is also known as the Sea of Japan, according to Yonhap News Agency.

The JCS said the incident marks the third time North Korea has fired ballistic missiles since the start of the year.

South Korean, Japanese and US forces remain in a “heightened surveillance posture against additional launches,” the South Korean news agency said.

Pyongyang often fires missiles and other projectiles to signal anger at its neighbours.

The launches on Saturday come as the world is focused on the war ignited in the Middle East by the US-Israel attacks on Iran and Tehran’s retaliatory strikes across the region.

The North earlier this week protested the start of the 10-day Freedom Shield exercises, which involve thousands of troops from South Korea and the US and run until March 19.

Kim Yo Jong, the powerful sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, accused Seoul and Washington of “destroying the stability” of the Korean Peninsula and “muscle flexing” near its border with their display of military power.

Earlier this week, North Korea also fired cruise missiles from a new naval destroyer.

The latest ballistic missile launches follow renewed speculation that US President Donald Trump may seek a meeting with Kim. The two leaders held summits during Trump’s first term in office – though high on spectacle, they yielded no substantive progress. They met three times. Their last meeting was in 2019, when the two leaders visited the Demilitarized Zone dividing the Korean Peninsula.

South Korean Prime Minister Kim Min-seok said on Friday that Trump “remained positive about the resumption of dialogue” with the North on the sidelines of a meeting between the two leaders in Washington, according to Yonhap.

“He said, ‘Meeting [Kim] is something good. But it could come during the period of my visit to China. It may not happen [during the visit] or could take place afterward,’” the prime minister told reporters, according to Yonhap.

Below ground, men were gathering at the hollowed-out area at a depth of about 1,300 metres in Shaft 11.

Patrick had made his way there in November, having heard there might be food, as the men around him in Shaft 10 tried to survive on salt and toothpaste mixed with water collected at the bottom of the rock face. On his way to the passage, he had seen a body hanging from the shadowed mass of steel girders above him. The man had fallen from the upper levels while trying to escape.

As he half-crawled, half-staggered along the passage, he felt he heard his children telling him: “You’re not going to die here. This is not going to be your grave.”

But now in Shaft 11, panic was growing. The rescues were too slow. Not enough food or water was coming down. Patrick was finding it hard to cling to hope. The miners were growing weaker and had only the stagnant water oozing out of the rock to sustain themselves. Over two days, seven people had died.

Below the men, the shaft stretched even deeper into blackness filled with water to an unknown depth.

One day, a miner looked at Patrick with frightened eyes: “You know what?” he gasped. “I’m going to throw myself down this shaft.”

Patrick pleaded with him.

“No, man, you can’t do that,” Patrick told him. “It’s not our time to die here. We must believe in God. Our graves are not going to be this deep. We will go out. We’ve got families outside.”

The man didn’t jump, but his despair affected Patrick deeply. He still believed in his own survival, but the atmosphere among the men starving and dying in Shaft 11 was too much to bear.

On December 22, he decided to return to Shaft 10 and climb the girders. It was dangerous, but he had to do something to survive.

He had barely entered the passageway that led back to Shaft 10 when, somewhere in the darkness, he heard a voice.

“Do you want to buy some meat? Some pork?” the voice asked. “There are people selling it if you want some.”

He then saw men cooking over a fire.

Patrick returned to Shaft 11, reporting to the leaders that people were eating some kind of meat. They found the man who had approached Patrick, and he showed them the meat. It was human flesh. Then they found the man who had sold it to him. He admitted he’d taken it from the bodies of people who had fallen and died while trying to climb out.

The leaders were horrified. “You are not supposed to eat human flesh,” they said.

“We are hungry. What can we do? We are not killing these people. These people, they are falling, and we find them hanging,” the men told them.

Patrick was surprised that the men were not punished, but neither could he condemn them. It was the only way they had found to survive. But the horror of it spurred him on. He returned to Shaft 10 and began to climb.

On December 25, Christmas Day, he was almost blinded by the sunlight as he climbed out of the shaft. He’d climbed for more than 1km (0.6 miles) over three days, cutting his arms on sharp protruding steel, and come across nine bodies hanging from the girders.

He saw a flash of blue out of the corner of his eye and a glint of steel. A policeman grabbed him, forced his hands behind his back and handcuffed him. He was dimly aware of a small crowd watching and the hubbub of their angry voices as the police shoved him into a white van.

Mandla and Johannes watched as their friend Patrick was handcuffed and led away. Four miners had come up early that morning. After giving her mother her medication, Zinzi went to Shaft 10 to see if there was any news about her brother. There was nothing to celebrate this Christmas, she thought.

But there were still sounds coming from inside the shaft, and men were climbing up. Four more miners surfaced over the course of the morning. There was no sign of Zinzi’s brother, Ayanda.

‘We have to get you to your families’

In late December, police removed the anchoring rocks for the rope pulley at Shaft 11.

Against a backdrop of court actions as rights groups pushed for the government to rescue the miners, Johannes, Mandla and others pleaded with the police at the shaft entrance.

“Let us not bury them alive,” Johannes urged. “Let us help them to resurface. Then the law must take its course. Arrest them, do whatever you want to do, but save those lives.”

With no supplies going down since Christmas, on January 9, the community rebuilt the pulley system, and two handwritten notes were brought up.

“Mothers and fathers, we come in peace. People around us are dying by the hour, and currently, 109 people have died,” read the first.

The second began: “Greetings parents please be aware there are a lot of decompose bodies here also know even today there will be bodies to be retrieved, know the food you have sent can’t feed all the people who are here.”

The next day, Judge Ronel Tolmay of the High Court in Pretoria ordered the government to rescue the men.

But on January 13, Mine Rescue Services refused to descend, believing the men underground could be heavily armed or a kingpin and his cohorts were holding miners against their will.

Mandla and another community leader volunteered to go down in the red rescue cage to confirm there were no weapons, that it was safe for the rescue to proceed and to organise the men underground.

It took 25 minutes to descend through the darkness to the trapped miners. Mandla could smell the corpses before he reached the starving and sick men and dozens of wrapped bodies. He felt sorrow as he told the survivors, “I did try to fight with our government and told them that they are killing you, but they didn’t listen to us.”

“But we’re here to save your bones at least. We have to get you to your families.”

Only six men could properly fit in the cage, but Mandla helped more get in, as many as 12.

Over the next three days, Zinzi watched the cage come up and go down. Each time the cage surfaced, she felt hope surge through her, thinking that she would find her brother in it alive.

On January 16, 2025, when the last cage surfaced, Zinzi, who had stayed strong for her family, collapsed mentally.

Eighty-six bodies were retrieved from the mine while 246 miners were brought up alive. Zinzi’s brother, Ayanda, was not among them, nor was Nthatisi’s boyfriend, Bahlekase.

After the rescue, seven more people died in the hospital, bringing the death toll to 93.

MACUA, which represents the Stilfontein community’s interests, blamed the government and police for the deaths. They have requested that parliament instigate an inquiry, which has been referred to the Portfolio Committee on Mineral and Petroleum Resources. No investigation has begun. MACUA questions why there has not been an Independent Police Investigative Directorate (IPID) inquiry and notes the silence from most government bodies.

“The operation, which was approved at cabinet level, must ultimately be held to account and pay reparations,” Christopher Rutledge, executive director at MACUA, told Al Jazeera.

The South African Human Rights Commission investigated the events at Stilfontein in September 2025. They concluded that depriving the miners of essential supplies violated their human rights. They held another inquiry in February this year and are expected to present their findings in May.

The police have not released the names of the deceased, although 38 people were identified. At least 30 individuals among the unclaimed bodies were given funerals.

About 1,800 miners surfaced and were arrested at Stilfontein, about 1,500 of whom were deported, while 27 foreign children were handed over to the Department of Social Development. The youngest was 14 years old.

Al Jazeera reached out to the South African Police Service, the president’s office, and the Department of Mineral Resources and Energy with questions, but did not receive a response.

The township of Khuma, meanwhile, is largely quiet, the dusty streets almost deserted.

The nearby shafts have been sealed, and the police presence has returned to routine local patrols.

In February, protests erupted briefly. Roads were barricaded with logs, stones and burning tyres while the residents manning them demanded jobs and better service delivery.

The economy of the township has collapsed with no money in circulation. Many people stay at home, waiting, uncertain about what is next for them. Some gather to talk about their situation at the local taverns. There is little else to do.