Pope Francis has said that allegations of a genocide in Gaza should be “carefully investigated” marking some of his strongest criticism yet of Israel’s war in the territory.

“According to some experts… what is happening in Gaza has the characteristics of a genocide,” Vatican News, the Holy See’s official news outlet, cited the pontiff as writing in a forthcoming book. “It should be carefully investigated to determine whether it fits into the technical definition formulated by jurists and international bodies.”

Speaking of refugees, the pope said: “I am thinking above all of those who leave Gaza in the midst of the famine that has struck their Palestinian brothers and sisters given the difficulty of getting food and aid into their territory,” according to Vatican News.

With few exceptions, most Gazans have been prevented from leaving the territory since the war began, but almost the entire population of more than 2 million has been internally displaced.

The excerpts are from the book “Hope never disappoints: Pilgrims towards a better world,” which is due to be released on November 19.

Responding to the report in Vatican News, Yaron Sideman, Israeli ambassador to the Holy See, said “there was a genocidal massacre on 7 October 2023 of Israeli citizens,” referring to the Hamas attack on Israel that killed 1,200 people and saw another 250 taken hostage.

“Since then, Israel has exercised its right of self-defense against attempts from seven different fronts to kill its citizens,” Sideman wrote on X. “Any attempt to call it by any other name is singling out the Jewish state.”

The 87-year-old pontiff is the latest among a growing number of international figures and organizations to refer to Israel’s military operation in Gaza as a potential genocide.

Israel is facing a case brought by South Africa at the United Nations’ International Court of Justice (ICJ) in which Pretoria accuses the Jewish state of genocide, saying Israeli leadership is “intent on destroying the Palestinians in Gaza.”

Israel earlier this year rejected what it called the “grossly distorted” accusation of genocide leveled against it by South Africa, arguing at the ICJ that its war is being fought in self-defense against Hamas, and that it was targeting the militant group rather than Palestinians as a whole.

A UN Special Committee report released Thursday said Israel’s war conduct in Gaza “is consistent with the characteristics of genocide,” including mass civilian casualties and using starvation as a weapon.

Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman last week accused Israel of carrying out genocide in Gaza, in some of his strongest criticism of the country since the war began last year. The Gulf Arab state was close to normalizing relations with Israel before the October 7 war.

Pope Francis rarely comments on politics, often limiting his remarks to calls for peace. In March, he repeated his call for a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas in his traditional Easter message at the Vatican, condemning war as an “absurdity.”

He pleaded for an “immediate ceasefire,” access to humanitarian aid in Gaza and the “prompt release of the hostages.”

In December 2023, the pope addressed the deaths of two women killed by an Israeli sniper inside the Holy Family Parish in Gaza. He lamented that “unarmed civilians are targets for bombs and gunfire” in Gaza and invoking scripture on war.

Israel’s war in Gaza has killed more than 43,000 Palestinians, the ministry of health there says, and has flattened large swathes of the territory, triggering a humanitarian crisis.

A thousand days into Europe’s most grueling war since the Nazis, the starting gun appears to have been fired for peace talks in Ukraine.

Friday’s unilateral move by German Chancellor Olaf Scholz to call Russian President Vladimir Putin ended nearly two years of major NATO leaders isolating the Kremlin head.

It was unmitigated bad news for Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky, in a 72-hour period marked by the White House finally acceding to his request to be able to fire long-range American ATACMs weapons into Russia. Zelensky fumed that the call had opened “Pandora’s Box.” He said: “It is extremely important for (Putin) to weaken his isolation.”

Hours later, Zelensky seemed to acknowledge momentum toward talks, saying when US President-elect Donald Trump takes power “war will end sooner,” as this was the promise Trump had made to his voters.

Scholz said his call with Putin revealed the Russian leader’s hardline positions on Ukraine had not changed but added it was important for Europe to talk to Putin, if Trump was about to do the same.

The hour-long conversation marked the return of diplomacy to the decade-long conflict, even if their talk brought the familiar refrain it was not yet time to talk.

One Western official said there was an “overall collective holding of breath” in Western capitals ahead of Trump’s inauguration.

“The Germans speaking to Putin – that will have gone down badly” among Ukraine’s allies, the official said. “Giving Putin that positive bounce will have irked the French and others.” French President Emmanuel Macron has been particularly vocal about continuing support for Ukraine.

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk posted on X that Sunday night’s substantial Russian missile assault on Ukraine showed that: “No-one will stop Putin with phone calls … telephone diplomacy cannot replace real support from the whole West for Ukraine. The next weeks will be decisive, not only for the war itself, but also for our future.”

The Biden administration’s decision to permit ATACMs missiles to be fired at Russian territory is perhaps a reflection of the growing sense of escalation in the war, even as possible peace talks loom into view, as all sides seek to improve their position ahead of a Trump presidency.

Analysts said Scholz’s outreach was fueled by imminent German elections.

“Scholz is entering the election campaign as a ‘peacemaker’ to secure votes that might be otherwise drawn to the pro-Moscow bent of some German opposition,” said Alena Epifanova, a research fellow at the German Council on Foreign Relations.

Epifanova said the move might appeal to similar sympathies in Scholz’s own SPD party, but “otherwise it’s very unfortunate for Ukraine.”

A diplomat familiar with the mood inside NATO headquarters described uncertainty in the alliance as to where Trump would fall on continued support and peace negotiations, describing the next few months ahead as critical on the battlefield in Ukraine.

Most analysts speculate any deal would involve an approximate freezing of the front lines, with Moscow and Kyiv making or receiving security guarantees to prevent the conflict reigniting. Russia continues to make small yet consistent gains on the eastern front line, and would swallow about a fifth of Ukraine were the front lines negotiated into new permanent borders. Kremlin critics also warn of its history of using diplomacy as a pause or foil to pursuing its military goals.

A French defense official said: “Discussions surrounding the future of Ukraine have gone into overdrive” since Trump’s election, at the heart of which were security guarantees for Ukraine.

“What kind of concessions will Russia agree to?” the official asked. “Does Russia keep all the areas it has seized? And, if we freeze the status quo, will the war really be over? Can there be peace? Or will we see acts of sabotage and subversion?”

Pledges from the Biden administration and Europe have boosted assistance to Kyiv in the past weeks, aimed at indicating Kyiv’s support is assured for months to come.

A second Western official said a recent G7 agreement to loan $50 billion to Ukraine, based on the profits from frozen Russian assets, “means that essentially Ukraine is financially secure all 2025.”

The details of any Trump peace plan remain unclear, some analysts suggest, as the president-elect has yet to formulate a strategy, or decide on personnel who can. He famously said he could bring the war to an end in a day without saying how he would achieve that.

His incoming national security adviser, Mike Waltz, has said almost nothing on policy since accepting the job, but wrote three days before the election in The Economist that fighting “‘as long as it takes’ in a war of attrition against a larger power is a recipe for failure.”

Allies have struggled to read limited signals from the incoming White House. A European diplomat said: “We take (Trump) at his word that he’ll move to a negotiated settlement,” adding the Trump camp had been guarded when discussing their policy, listening but revealing little, and “not saying ‘here’s the plan.’”

Trump supporters have, in part, sought to dispel the idea the president-elect would seek peace at any cost to Kyiv.

Kurt Volker, Trump’s Ukraine envoy in his first term from 2017 to 2019, said Trump’s opening move must be to “demonstrate strength” so Putin realizes it’s not worth continuing to fight, “then you can figure out the details from there. Trump has said many times: ‘peace through strength.’”

Volker said he thought Trump would issue loans rather than more aid to Ukraine.

“I am not convinced he’s going to cut (it) to zero. I believe it’s going to be a lend-lease program,” which Volker said would garner wide Republican support, referencing a World War Two era program under which US-made materiel was effectively loaned to Allies but not returned.

“It doesn’t cost the taxpayer … ‘Borrow as much money as you need, build up your military, be strong, but you should end the war.’”

Volker said he felt Trump would be influenced by the US “catastrophe” in Afghanistan under Biden.

Trump “wanted to get out of Afghanistan himself, but he never did because he was always told this is what would happen,” Volker said.

“He doesn’t want to have that kind of catastrophe on his watch. He’s going to try to find a way to end the war, but Ukraine survives.”

The appointment of Waltz as national security adviser and nomination of Sen. Marco Rubio to secretary of state – both China hawks – may increase focus on the introduction of North Korean troops and weaponry by Moscow to the front line, Western officials suggested.

The move may backfire for Putin, they said, turning the Ukrainian front line into a more global arena, where the United States must now face down Indo-Pacific foes like Kim Jong Un, and his occasional sponsor Beijing.

A former US diplomat familiar with Trump’s approach explained the president-elect’s controversially friendly attitude toward the Kremlin head stemmed from Trump not wanting to “demonize adversaries or people he has to cut deals with.”

They added: “He’ll take policy decisions that are tough, or allow others to do that,” but wants to “have a relationship.”

The former diplomat said Moscow’s deceptive history in negotiations was why Kyiv must be properly armed as part of any settlement. “Putin won’t be sincere – let’s be clear,” the diplomat said.

“He’s going to ask for things that are unreasonable. And then even if he agrees to a ceasefire, he’s going to still then plan on attacking again later.”

Sweden and Finland have updated guidance to their citizens on how to survive war, as NATO allies bolster defense measures against the backdrop of the Ukraine conflict.

Both nations joined the transatlantic alliance in the past two years, after Russia invaded its neighbor. Many European countries have since ramped up military spending to bolster long-term security in the region.

Booklets distributed to millions of households in the Nordic nations include instructions on how to prepare for the effects of military conflicts, communications outages and power cuts, as well as extreme weather events.

From stockpiling bottled water and sanitary products, to growing edible foodstuffs at home, government authorities offered tips on how residents could sustain themselves in the event of war. The brochures also include advice for parents and caregivers, instructing people to preserve nappies, medication and baby food.

The Swedish government will distribute “Om krisen eller kriget kommer (If crisis or war comes),” to all five million households over a two-week period from November 18, according to the Swedish Civil Contingencies Agency (MSB), a governmental agency that compiled the pamphlet.

The fifth version of the Swedish brochure, which was first published in World War II, will place “greater emphasis on preparing for war,” a statement from the MSB said on Monday. The digital version of brochure, released in October, has been downloaded about 55,000 times, the agency added.

“The state of the world has worsened drastically in recent years. War is being waged in our vicinity. Extreme weather events are becoming increasingly common. Terror threats, cyberattacks, and disinformation campaigns are being used to undermine and influence us,” a statement on the MSB website said.

“To resist these threats, we must stand united and take responsibility for our country. If we are attacked, everyone must help defend Sweden’s independence and our democracy. We build resilience every day – together.”

New advice in the 2024 edition includes tips on evacuation, how to stop bleeding, dealing with anxiety, preparedness for pets, how to speak to children about crisis and war, and how to support especially vulnerable members of the population, added MSB.

Finland’s Ministry of the Interior also issued new crisis guidance on Monday, giving readers advice on how to prepare for long power cuts, water outages, telecommunications disruptions, extreme weather events, and military conflict.

Earlier this year, Norway and Denmark – two other members of the 32-party bloc – distributed updated wartime guidance on how people should prepare for potential crises.

British Airways is working to fix a “technical issue,” according to a spokesperson for the airline on Monday, as reports emerged on social media of flight delays and IT issues with the flag carrier.

“Our flights are currently operating, but are experiencing delays as our teams work to resolve a technical issue affecting some of our systems,” a British Airways spokesperson said.

Heathrow Airport, which is the airline’s main base in London, said it was working with British Airways to provide updates to passengers.

All other airlines are operating as normal at Heathrow, the Heathrow Airport spokesperson added.

British Airways’ website appeared to be down in the United Kingdom on Monday night local time and showed the error message: “We are experiencing high demand on ba.com at the moment. Thank you for your patience.”

Customers in the United States could access its site but received the same error message when trying to book a flight.

This is a developing story and will be updated.

Two undersea internet cables in the Baltic Sea have been suddenly disrupted, according to local telecommunications companies, amid fresh warnings of possible Russian interference with global undersea infrastructure.

Another cable linking Finland and Germany was also disrupted, according to Cinia, the state-controlled Finnish company that runs the link. The C-Lion cable – the only direct connection of its kind between Finland and Central Europe – spans nearly 1,200 kilometers (730 miles), alongside other key pieces of infrastructure, including gas pipelines and power cables.

It is unclear what exactly caused the fault in the C-Lion – Cinia said in a statement that it is still investigating the issue. A physical inspection has not yet been conducted, Reuters reported citing the company’s chief executive Ari-Jussi Knaapila, who told a press conference on Monday that the sudden outage implied that the cable was cut by an outside force.

The foreign ministers of Finland and Germany said in a joint statement on Monday evening that they were “deeply concerned” about the severed C-Lion cable, and raised the possibility of “hybrid warfare.”

“The fact that such an incident immediately raises suspicions of intentional damage speaks volumes about the volatility of our times. A thorough investigation is underway,” the statement said. “Our European security is not only under threat from Russia‘s war of aggression against Ukraine, but also from hybrid warfare by malicious actors.”

Fears of undersea sabotage

The warning came after a joint investigation by the public broadcasters of Sweden, Denmark, Norway and Finland, which reported in April 2023 that Russia had a fleet of suspected spy ships operating in Nordic waters as part of a program of potential sabotage of underwater cables and wind farms in the region.

The extent of the disruption caused by Cinia’s C-Lion fault revealed Monday is unclear. The most important data flows are usually routed through several different cables, to avoid overreliance on a single link.

A repair vessel is ready to go to the site of the fault, Cinia said in a statement Monday evening. It said it did not know how long repairs would take, but added it typically takes between five and 15 days for submarine cables.

Lithuanian state media was first to report the cut between Lithuania and Sweden, and quoted Telia Lithuania’s chief technology officer Andrius Šemeškevičius saying that the cable handled roughly a third of Lithuania’s internet capacity. Capacity has been restored since the disruption.

The cable is operated by Arelion, a Swedish telecommunications company. Martin Sjögren, a spokesperson for the company, confirmed the damage to the BCS East-West link and said that the company is in contact with Sweden’s military and civil authorities about the incident. The cable had connected Gotland, Sweden and Šventoji, Lithuania, he said.

The issue was detected on Sunday during routine 24/7 monitoring of the company’s network, and the cable is expected to be repaired over the next few weeks, depending on weather conditions, he added.

This is a developing story and will be updated.

Nearly a hundred aid trucks were looted in southern Gaza on Saturday in what UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, has described as “one of the worst” incidents of its kind.

Drivers were forced to unload trucks at gun point, aid workers were injured, and vehicles were damaged extensively, it said.

UNRWA did not identify the perpetrators of the looting, but blamed the “collapse of law and order” and the “approach of the Israeli authorities” for creating a “perilous environment.”

It said the challenges involved in delivering aid to Gaza had become “increasingly insurmountable,” with “trucks frequently delayed at various holding points, often looted, and subjected to escalating attacks.”

“Well, we have been warning for a long time about the total breakdown of civil order; (until) four or five months ago, we still had local capacity, people who were escorting the convoys. This has completely gone,” UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini told a press conference in Geneva on Monday.

In a report Monday that cited Gaza’s interior ministry, the Hamas-run Al-Aqsa TV channel claimed Gaza security forces had killed more than 20 people involved in looting aid trucks, though it did not specifically mention Saturday’s incident.

The National and Islamic Forces, a coalition of Palestinian groups, commended the ministry’s actions against the looters, who it referred to as “criminal thieves who disrupt the security of our internal front and steal the livelihoods, bread, and medicine of our citizens.”

Worsening shortages

The attack on the convoy – the worst of its kind “in terms of volume”, according to UN Secretary-General Stéphane Dujarric – comes amid warnings by the UN that already severe shortages of food and aid in Gaza will worsen without immediate intervention.

Civilians fleeing northern Gaza after weeks of intense Israeli military operations have told of a chronic lack of food and people dying of hunger, while aid agencies have warned that the area is on the brink of famine.

On Thursday, a UN Special Committee report alleged Israel was using starvation as a method of war – an allegation denied by COGAT, the Israeli agency that approves aid shipments into Gaza.

Israel insists however that the number of aid trucks entering Gaza has risen and that it is “working tirelessly” to get aid into the enclave. The US State Department last week assessed it was not blocking aid – though it said improvements were needed.

The attack on the convoy also comes amid a backdrop of deteriorating relations between Israel and UNRWA. The agency’s ability to deliver aid to Gaza took a hit last month when Israel’s parliament voted to ban it, in a move that is expected to severely restrict its operations in territories Israel occupies, including the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

The new law requires all contact between Israeli officials and the UN agency to cease by the end of January.

Israel claims UNRWA has forced it to act, alleging that some of its employees are affiliated with Hamas and that its schools teach hate against Israel. UNRWA has repeatedly denied these accusations.

At the press conference in Geneva, Lazzarini spoke of the UN’s concerns over the new law, warning there was no other agency that could replace UNRWA’s role in helping the Palestinians.

“Our staff in the region is deeply, deeply concerned, anxious, worried about what might happen,” he said.

Lazzarini also told the conference of an incident last week in which he said a female UNRWA worker had been searched at her home by IDF soldiers.

Heavy toll on civilians

Meanwhile, Israeli strikes in Gaza continue to take a heavy toll on civilians.

On Monday, Israeli airstrikes killed at least 50 people, including 17 members of a single family, according to the local health ministry.

He said the 17 were family members of Hani Badran, a cardiologist who was working at the city’s Kamal Adwan hospital at the time of the strike that killed them.

The director of the hospital, Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, said that everyone in Badran’s home at the time had been killed.

Safiya said the hospital itself had also been attacked.

“This scene is now being repeated almost constantly. Very violent targeting, with shells from tanks,” Safiya said.

He said patients were filled with “fear and horror,” adding “we are now pleading to the world. This killing machine must be stopped, the bombing must be stopped.”

More than 40 of Hong Kong’s best known pro-democracy figures have been sentenced to prison terms of up to 10 years on subversion charges, in the biggest single blow to the city’s already shrinking political freedoms following Beijing’s sweeping crackdown on dissent.

Among those handed sentences on Tuesday was Joshua Wong, a former student leader and poster child of the city’s once thriving pro-democracy movement, who shouted “I love Hong Kong” before he left the dock.

The 45 defendants – including former high-profile lawmakers, activists, unionists and journalists – received sentences ranging from 50 months to 10 years at the West Kowloon court in the largest single prosecution to date under a national security law imposed by Beijing in 2020.

Beijing ramped up its crackdown on opposition voices in the once free-wheeling city after huge and sometimes violent democracy protests convulsed the international financial hub in 2019.

Tuesday’s mass sentencing illustrates how far that transformation has progressed, turning an outspoken city of 7.5 million, where protests were once common, into something resembling a mirror of the authoritarian Chinese mainland with a who’s who of opposition figures behind bars and other critical voices silenced or fled overseas.

Benny Tai, a prominent legal scholar and veteran protest leader, received the longest prison term of 10 years – the toughest sentence to date handed down under the national security law. Wong, the student leader, received 4 years and 8 months behind bars. Both had not been seen in public for a long time and appeared to have lost weight.

Gwyneth Ho, a former journalist famous for live-streaming protests in 2019, was sentenced to 7 years; former lawmaker Leung Kwok-hung, known by the nickname “Long Hair” and for his decades-long advocacy for democracy in the city, got 6 years and 9 months; and Claudia Mo, a former journalist-turned-legislator, was sentenced to 4 years and 2 months.

In the packed court gallery, some family members and friends teared up as the sentences were handed down; others tried to stay in high spirits, smiling and waving at the defendants, who gestured back.

Outside the court, a woman was immediately taken away in a police car after trying to display a banner at the exit after the hearing.

The group, which originally had 47 defendants, had been charged with “conspiracy to commit subversion” for their roles in holding an unofficial primary election in 2020 to improve their chances in citywide polls.

But city leaders, police and prosecutors argued the democratic primary amounted to a “massive and well-organized scheme to subvert the Hong Kong government” – and was in violation of the sweeping national security law imposed by Beijing in 2020 in the wake of mass anti-government protests the previous year.

In May, the court convicted 14 who contested the accusations while 31 others pleaded guilty, a move to secure a lighter sentence. Only two were acquitted.

Landmark prosecution

Known widely as the trial of the “Hong Kong 47,” the landmark prosecution was closely watched by human rights groups and foreign governments concerned about sweeping changes in the once pluralistic business hub.

More than 300 people queued in light rain outside the court on Tuesday morning – many of them before dawn – to secure a seat and show support for the defendants. Police maintained a massive presence outside court and picked out prominent activists to search.

Among those in queue was former district councilor Lee Yue-shun, one of the two acquitted defendants. “Everyone should care about all the defendants,” he said.

Hong Kong, a former British colony, was returned to Chinese rule in 1997 under a special arrangement with Beijing granting the city autonomy and wide-ranging freedoms unavailable in mainland China.

But since the national security law came into effect in 2020, Hong Kong’s political and legal landscape has been transformed. Most pro-democracy figures are either in prison or in self-imposed exile, a slew of civil groups have disbanded and many independent media outlets shut down. Beijing also overhauled Hong Kong’s political system to ensure only staunch “patriots” can stand for office.

The Hong Kong and Beijing governments have repeatedly defended the national security law’s imposition, arguing that “restored stability” after the mass, sometimes violent, anti-government protests that shook the city in 2019.

The US government and multiple western nations – as well as human rights groups – say the law has been deployed to curb peaceful dissent.

During US President-elect Donald Trump’s first term, Washington sanctioned Chinese and Hong Kong officials over the crackdown and declared the city no longer enjoyed a high degree of autonomy from China.

The administration of outgoing US President Joe Biden was also critical of Bejing’s crackdown in Hong Kong, even as it tried to recalibrate ties with Beijing.

Trump won re-election earlier this month and has announced a proposed cabinet stacked with multiple China hawks.

Sweeping changes

While Hong Kong has never been granted full “one person, one vote” democracy, citizens were allowed to elect half of its lawmakers, giving rise to a robust opposition that grilled officials rigorously at the Legislative Council, which is now a legacy of the past.

The city’s current legislature, which the 47 originally wanted to win a majority in, now comprises only pro-Beijing loyalists. Citizens may vote for only 20 members of the 90-strong Legislative Council through direction elections. A pro-Beijing group is responsible for electing 40 members, the majority of the council, with the balance voted in by professional groups, most of which are pro-Beijing leaning. All lawmakers are also vetted for their patriotism before being allowed to stand.

In March, Hong Kong lawmakers unanimously passed a second national security law expanding legislation to cover acts of treason, espionage, external interference and unlawful handling of state secrets, following an unusually hasty debate that lasted just 11 days.

John Burns, emeritus professor at the University of Hong Kong, said the cumulative changes have reduced the city’s autonomy and citizens’ participation in politics.

“The new regime has restricted human rights in Hong Kong, rights that Hong Kongers used to enjoy. Authorities have implemented what amounts to a general ban on protests and demonstrations,” he said.

Beijing and Hong Kong authorities have argued that the changes have made the city more efficient in policymaking, given past attempts by the opposition to filibuster the government’s more controversial bills.

Protests have also all but stopped. Hong Kong was once known for a variety of protests that took place almost every month to lobby for a wide range of causes, from labor rights to greater democracy, something that has long been impossible on the Chinese mainland where the ruling Communist Party prizes stability.

Last month a former minister suggested encouraging some toleration for protests might improve Hong Kong’s international reputation and show the city maintained some political inclusivity.

The suggestion received a swift response from city leader John Lee – a former security minister.

“Inclusion should not depend on protests and assemblies,” Lee said. “This is a very narrow-minded point of view. There are many ways to express an opinion, such as through seminars – there is no single avenue.”

Multiple students were injured after a car crashed into people outside a primary school in central China on Tuesday morning, state news agency Xinhua reported.

It’s not clear how many people were injured in the incident, which took place in Hunan province’s Changde city. In a brief report, state broadcaster CCTV said “specific casualties were being investigated.”

Another showed multiple people, including adults, lying on the road, apparently injured. Police could be seen handcuffing a man in front of a vehicle.

The police have yet to release a report about the incident. Images circulating online of the incident were quickly wiped from social media platforms.

The country has been rocked by a recent spate of public attacks, which have rattled a population long used to low rates of violent crime and sent censors into overdrive removing videos on social media and moderating online discussion.

China saw its deadliest known attack in a decade last Monday, when 35 were killed after a man plowed his car into crowds exercising at an outdoor sports center in the southern city of Zhuhai. Days later, eight people were killed and 17 others injured in a stabbing attack on a college campus in eastern China.

Sudden episodes of violence in recent months targeting random members of the public – including school children – have surged across the country as economic growth stutters, with many online warning each other to be cautious as people are becoming more desperate and unstable.

In October, police arrested a 50-year-old man after a stabbing attack near an elementary school in Beijing injured five people, including three children.

In September, three people were killed and 15 others injured in a knife attack at a suburban supermarket in Shanghai.

Also in September, a bus crashed into a crowd of students and parents outside a school in Tai’an city in Shandong province, killing 11 people and injuring 13 others. The authorities did not reveal whether it was accidental or deliberate.

Warning: This report contains graphic descriptions of sexual violence.

It was the early hours of the morning when a guard entered Sohrab’s cell – a small, dark room with a barred window and a blanket on the floor – in Kabul’s sprawling Pul-e-Charkhi prison last August.

The 19-year-old was escorted to another room in the complex, where he heard a Taliban member order the prison guards to leave and stop anyone else from entering. Panic set in, for Sohrab knew what these words often preceded. He had experienced physical violence at the hands of the Taliban before.

Sohrab was being detained at Pul-e-Charkhi on the charge of sodomy, after family members found out about his and his boyfriend’s clandestine romance last year, he said. News of their relationship had spread through their tight-knit community, leading to his arrest and forced confession.

They added: “These allegations are fabrications as the alleged claims of torture, rape, persecution and mistreatment are themselves explicit violations of the legal framework.”

A week after the first assault, his wounds still raw, Sohrab said he was raped again – and then a further four times by the same Taliban member.

“My whole body was praying for my death,” Sohrab said. “Every time, he would threaten me that if I dared to tell anyone about the rape, he would kill me with his own hands.” Sohrab managed to leave Afghanistan, but lives in constant fear of further persecution, for the country he fled to also criminalizes homosexuality.

The nonprofit added that it has relocated 252 LGBTQ Afghans to safe countries since 2021.

Neela Ghoshal, senior director of law and policy at US-based charity Outright International, said that there could be a “number of reasons” why the Taliban is using sexual violence as a tool of repression against the LGBTQ community.

“We know that so-called ‘corrective rape’ – which I think of as not corrective at all, but as bias-motivated rape that is often done to punish people – happens all over the world,” she said, and is more about power than sexuality.

In the context of Afghanistan, she said, some of the same Taliban members who are calling for LGBTQ people to be punished for same-sex relationships are also engaging in non-consensual and violent sexual abuse of men and boys.

When the Taliban completed their lightning takeover of Afghanistan in 2021 – following the messy withdrawal of US-led troops after two decades of conflict – it wasn’t clear how severely they would enforce their strict interpretation of religious laws against Afghanistan’s LGBTQ community.

Under the previous Western-backed government, same-sex sexual relations were already punishable by up to two years in jail, with LGBTQ people also facing harassment and violence from society and the police, according to the US Department of State.

During the Taliban’s resurgence, one Taliban judge said there were only two punishments for homosexuality – stoning or being crushed under a wall, according to Germany’s Bild newspaper; others said the Islamist group had tempered its more radical attitudes.

Afghan LGBT Organization has verified more than 50 cases of detention of LGBTQ people since August 2021, using documentation issued by the Taliban, such as letters and arrest warrants, and is working to verify a further 150 cases reported by individuals.

‘Afghanistan itself is a prison for us’

It’s hard to estimate how many LGBTQ people have been detained in Afghanistan overall since 2021, Ghoshal said, thanks to a lack of reporting channels and a fear of reprisal for speaking out.

But the Taliban certainly appear to have become more systematic in their persecution of LGBTQ people since regaining power, Ghoshal said. Some people have reported that officials are actively “hunting for them, coming to their houses, with arrest warrants issued,” she said.

Nazari, who fled before later being beaten and briefly detained by the Taliban, is now in a safe country but says living under Taliban rule is “forever etched in my mind, memories of fear, helplessness, and loss of hope.”

Others have been detained over content found on their phones or posted on social media, suggesting the Taliban could be using the internet to track down members of the LGBTQ community, Akbary said.

“One night I was in a taxi to come home, (and) the Taliban stopped me and the taxi driver for a search,” said Abdul, a 22-year-old gay man. “They saw my Instagram, Facebook, Twitter. All the photos and content were LGBTQ,” he said.

Abdul had managed to flee to Iran following the Taliban’s takeover in 2021, and then to Turkey, but he was deported back to Afghanistan in early 2024, he said.

After two weeks held in this room, Abdul was transferred to a prison in Herat, northwestern Afghanistan, for a further six months, only being released when a friend paid the Taliban the equivalent of $1,200 to bail him out, he said.

His family refused to have him back due to his sexuality being exposed, he said, and he now lives in hiding again, with no support from friends or relatives. “I am still in the Taliban jail, but the only difference is that I am not inside a prison.”

‘Many LGBTs were there in the rooms’

Tracking the alleged abuse of LGBTQ detainees is a difficult task in a country stalked by fear of the Taliban and with heavy restrictions on media freedom.

Much of it reportedly takes place behind closed doors in formal and informal detention facilities, said David Osborn, director of Afghan Witness, a human rights monitoring project run by the UK’s Centre for Information Resilience (CIR), which specializes in open-source analysis.

These flogging events involved 360 people, including 192 men, 40 women and 128 of unknown sex or gender, according to Afghan Witness data.

But the exact number of those flogged for the charge of sodomy alone is unclear, as other offenses, such as adultery and having an “illicit relationship,” are often also listed, the organization said. It’s also hard to know how many of these charges are leveled specifically against members of the LGBTQ community.

Other human rights groups have documented instances of extrajudicial detention, conducted out of the public eye. In some of Afghanistan’s provinces, this is signaled by a lack of the official documents usually issued in relation to someone’s arrest or court case, Akbary said.

Instead, Sano says, his phone memory card was taken, and he was locked in a windowless room for two weeks. “I was tortured so much by the Taliban. Slapped. Beaten by them,” the 24-year-old said in September. “The room was in darkness. I couldn’t feel the sun.”

Sano claims the house was being used to detain other LGBTQ Afghans too. “There were many LGBTs brought to the house before me,” he said. “Some of them were killed. One of my partners was killed by them. Many LGBTs were there in the rooms.”

He was only released from detention when the Taliban were paid a fee, he said, facilitated by someone known by his father. He’s now in hiding after discovering that the Taliban are trying to track him down again.

Women and LGBTQ Afghans ‘united in their suffering’

In February, Afghan LGBT Organization and Outright International wrote a joint letter to Rosemary DiCarlo, the UN’s under-secretary-general for political and peacebuilding affairs, highlighting a “lack of inclusion of LGBTIQ perspectives in UN engagement on Afghanistan.”

Top UN officials and global envoys met with the Taliban in Qatar in June to discuss human rights concerns. But the talks sparked a backlash from human rights organizations for excluding Afghan women and other civil society groups.

After the meeting, DiCarlo told a press conference that the “concerns and views of Afghan women and civil society were front and center, adding that those present “also discussed the need for more inclusive governance and respect for the rights of minorities.”

Examples of the Taliban’s curtailment of human rights in the country were documented in a September report by the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA). But the report made no mention of LGBTQ people, including bisexual, lesbian and transgender men and women, Akbary said. “In general, the UN is ignoring the situation of LGBTQ people in Afghanistan,” he added.

With little sign that the Taliban will improve their record on human rights, many in the country feel abandoned by the international community.

Afghan women and LGBTQ people are united in their suffering, Abdul said.

“I am a prisoner in a country called Afghanistan,” he said. “I have to hide from everyone, hide from family, hide from friends, hide from the government, hide from life.”