World News

KFAR SIR, Lebanon (AP) — Funerals in southern Lebanon are burying fighters from the militant Hezbollah group, Lebanese civilians and paramedics killed in Israeli strikes before the latest Israel-Hezbollah ceasefire took effect.

In villages like Kfar Sir, mourners gather in large processions, carrying coffins draped in flags and portraits of the dead. The scenes reflect both personal grief and the broader toll of the conflict, as families and communities bid farewell to those lost in the final days of fighting before the truce.

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This is a photo gallery curated by AP photo editors.

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BUCHAREST, Romania (AP) — A priceless golden helmet dating back 2,500 years was returned to Romania on Tuesday after the national heirloom was stolen from a Dutch museum where it was on loan last year.

The ornate Cotofenesti helmet and three golden bracelets — some of Romania’s most revered national treasures from the Dacia civilization — were taken from the Drents Museum in January 2025 in a raid which shocked the art world and devastated Romanian authorities.

But after 14 months of investigations, diplomatic tensions, and three suspects in an ongoing trial, most of the artifacts arrived at Bucharest Henri Coanda International Airport on Tuesday from where authorities transported them under guard to Bucharest’s National History Museum. They were displayed in a glass cabinet, flanked by masked, armed guards.

Cornel Constantin Ilie, the museum’s interim director, said that the artifacts have been returned “not as simple patrimony items, but as relics of our historical memory, as the legacy of a civilization that continues to define us.”

“For us, this is a moment of joy, but also of contemplation,” he said. “For months, we have lived with the fear that part of our past could be lost forever. Today we can say that an essential part of this treasure has returned.”

Robert van Langh, the Drents Museum director, described the recovery and return of the relics as “an emotional moment for all involved,” and acknowledged “the grief, the anger and now the relief have naturally been even greater” in Romania than in the Netherlands.

“Romanian national heritage has returned home,” he said. “The impact of this robbery was already significant in the Netherlands, but here it must have been truly unparalleled … The police and judicial authorities of both countries have done extraordinary work.”

Dutch prosecutors unveiled the recovered items at a news conference in the eastern Dutch city of Assen earlier this month. The whereabouts of the third golden bracelet remains unknown, but van Langh vowed the search would continue and that a judicial verdict is expected in the coming weeks.

During its disappearance, the golden helmet was slightly dented, while the recovered bracelets were in perfect condition.

Romania’s Minister of Culture Demeter Andras Istvan said the return of the artifacts had shown “how strong the connection between heritage and collective consciousness can be.”

“This entire episode reminds us at the same time how exposed heritage can be. It can be exposed to violence, illegal trafficking, negligence, oblivion,” he said.

After the raid, Dutch authorities were left with grainy security footage of three people wrenching open a museum door with a crowbar, after which an explosion was seen. Before its recovery, there were fears the helmet may have been melted down because its fame and distinctive appearance made it virtually unsellable.

The artifacts will be exhibited to the public in Bucharest before undergoing some restoration work, the museum’s interim director said.

“We believe that the public has the pleasure of celebrating them … not only as splendid objects, but as a witness to an ordeal, an almost irreparable loss, and a return that we owe to the operation between institutions and the perseverance of the authorities,” he said. “Today, these treasures returned home.”

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McGrath reported from Leamington Spa, England.

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KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Ukraine has completed repairs on a damaged oil pipeline and is preparing to resume flows, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Tuesday, while warning that there is no guarantee Russia will not target the infrastructure again.

Repairs to the Druzhba pipeline became a contentious issue, delaying approval of a major 90 billion euro ($106 billion) EU loan intended to support Ukraine’s military and economic needs over the next two years. Zelenskyy said repairing the pipeline was linked to freeing the funds, which had been blocked by Hungary and Slovakia.

But top EU officials are now cautiously optimistic that the massive loan scheme might be approved as soon as Wednesday, ending months of political deadlock.

“Ukraine has completed repair work on the section of the Druzhba oil pipeline that was damaged by a Russian strike. The pipeline can resume operation,” Zelenskyy said in a post on X. “Although no one can currently guarantee that Russia will not repeat attacks on the pipeline infrastructure, our specialists have ensured the basic conditions for restoring the operation of the pipeline system and equipment.”

“We connect this with the unblocking of the European support package for Ukraine, which had already been approved by the European Council,” he added.

Russian oil supplies to Hungary and Slovakia have been halted for two months after what Ukrainian officials say were Russian drone attacks that damaged the pipeline, which crosses Ukrainian territory, and that continuous strikes risk the lives of technicians trying to repair it.

The war in Ukraine that began in February 2022 with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has killed thousands, forced millions to flee their homes and turned cities into rubble.

Before being unseated by centrist challenger Péter Magyar, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán had threatened to cut gas supplies to Ukraine. Both Hungary and Slovakia accused Kyiv of deliberately obstructing Russian deliveries.

Zelenskyy said earlier this month he is reluctant to allow Russian oil to continue transiting through his country.

Speaking to reporters in Luxembourg after chairing a meeting of EU foreign ministers, the bloc’s foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said the loan saga had taken many twists and turns. “We expect an agreement in 24 hours, so I don’t want to jinx it,” she said.

EU envoys are due to meet Wednesday in hopes of ending the standoff.

European Council President Antonio Costa, who will chair a summit of EU leaders starting Thursday, took to social media to thank Zelenskyy “for delivering, as agreed: repairing the Druzhba pipeline and restoring its operation.”

The 27-nation EU had originally intended to use Russian assets frozen in Europe as collateral for the loan. But that option was blocked by Belgium, where the bulk of the frozen assets are held.

In December, the Czech Republic, Hungary and Slovakia agreed not to stop their EU partners from borrowing the money on international markets as long as the three countries did not have to take part in the scheme.

But Orbán angered the other 24 countries by later reneging on that deal over the pipeline dispute and as campaigning heated up ahead of elections earlier this month, which the veteran Hungarian leader lost in a landslide.

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Follow AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine

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SAN SALVADOR (AP) — Prosecutors in El Salvador opened a massive consolidated trial against nearly 500 alleged members of the MS-13 gang accused of tens of thousands of crimes including homicide, extortion and arms trafficking.

The joint trial, which opened Monday in San Salvador, is the latest in a practice that has been criticized by human rights groups as an infringement of the rights of the accused to defend themselves. Such trials form part of President Nayib Bukele’s iron fist approach against criminal groups in El Salvador, which has been under a state of emergency for four years to fight organized crime.

The 486 defendants are accused of being members of MS-13, or Mara Salvatrucha, and accused of ordering more than 47,000 crimes from 2012 to 2022, according to the Salvadoran government. The crimes also include femicide and enforced disappearances.

“For years, this structure has operated systematically, causing fear and mourning among Salvadoran families,” Attorney General Rodolfo Delgado said on social media.

El Salvador once had one of the highest homicide rates in the world, with 103 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants in 2015. Since Bukele took office in 2019, government statistics show a drastic drop in homicdes. But human rights groups say Bukele’s aproach has violated due process.

Mass trials “undermine the exercise of the right to defense and the presumption of innocence of detainees,” U.N. experts have said.

The gang leaders are being tried in an open hearing at an Organized Crime Court under a 2023 reform of El Salvador’s Penal Code.

The country’s “state of exception” since March 2022 has suspended fundamental rights, including the right to be informed of the reasons for detention and the right to access legal counsel. Security forces can also intercept telecommunications without a court order, and detention without a preliminary hearing is extended from 72 hours to 15 days.

In a statement Tuesday, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights said it “maintains serious worries about the impact on human rights by the unjustified and excessive prolongation of the state of exception in El Salvador” and called on the government to end the measure.

Of the defendants, 413 are being held at the Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT), a maximum-security prison that Bukele ordered built that has become a symbol of his controversial security policies. Many defendants watched the proceedings virtually from the prison.

Another 73 alleged gang members are being prosecuted in absentia, as permitted by law, according to the Attorney General’s office.

In the first such collective trial in March 2025, 52 members of the Barrio 18 gang were sentenced to up to 245 years in prison.

In another collective trial in November 2025, a court found 45 members of a rival faction, Barrio 18 Sureños, guilty of various crimes, including extortion and homicide. It imposed a 397-year prison sentence on one leader.

Since the state of emergency began, authorities say they have arrested 91,300 people allegedly belonging or tied to gangs.

Human rights organizations say thousands have been arbitrarily detained and that they have registered more than 6,000 complaints filed by victims under the state of emergency. At least 500 people have died in state custody.

Bukele has acknowledged that at least 8,000 innocent people were arrested under the measure and have since have been released.

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By Sofia Menchu

GUATEMALA CITY, April 21 (Reuters) – Guatemalan Attorney General Consuelo Porras, a leading adversary of President Bernardo Arevalo who has faced international sanctions, is set to step down next month after losing her re-election bid.

A commission of jurists left Porras off the official shortlist of candidates after four rounds of voting late on Monday, depriving her of a chance at a third four-year term. 

Since assuming the role in 2018, Porras has been accused within Guatemala and abroad of leading a rollback of anti-corruption efforts that had once made Guatemala an international case study in prosecuting impunity. Her tenure was marked by the prosecution or exile of judges, prosecutors and journalists linked to past anti-corruption cases.

The U.S., Canada, the European Union and others sanctioned her for alleged corruption, persecution of human rights advocates and efforts to undermine Arevalo’s 2023 election win. The United Nations said last month that Porras may have been involved in dozens of illegal adoptions in the 1980s.

At a press conference last week, Arevalo said Porras could not be confirmed “for a position in which she has already proven that she is not only unsuitable, but also a danger to the nation.”

Porras defended her credentials before the commission in her April 9 testimony, saying that the “requirements regarding suitability, competence, and good character for the position have always, always been met.” 

Porras and Arevalo did not reply to Reuters requests for comment on Tuesday. Porras can still file legal challenges to contest Monday’s vote and attempt to be included on the list of finalists, although her time is limited, as Arevalo must appoint a new attorney general by May 16.

(Reporting by Sofia Menchu; Additional reporting by Brendan O’Boyle; Writing by Jorge Ollero; Editing by Brendan O’Boyle and Howard Goller)

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ATHENS, April 21 (Reuters) – Fraudulent messages promising safe passage through the Strait of Hormuz in exchange for cryptocurrency have been sent to some shipping companies whose vessels are stranded west of the waterway, Greek maritime risk management firm MARISKS has warned.

The U.S. has maintained its blockade of Iranian ports, while Iran has lifted and then re-imposed its blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, through which roughly a fifth of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas passed before war broke out in the Middle East.

Amid ceasefire talks, Tehran, which controls the chokepoint, has proposed tolls on vessels to safely transit.

MARISKS on Monday issued an alert warning shipowners that unknown actors, claiming to represent Iranian authorities, had sent some shipping companies a message demanding transit fees in cryptocurrencies, Bitcoin or Tether, for “clearance”.

“These specific messages are a scam,” the firm said, adding the message was not sent by Iranian authorities.

There was no immediate comment from Tehran.

Hundreds ​of ships and about 20,000 seafarers remain stranded in the Gulf.

On April 18, when Iran briefly opened the strait subject to checks, ships tried to pass but at least two of them, including a tanker, reported that Iranian boats had fired shots at them, forcing the vessels to turn around.

MARISKS said that it believed that at least one of the vessels, which tried to exit the strait on Saturday and was hit by gunfire, was a victim of the fraud.

Reuters was not able to verify the information or track companies that had received the message.

“After providing the documents and assessing your eligibility by the Iranian Security Services, we will be able to determine the fee to be paid in cryptocurrency (BTC or USDT). Only then will your vessel be able to transit the strait unimpeded at the pre-agreed time,” said the message cited by MARISKS.

(Reporting by Yannis Souliotis; Writing by Renee Maltezou; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan)

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By Daria Smetanko

KHUTORY, Ukraine, April 21 (Reuters) – Petro Hurin says his health has never been the same since he was sent 40 years ago to clear the Chornobyl site in the wake of the world’s worst nuclear accident.

He was among hundreds of thousands of ‘liquidators’ brought in to clean up after the explosion at reactor four of the Chornobyl nuclear plant in Ukraine on April 26, 1986. The disaster sent clouds of radioactive material across much of Europe.

Thirty-one plant workers and firemen died in the immediate aftermath, mostly from acute radiation sickness. Thousands more have since succumbed to radiation-related illnesses such as cancer, although the total death toll and long-term health effects remain a subject of intense debate.

At the time, Hurin worked for a business that supplied diggers and construction vehicles, which sent him to the Chornobyl exclusion zone in June 1986. Of the 40 people sent by his company, only five are alive today, he said.

“Not a single Chornobyl person is in good health,” the 76-year-old said. “It’s death by a thousand cuts.”

Soviet authorities strove to conceal the extent of the Chornobyl disaster, refusing to cancel the May 1 parade in Kyiv, around 100 km (60 miles) to the south. Ukraine’s current government has highlighted the Soviet authorities’ bungled handling of the accident and attempts to cover up the disaster. 

Hurin said some colleagues produced medical certificates to excuse themselves from serving in Chornobyl, but he was willing to help.

“I realised that, however small my contribution might be, I was doing my bit to help tame this atomic beast,” he said.

HEADACHES, CHEST PAIN, BLEEDING

Working 12-hour shifts, Hurin used an excavator to load dry concrete mixed with lead – shipped to the site by river barge – onto trucks for transport to the reactor, where it was mixed to build a massive sarcophagus to contain the radiation.

“The dust was terrible,” Hurin recalled. “You’d work for half an hour in a respirator, and it would end up looking (brown) like an onion.”

After four days, Hurin said he began experiencing severe symptoms such as headaches, chest pain, bleeding and a metallic taste in his throat. Doctors treated him but after another shift, he could barely walk. He feared he had “a day or two” to live.

“I was brought to the hospital, and the doctors did a blood test first,” Hurin said. “They pricked all my fingers and a pale liquid came out, but no blood.”

Soviet doctors refused to diagnose radiation sickness, a finding he said was not permitted at the time. Instead, he was told he had vegetative-vascular dystonia, a nervous disorder often linked to stress.

Before the disaster, Hurin had never taken sick leave, but afterwards he spent around seven months going from one hospital to another to receive treatment, including a blood transfusion.

He says he has been diagnosed with anaemia – often linked to radiation sickness – angina, pancreatitis and a series of other conditions.

By the standards of his countrymen, Hurin has lived a long life. According to the World Health Organization, average life expectancy for men in Ukraine stood at 66 in 2021, having declined during COVID.

Now retired, Hurin lives with his wife Olha in central Ukraine’s Cherkasy region. Although he suffers from health problems, he still plays the bayan – a type of accordion – and writes songs and poems.

He says he is fighting to access a special disability pension for ‘liquidators’ of the nuclear disaster.

Another catastrophe – Russia’s 2022 invasion of his homeland – has come to dominate his life. He and his wife Olha regularly visit a memorial in nearby Kholodnyi Yar dedicated to their grandson, Andrii Vorobkalo, a Ukrainian soldier, who was killed three years ago in the war, aged 26.

After his daughter had left to work in Europe, Hurin and his wife raised Andrii from the age of four. When Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, Andrii quit his job in Greece.

“He left everything behind and came to defend Ukraine,” Hurin told Reuters, standing near the memorial stone dedicated to his grandson. “We think of Andrii all the time.”

(Editing by Andrew Heavens)

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KATHMANDU, April 21 (Reuters) – Nepal has resumed issuing permits for its nationals to work in the Middle East, an official said on Tuesday, six weeks after suspending the procedure because of conflict in the region.

About 75% of all Nepali workers abroad work in Middle East nations, mainly as labourers at building sites, and experts say remittances from workers make up more than a quarter of the $42-billion economy of the cash-strapped Himalayan nation.

Permit resumption “follows advice from the foreign ministry and high demand from workers”, Pitambar Ghimire, a labour ministry spokesperson, told Reuters.

Nepal requires citizens to secure a work permit from the government in order to take up jobs in a foreign country, but suspended their issue for Gulf countries on March 1, a day after the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran began.

Nepal’s youth unemployment stands at 20.6% among a population of 30 million for the highest such figure among all South and Southeast Asian countries, World Bank data shows.

At least 3 million nationals work overseas, industry officials say. Labour unions estimate that about 1,500 young people leave Nepal each day for foreign employment, driven by scarce job opportunities at home.

(Reporting by Gopal Sharma; Editing by YP Rajesh and Clarence Fernandez)

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LUANDA, Angola (AP) — Pope Leo XIV heads Tuesday to Equatorial Guinea for the final leg of his four-nation African journey, arriving in a country that presents perhaps the most diplomatically delicate challenge of this trip and his young papacy.

The former Spanish colony on Africa’s western coast is run by Africa’s longest-serving president, Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, 83. He has been in power since 1979 and is accused of widespread corruption and authoritarianism.

The discovery of offshore oil in the mid-1990s transformed Equatorial Guinea’s economy virtually overnight, with oil now accounting for almost half of its GDP and more than 90% of exports, according to the African Development Bank.

Yet more than half of the country’s nearly 2 million people live in poverty. And rights groups including Human Rights Watch — as well as court cases in France and Spain — have documented how revenues have enriched the ruling Obiang family rather than the broader population.

Leo has shown he won’t mince words on this maiden African journey as pope, and the church’s teaching on the scourge of social inequity and corruption is clear. If Leo’s stop in Cameroon was any indication, the pope’s messaging in Equatorial Guinea might be just as sharp.

Upon arriving in Yaounde, Cameroon last week, Leo met with President Paul Biya, at 93 the world’s oldest leader. Like Obiang, Biya has also been in power for decades — since 1982 — and like Obiang, he’s accused of presiding over an authoritarian government.

Leo didn’t hold back as he stood next to Biya and delivered his arrival speech in the presidential palace.

“In order for peace and justice to prevail, the chains of corruption — which disfigure authority and strip it of its credibility — must be broken,” Leo said. “Hearts must be set free from an idolatrous thirst for profit.”

Equatorial Guinea is officially a secular country, but the Catholic Church is at the center of its political and social systems.

Church leaders “are very much interconnected intrinsically with the government,” said Tutu Alicante, a U.S.-based activist who runs the EG Justice rights group. “Part of it is the fear the government has instilled in everyone, including the church, and part of it is the monetary gains that the church derives from this government.”

The Rev. Fortunatus Nwachukwu, No. 2 in the Vatican’s missionary evangelization office, said the Catholic Church is present in difficult civil spaces and knows how to operate in them to carry out its mission.

“Should the church go to war against the government? Surely no,” Nwatchukwu said. “Should the church swallow everything as if it were normal? No. The church has to continue preaching justice, always in defense of life, human dignity and the common good.”

That is particularly challenging in Equatorial Guinea, which with about 75% of its population Catholic is one of the most Catholic countries in Africa.

But it’s also one of the most oppressed. In addition to official corruption, the country’s government also faces rampant accusations of harassment, arrest and intimidation of political opponents, critics and journalists.

It has consistently ranked among the bottom 10 countries in Transparency International’s annual corruption perception index, though the government has in recent years taken some steps to improve the situation, said Transparency International’s regional advisor for Africa, Samuel Kaninda.

The government passed an anti-corruption law and is working to fund an anti-corruption commission. But the only way such measures will be effective is if the commission is truly independent to investigate and the judiciary is independent as well, he said.

Kaninda said he hoped the pope’s visit would draw attention to such shortcomings, and give the people of Equatorial Guinea hope. Even if the government exploits the visit to signal a papal endorsement of its rule, historically pope trips to even authoritarian regimes have ended up as a net positive experience for the people, he said.

“The risk is there, but at the same time, we see more of the opportunity to shed more light on a lot more that is happening there,” he said.

At the very least, the first papal visit since St. John Paul II came in 1982 is giving seamstress Tumi Carine lots of business, as she makes dresses with fabric stamped with Leo’s image.

“The coming of the pope brought us many customers,” Carine said. “ We are really grateful for the coming of the pope, so, we are really happy.”

Leo has a packed schedule in Equatorial Guinea. He arrives and meets with Obiang and then delivers two sets of remarks: A speech to government authorities and diplomats, and then another speech at the national university.

In addition to celebrating Masses, he’ll visit a psychiatric hospital and a prison and will meet with young people and their families. Before leaving Thursday, he’ll pray at a memorial to victims of a 2021 blast at a military barracks in Bata that killed more than 100 people. The explosions were blamed on the negligent handling of dynamite in a barracks close to residential areas.

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Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.

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DUBAI, April 21 (Reuters) – Iran executed a man on Tuesday who was accused of being a leader of a network linked to Israel’s intelligence service and of setting fire to a mosque in Tehran during January protests, the judiciary’s news outlet Mizan reported.

Mizan identified the man as Amirali Mirjafari, saying he had been convicted of carrying out arson at the Qolhak mosque in Tehran and leading anti-security activities.

His death sentence was upheld by the Supreme Court and carried out early on Tuesday, Mizan added.

Iran was rocked by nationwide anti-government protests earlier this year, which were repressed in the biggest crackdown in the Islamic Republic’s history.

(Reporting by Dubai Newsroom; Editing by Andrew Heavens)

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