Ana María Careaga was just 16 when she was kidnapped, stolen by the regime then running Argentina. To her mother, Esther Ballestrino de Careaga, it was as if she had vanished.

It was an event that would change not just the lives of both the women and the daughter Ana María was carrying, but the future of Argentina. And it was something a priest named Jorge Bergoglio would never forget.

It was 1977 and Argentina was under the grip of a military dictatorship following a coup the year before. Those who opposed the regime were abducted, tortured, and killed – victims of what would become known as the “Dirty War.”

There was no notification or public record of the detentions, and families had no idea what had happened to their loved ones.

By the time Ana María was seized, her brother-in-law had already disappeared. Soldiers took her to the clandestine detention center known as El Atlético, where she was tortured – even after she told her captors she was three months pregnant.

Although the extrajudicial kidnappings were becoming increasingly common, families did not speak of them — until mothers took a stand.

On April 30, 1977, a dozen or so women, each the mother of a missing child, gathered in Plaza de Mayo, the grand square in front of the Casa Rosada presidential palace in Buenos Aires. They were ordered to disperse, but instead linked arms and continued to walk slowly around the square.

Each Sunday, more women would come to join in, soon to include Esther who became one of the leaders of Las Madres de Playa de Mayo (the Mothers of Playa de Mayo.)

Esther knew Bergoglio long before he had even joined the priesthood. She had been his boss while he was a high schooler working a technical internship at a laboratory.

‘The disappeared are my children’

While Ana María was detained — always chained and blindfolded, she said — her mother and other members of the movement met in a back room at the Santa Cruz Church in downtown Buenos Aires.

Ana María turned 17 while still in captivity, and she was released on September 30, 1977, by then seven months pregnant.

Within days of a medical check arranged by her mother, she left for Sweden, where she was granted asylum.

“That was the last time we saw each other,” Ana María said. “We wrote letters to each other, and in one letter she tells me that when I was kidnapped, she was like an automaton, thinking about (me) the whole time. She left in the morning and came back at night, out all day with the mothers searching, searching, searching.”

Even when her daughter was safe, Esther kept campaigning for those who had become known as the “disappeared.”

To Ana María, and perhaps to the priest who’d befriended her mother, it was a reflection that “the struggle wasn’t just individual, but a collective one.”

Months after her daughter’s release, in December 1977, Esther and others met as usual at Santa Cruz when they were betrayed. Stepping out of the church, she and others were abducted.

“They had been taken to … a clandestine center for torture and extermination, and then they were thrown alive from the ‘death flights,’ which was the final solution they (the regime) boasted of having found to get rid of the bodies,” Ana María said. The “death flights” where prisoners were killed by being tossed from a plane over land or sea is now a documented horror of the Dirty War.

Many bodies were never recovered, but days after she disappeared, the remains of Esther washed up on land.

“What the Mothers say is that the sea did not want to be an accomplice and returned the bodies,” Ana María said.

Esther’s remains were unidentified though and buried in a mass grave.

Ana María did not know of her mother’s disappearance until she called to tell her of the birth of her granddaughter, the baby carried while she was detained.

“She was born on December 11, and we called on December 11, 1977, to say that she had been born, and that’s when we found out that my mom had been kidnapped three days earlier,” she said. “My mom didn’t know that she had been born safely.”

‘I did what I could’

As Archbishop of Buenos Aires, Bergoglio testified about Esther during a 2010 trial related to Dirty War atrocities. In an excerpt posted on YouTube by journalist Uki Goñi, he said he had known her for more than 20 years.

“It caused me great pain,” Bergoglio said of learning of her abduction. “I tried to get in touch with relatives, I wasn’t able to. They were mostly … in hiding.”

He said he had tried to speak to people who could help but had not approached the authorities. His actions or lack thereof during the Dirty War hung around him as unanswered questions, even as the Vatican dismissed allegations against him.

“I did what I could,” he told the trial. “I remember her as a great woman.”

Decades later, long after the fall of the military regime in 1983, the remains from the oceanside mass grave were identified, and found to include Esther.

Families petitioned Bergoglio to allow them to be buried not in a cemetery, but outside the Church of Santa Cruz — the last place they had walked free.

“He said it was an honor,” Ana María told us. “He remembered his friend Esther and said it was an honor and authorized it so we could, as the faithful of this church say, sow them in the last free land that their feet trod.”

To commemorate her mother and all the others who challenged the regime, April 30 is now recognized as the founding of the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo.

The Vatican publicized a message then Pope Francis sent to Ana Marìa in 2018 to play on a radio show she hosts. “I very much remember your mother,” he said then. “She worked hard, she was a fighter and together with her many women who fought for justice, both because they had lost their children or simply because mothers who, seeing the drama of so many missing children, came together to fight for this as well.”

Standing just off the main altar inside Santa Cruz Church, Ana María calmly pulled out her replacement phone — her original had been recently stolen. Fortunately, her WhatsApp messages had been backed up, preserving the Pope’s words, and her memories.

She still has that recording on her phone. In it, the Pope tells her: “I’m glad you follow these footsteps of your mother and that you broadcast it to others in your radio show. So today, in a special way, I pray for mothers, I pray for you, I pray for your mother Esther, and I pray for all the men and women of good will who wish to carry forward a project of justice and fraternity among all. May God bless you all.”

Esther Ballestrino de Careaga never met her granddaughter. But Pope Francis did, spending about an hour with her last year when she visited Rome, her mother said, proudly showing a video of the two together. “He knew the whole story because my mom told him everything they had done to me, the torture, everything,” Ana María said.

As another April 30 anniversary approaches, Ana María has only memories now of her mother and the Pope.

Of her mother, she said: “I have a very vivid memory of a very loving, hard-working, and committed person. I feel she left me with many values, and she’s present in our history because disappearance generates that — disappearance is the permanent presence of an absence.”

She carries a directive from the Pope as well.

“When my daughter went to see him last year, he told her that we had to continue bearing witness,” she said. “We, right now in Argentina, are going through a very difficult time, and I say … we need to remember again.”

“Everything that happened, the 30,000 disappeared, and how the Mothers created a civilizing pact in this country, a social contract of ‘never again.’ And that’s why it’s so important to preserve memory, which was also what the Pope said: that memory had to be preserved.”

A man accused by police of carrying out a deadly car-ramming in Vancouver has been charged with murder, as Canadian Filipinos mourn the attack on their community.

Kai-Ji- Adam Lo allegedly plowed his car into a crowd at a street festival celebrating Filipino heritage on Saturday night, killing at least 11 people and injuring dozens.

The suspect, who was detained on the scene, had a history of mental health-related interactions with authorities, police said.

Here’s what we know so far.

What happened?

Filipinos in south Vancouver had gathered for a community street party on Lapu Lapu Day, an event commemorating an Indigenous leader who fought against Spanish colonization of the Philippines.

But what had begun as a joyous occasion turned into a horrific scene when a black Audi SUV was driven into the large crowd at around 8 p.m. local time. The driver is thought to have operated alone and was the only person in the vehicle, police said.

Festival attendees and bystanders helped chase the driver down and he was later arrested at the site, according to Vancouver Police.

Who is the suspect?

Lo, a 30-year-old Vancouver resident, has been charged with eight counts of second-degree murder, according to police statement on Sunday. He has appeared in court and remains in custody.

Vancouver police said more charges are expected.

The police statement did not give further identifying information, such as Lo’s ethnicity, or possible motives – but authorities had earlier said there was no sign the attack was an act of terrorism.

Who were the victims?

Eleven people, ranging in age from 5 to 65, were killed in the attack, police said. The names of the those who died have not yet been released and some have yet to be formally identified, the statement said.

Some of the injured remained in critical condition on Sunday, police said at a news conference.

The street festival on Saturday was a family-friendly affair, with parents and children browsing street food stalls and attending traditional dance performances.

The Filipino community in the state of British Columbia has been left reeling, with the event organizers expressing “deep heartbreak brought on by this senseless tragedy” in a statement on Instagram. A vigil took place on Sunday evening, with photos showing crowds lighting candles and laying flowers near the site of the attack.

What have Filipino authorities said?

Authorities in both Canada and the Philippines have condemned the attack and shared their sympathies with the families affected.

Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. said those killed in the “unspeakable tragedy” would “not be forgotten,” and that Filipino diplomats and staff in Vancouver have been instructed to assist the victims and coordinate with the Canadian authorities.

The Philippine Consulate General in Vancouver also shared a statement on Instagram. “As we await more information about the incident, we pray that our community remains strong and resilient imbued with the spirit of bayanihan during this difficult time,” the consulate said, using the Tagalog word referring to the spirit of helping one another as a community, especially in times of need.

There are about 925,500 ethnic Filipinos in Canada, according to the latest national census in 2021. The Philippines is the second-largest source of immigrants to Canada, behind India.

The Filipino population in Canada is most densely concentrated in Manitoba province, followed by Alberta, Yukon, Saskatchewan and British Columbia.

What about the election?

The tragedy happened just days before Canada’s crucial federal election on Monday, raising fresh questions about public safety. In response, authorities have tried to soothe anxieties and voiced confidence in existing security plans.

“Our first priority is and will always be protecting the residents of Vancouver,” said Vancouver Mayor Ken Sim, stressing that Vancouver “is still a safe city” where a “vast majority” of events happen without incident. He had directed a full review of safety measures after the attack, he said.

Vancouver Police interim chief Steve Rai also said authorities had conducted a risk assessment prior to the festival, which was largely held on the grounds of a school that was not directly accessible through public roads.

He added that they found no “threats to the event or to the Filipino community,” and decided that police officers and heavy vehicle barricades would not be deployed on site.

“While I’m confident the joint risk assessment and public safety plan was sound, we will be working with our partners at the City of Vancouver to review all of the circumstances surrounding the planning of this event,” Rai said.

On Sunday, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said he was “deeply heartbroken” over the attack, while stressing authorities do not believe there is any “active threat” to Canadians.

Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre, Carney’s chief rival in the election, also extended his condolences to the victims and their families.

The Russian military is planning to increase the use of small squads on motorcycles and quadbikes on the frontlines in Ukraine as it plans fresh offensives, according to the Ukrainian military and analysts of the conflict.

The Russian Defense Ministry published video on Saturday showing units practising tactics in groups of two or three motorbikes, with a rider seen navigating a course to the sound of a pulsating electronic soundtrack.

Russian forces have used motorbikes and quads in several areas of the frontlines in an effort to evade Ukrainian drones for more than a year. But the Institute for the Study of War in Washington says the latest Russian video “indicates that the Russian military is likely developing a tactical doctrine for systematic offensive motorcycle usage and may be preparing to issue an increased number of motorcycles.”

Ukraine expects a major Russian offensive in the next few months as Moscow tries to capture more territory before any ceasefire agreement.

The Ukrainian military calls the motorbike assaults ‘banzai attacks.’ One Ukrainian commander, Andriy Otchenash, said earlier this month that the motorcycles are designed for a quick blitzkrieg. “They can advance very quickly, get behind the lines,” he said, but losses on the Russian side were very high.

“It indicates that the enemy does not have a large amount of military offensive equipment, but on the other hand, it is an adaptation to the conditions of war,” said the Ukrainian Center for Strategic Communication.

On Saturday, the Ukrainian military said it had repelled a Russian assault on the village of Bahatyr on the Donetsk frontlines, destroying 15 motorcycles and killing about 40 Russian soldiers. It distributed video of drones eliminating a number of motorbikes in open countryside.

The Ukrainian military reported in February the Russians were using more quadbikes around Chasiv Yar, also in Donetsk, where the frontlines have barely moved over the past year.

One Ukrainian military spokesman, Lt. Col. Pavlo Shamshyn, said the use of motorbikes was a mixed blessing for Russian troops. Their speed and manoeuvrability helped them to evade Ukrainian drones, but the noise of a bike prevented riders from hearing drones.

Russian state media has been promoting the advantages of motorbike units. Russia Today reported last week that motorcyclists were planting mines and interviewed a soldier with the 39th Guards Motorised Rifle Brigade, who is part of a new motorised group.

“Our main advantage is that we can drive directly into [the enemy’s position] and neutralise everyone,” he said. The enemy “hear the roar of the motorcycles, and it causes panic among them. They simply abandon their positions and run away.”

The Russian military is also using motorbikes to evacuate the wounded. The Telegram account of the Defense Ministry’s publication Zvezda reported last week that Russian marines fighting in the Kursk region were using all-terrain motorcycles to evacuate civilians and wounded soldiers. Video showed a soldier being put on the back of a bike in muddy fields.

Last year, the UK’s Defense Ministry said the Russians were increasingly using off-road bikes and all-terrain vehicles for night-time attacks. But it noted that Ukrainian FPV drones, which fly into their target, had already demonstrated how vulnerable such unprotected vehicles were.

Late in 2023, Russian President Vladimir Putin inspected Chinese-made all-terrain vehicles being procured for the Russian army. At that point some 500 were already in service, and the Defense Ministry ordered around 1,500 more.

An Israeli airstrike rocked southern Beirut on Sunday soon after the military issued an evacuation warning for the Lebanese capital.

Footage from Reuters showed a huge plume of smoke rising from the area shortly after 6:00 p.m. (11 a.m. ET). It is unclear if the attack caused damage or casualties.

The target of the strike was a Hezbollah facility in Beirut which stored precision missiles, according to a joint statement from Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Israel Katz.

The attack came after Israel Defense Forces spokesman Avichay Adraee advised civilians to evacuate from the Hadath neighborhood. Adraee said Hezbollah was using facilities in the area and said civilians should move 300 meters away.

Lebanese President Joseph Aoun condemned Israel for attacking the area and urged the US and France to “compel Israel to immediately halt its aggressions.”

Since a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah went into effect in November, the IDF has carried out a number of strikes, regularly targeting southern Lebanon. The IDF says these strikes have targeted Hezbollah militants and facilities.

Strikes in the capital of Beirut have been rare however. On April 1, the IDF struck a target in the Dahieh area in Beirut. Only days before, the Israeli military had conducted another attack in Beirut.

This is a developing story and will be updated.

Ceding large swathes of Ukrainian land to Russia under a peace proposal suggested by US President Donald Trump would be “a capitulation,” Germany’s defense minister warned on Sunday, as North Korea acknowledged for the first time it had deployed troops to fight for Moscow.

Ukraine knew that it may have to cede some territory to reach a lasting ceasefire deal “but they will certainly not go as far — or should not go as far — as the latest proposal by the American president,” Defense Minister Boris Pistorius told German public broadcaster ARD.

“Ukraine on its own could have got a year ago already what was included in that (Trump proposal), practically through a capitulation,” he said. “I cannot discern any added value.”

Trump has been frustrated that his efforts to broker a peace deal between Moscow and Kyiv after three years of war have so far fallen short, and the White House has since mounted an increasingly urgent push to strike a deal.

A US peace plan includes American recognition of Russia’s control over Crimea – the southern Ukrainian peninsula that Moscow illegally annexed more than a decade ago – and would grant Russia additional Ukrainian territory occupied since its full-scale invasion began in 2022, according to officials familiar with the plan.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Saturday conceded that Ukraine lacks the military might needed to retake Crimea by force but has long made it clear that making territorial concessions is a red line. Recognizing Crimea as Russian would also be illegal under Ukraine’s constitution.

“This [territory] is not my property. This is the property of the Ukrainian people,” he said at a Friday briefing.

Following Trump and Zelensky’s remarkable face-to-face meeting at the Vatican before Pope Francis’ funeral on Saturday, the US president said they briefly discussed the issue of Crimea and that he believes Zelensky “wants to make a deal.”

Trump also criticized President Vladimir Putin in some of his strongest comments against the Russian leader to date.

“I want him to stop shooting, sit down and sign a deal,” Trump said Sunday as he returned to Washington to begin what aides say will be a critical week in determining the future of US-led efforts to broker an end to the war. “We have the confines of a deal, I believe, and I want him to sign it and be done with it and just go back to life.”

In a post on his Truth Social platform sent as he returned from Rome, Trump raised the prospect of applying new sanctions on Russia after its deadly assault on Kyiv last week, and questioned whether Putin is interested in peace, saying, “it makes me think that maybe he doesn’t want to stop the war, he’s just tapping me along.”

The next week will be “very critical” in determining whether the US can continue attempting to broker peace in Ukraine, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Sunday, telling NBC that “we’re close” to a deal “but not close enough.”

North Korean troops in Kursk

On Monday, North Korea publicly acknowledged for the first time that it deployed troops to fight for Russia in its war with Ukraine, touting its combat sub-units’ contributions to “precious victory” in the invaded Russian region of Kursk.

“The operations for liberating the Kursk area to repel the adventurous invasion of the Russian Federation by the Ukrainian authorities were victoriously concluded,” North Korea’s Central Military Commission said, according to state-run news agency KCNA.

Putin on Saturday claimed his country’s forces have recaptured Kursk, the border region where Ukraine launched a surprise offensive last year, though Kyiv insists its troops are fiercely battling to preserve their foothold in the territory.

“Our Korean friends acted out of a sense of solidarity, justice and genuine comradeship,” Putin said in a statement Monday.

“We pay tribute to the heroism, high level of special training and self-sacrifice of the Korean soldiers who, shoulder to shoulder with Russian fighters, defended our homeland as their own,” he added.

North Korean soldiers have been supporting Russia’s battle to oust Ukraine’s forces from its borders, while Kyiv had poured precious resources into holding onto its territory there, with the view of using it as a key bargaining chip in any peace talks. The operation was also launched to relieve pressure from the embattled eastern front line.

Ukrainian officials and Western intelligence reports found that about 12,000 North Korean soldiers had been sent to fight in Russia, but Pyongyang had never confirmed their presence.

In March, South Korea’s military said 3,000 more North Korean soldiers had been sent to Russia, replacing the roughly 4,000 troops who were killed or injured in combat.

North Korea’s Central Military Commission said leader Kim Jong Un ordered the deployments based on a strategic partnership treaty with Russia, KCNA reported.

Putin and Kim signed a landmark defense pact in Pyongyang last year, as the two autocratic nations ramped up ties to a “new level,” and pledged to provide immediate military assistance in the event the other is attacked.

“They who fought for justice are all heroes and representatives of the honor of the motherland,” Kim reportedly said, adding that a monument would be erected to commemorate his troops’ actions.

Russia acknowledged the involvement of North Korean soldiers in its operations for the first time on Saturday. In a post on Telegram, Valery Gerasimov, chief of the Russian General Staff, thanked the North Korean soldiers, praising their “high professionalism, steadfastness, courage and heroism in battle.”

As well as troops, South Korea’s military said in March that North Korea has sent a “significant amount” of short-range ballistic missiles and hundreds of pieces of 170-millimeter self-propelled howitzers and 240-millimeter multiple rocket launchers.

The US Department of State said it was concerned by North Korea’s direct involvement in Russia’s war in Ukraine

North Korea’s “military deployment to Russia and any support provided by the Russian Federation to (North Korea) in return must end,” a State Department spokesperson told Reuters.

South Korea’s Defense Ministry said on Monday that North Korea had “effectively admitted to its criminal actions” by finally officially announcing the deployment.

“North Korea’s involvement in the war in Ukraine is a violation of UN resolutions and an illegal act that threatens world peace. This must be condemned by the international community,” the ministry added.

North Korea’s confirmation that its troops were fighting in Russia, months after they were deployed, mirrors Putin’s long-standing denials that Russian troops had been deployed to Crimea in 2014.

The crisis there started shortly after 2014 mass protests in Ukraine that toppled the country’s Russian-backed regime of Viktor Yanukovych. Russian soldiers dressed as civilians or in uniform without identifying insignia – at the time referred to as “little green men” – started popping up outside government buildings and military bases across Crimea.

While Moscow denied any involvement in the appearance of the little green men in Crimea, the territory held a sham referendum on joining Russia just weeks after the covert operation. Putin would later acknowledge he had deployed Russian troops there.

Chinese leader Xi Jinping has not spoken to US President Donald Trump on the phone recently, Beijing said Monday, reiterating that no talks are taking place between the two countries to resolve their tariff war.

The statement from a Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson is an outright rejection of Trump’s claim in an interview with Time magazine last week that Xi had called him, as the world’s two largest economies remain locked in a dispute over sky-high trade levies.

“As far as I know, there has been no recent phone call between the two heads of state,” Guo Jiakun told a regular news conference. “I want to reiterate that China and the United States are not engaged in consultations or negotiations on the tariff issue.”

China has maintained its tough public stance on the trade war even as Trump softened his tone last week, saying that astronomical US tariffs on Chinese goods will “come down substantially” and promising to be “very nice” at the negotiating table as he attempts to get Xi to initiate talks.

“He’s called. And I don’t think that’s a sign of weakness on his behalf,” Trump said, referring to Xi, in the Time interview published on Friday.

According to publicly available records, the last time the two leaders spoke by phone was on January 17, days before Trump’s inauguration for his second term.

Since last week, Trump has repeatedly said that his administration is talking with Chinese officials to strike a trade deal – only to be met with flat denials from Beijing each time.

On Friday, hours before Trump’s interview with Time was published, China’s Foreign Ministry urged the US not to “mislead the public” on trade negotiations between the two sides.

Trump’s apparent willingness to deescalate the trade war has been brushed off by Beijing, which has instead demanded the US remove all tariffs on China.

Since returning to the White House, Trump has imposed levies of 145% on Chinese goods, though he exempted imports of electronics such as smartphones and computers from his so-called “reciprocal” tariffs.

China has raised tariffs on US imports to 125%, but it has also quietly rolled back the levies on some semiconductors made in the United States, according to import agencies, as Beijing tries to soften the blow of the trade war on its all-important tech industry.

China and the Philippines have each unfurled their national flags on tiny sandbars in the South China Sea, staking competing sovereignty claims in strategic waters seen as a potential flashpoint for global conflict.

The rival photo opportunities unfolded on Sandy Cay, a string of three uninhabited sandbars which lie near a Philippine military outpost in the disputed Spratly Islands.

The release of the images comes as US and Philippine forces hold their largest-ever annual joint military drills in nearby waters – and just weeks after US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth vowed to enhance America’s military alliance with the Philippines to “reestablish deterrence” to counter “China’s aggression” in the region – during his first trip to Asia.

Bracketed by China and several Southeast Asian nations, parts of the vital South China Sea are claimed by multiple governments, but Beijing has asserted ownership over almost all of the waterway, in defiance of an international court ruling.

Over the past two decades, China has occupied a number of obscure reefs and atolls far from its shoreline across the South China Sea, building up military installations, including runways and ports.

The public relations wrestling match over Sandy Cay risks further stoking long-running tensions between the Philippines and China. It also poses a key test to the Trump administration on how it will respond, especially as key cabinet officials have repeatedly emphasized the need for the US to focus its attention and resources on countering China’s ambitions in the Indo-Pacific region.

Competing claims

The latest maritime dispute surfaced last week, when China’s state-controlled media claimed that China Coast Guard “implemented maritime control” and “exercised sovereign jurisdiction” over Tiexian Reef – the Chinese name for Sandy Cay – in mid-April.

A photo aired on China’s state broadcaster Saturday showed four Chinese officers in black uniforms walking along the white sandbar as a fifth officer held an inflatable boat by the water. Another photo showed four officers holding up a Chinese flag in what the broadcaster described as “a show of sovereignty.”

“China Coast Guard officers landed on Tiexian Reef to conduct patrols and recorded video evidence of the illegal activities carried out by the Philippine side,” said the state broadcaster CCTV. It added that the officers also cleaned up leftover plastic bottles, wooden sticks and other debris on the reef.

The Philippines was quick to unleash its own publicity move in response, sending teams to multiple sandbars.

On Sunday, a spokesperson for the Philippines Coast Guard said the country’s navy, coast guard and police deployed four teams in rubber boats to Pag-asa Cay 1, Cay 2 and Cay 3 – names the Philippines uses to refer to Sandy Cay.

During the inter-agency operation, the officers “observed the illegal presence” of a nearby China Coast Guard vessel and seven Chinese maritime militia vessels.

An image posted by Philippines Coast Guard spokesperson, Jay Tarriela, on X showed five officers holding the national flag on a white sandbar.

In a statement late on Sunday night, a spokesperson for the China Coast Guard said six personnel from the Philippines had “illegally landed” on the Tiexian Reef despite “warnings and dissuasion” from the Chinese side.

“China Coast Guard law enforcement officers then boarded the reef to verify and deal with the situation in accordance with the law,” spokesperson Liu Dejun said, urging the Philippines to “immediately stop its infringement.”

At a press conference Monday, Tarriela said each team had brought with them a Philippine flag to pose for photos on the sandbars on early Sunday morning.

“The other objective of our operation is to check whether the Chinese government installed different infrastructure or monitoring devices or whatsoever,” Tarriela told reporters.

“(From) the photos and videos we have already, we can totally debunk the lie and disinformation the People’s Republic of China that they have already occupied the Pag-asa cays.”

Military alliance

Confrontations between China and the Philippines in the contested waters have become increasingly fraught in recent years, fueling fears of a global conflict that could drag in the US, a mutual defense ally of Manila.

Sandy Cay lie near Thitu Island, known as Pag-asa Island by Manila and the site of a Philippines military facility. In 2023, Manila opened a coast guard monitoring base there to counter what it called Chinese aggression in the vital waterway.

Under the Biden administration, US officials repeatedly assured the Philippine that the US would come to its defense if attacked in the South China Sea.

US President Donald Trump is a more mercurial figure who has long viewed historical US agreements through a more mercantile lens and has called for allies to pay more for protection.

But Trump’s cabinet contains vocal China hawks, notably Hegseth and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who have both spoken publicly on needing to push back against China’s growing assertiveness in the South China Sea.

On April 21, the US and the Philippines kicked off their annual Balikatan – meaning “shoulder to shoulder” – military exercises, which are expected to run for three weeks and have grown in scale each year.

This year, the US military has deployed an anti-ship missile launcher for the first time on the northern tip of the Philippine archipelago, just across the strait from Taiwan, a self-governing democracy Beijing has vowed to take by force if necessary.

The Philippines also hosted Japanese forces as full-fledged participants for the first time as party of the multinational military drills, a sign of strengthening security cooperation between Manila and Tokyo.

Yemen’s Houthi rebels on Monday alleged a US airstrike hit a prison holding African migrants, killing at least 68 people and wounding 47 others. The US military had no immediate comment.

The strike in Yemen’s Saada governorate, a stronghold for the Houthis, is the latest incident in the country’s decadelong war to kill African migrants from Ethiopia and other nations who risk crossing the nation for a chance to work in neighboring Saudi Arabia.

It also likely will renew questions from activists about the American campaign, known as “Operation Rough Rider,” which has been targeting the rebels as the Trump administration negotiates with their main benefactor, Iran, over Tehran’s rapidly advancing nuclear program.

The US military’s Central Command, in a statement early Monday before news of the alleged strike broke, sought to defend its policy of offering no specific details of its extensive airstrike campaign. The strikes have drawn controversy in America over Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s use of the unclassified Signal messaging app to post sensitive details about the attacks.

“To preserve operational security, we have intentionally limited disclosing details of our ongoing or future operations,” Central Command said. “We are very deliberate in our operational approach, but will not reveal specifics about what we’ve done or what we will do.”

It did not immediately respond to questions from The Associated Press about the alleged strike in Saada.

Graphic footage shows aftermath

Graphic footage aired by the Houthis’ al-Masirah satellite news channel showed what appeared to be dead bodies and others wounded at the site. The Houthi-run Interior Ministry said some 115 migrants had been detained at the site.

The rebels’ Civil Defense organization said at least 68 people had been killed and 47 others wounded in the attack.

Footage from the site analyzed by the AP suggested some kind of explosion took place there, with its cement walls seemingly peppered by debris fragments and the wounds suffered by those there.

A woman’s voice, soft in the footage, can be heard repeating the start of a prayer in Arabic: “In the name of God.” An occasional gunshot rang out as medics sought to help those wounded.

African migrants caught in middle

Ethiopians and other African migrants for years have landed in Yemen, braving the war-torn nation to try and reach Saudi Arabia for work. The Houthi rebels allegedly make tens of thousands of dollars a week smuggling migrants over the border.

Migrants from Ethiopia have found themselves detained, abused and even killed in Saudi Arabia and Yemen during the war. An Oct. 3, 2022, letter to the kingdom from the U.N. said its investigators “received concerning allegations of cross-border artillery shelling and small arms fire allegedly by Saudi security forces, causing the deaths of up to 430 and injuring 650 migrants.”

Saudi Arabia has denied killing migrants.

Monday’s alleged strike recalled a similar strike by a Saudi-led coalition battling the Houthis back in 2022 on the same compound, which caused a collapse killing 66 detainees and wounding 113 others, a United Nations report later said. The Houthis shot dead 16 detainees who fled after the strike and wounded another 50, the U.N. said. The Saudi-led coalition sought to justify the strike by saying the Houthis built and launched drones there, but the U.N. said it was known to be a detention facility.

“The coalition should have avoided any attack on that facility,” the U.N. report added.

That 2022 attack was one of the deadliest single attacks in the years long war between the coalition and the Houthi rebels and came after the Houthis struck inside the UAE twice with missiles and drones, killing three in a strike near Abu Dhabi’s international airport.

US military: 800 strikes conducted so far

Meanwhile, US airstrikes overnight targeting Yemen’s capital killed at least eight people, the Houthis said. The American military acknowledged carrying out over 800 individual strikes in their monthlong campaign.

The overnight statement from Central Command also said “Operation Rough Rider” had “killed hundreds of Houthi fighters and numerous Houthi leaders,” including those associated with its missile and drone program. It did not identify any of those officials.

“Iran undoubtedly continues to provide support to the Houthis,” the statement said. “The Houthis can only continue to attack our forces with the backing of the Iranian regime.”

“We will continue to ratchet up the pressure until the objective is met, which remains the restoration of freedom of navigation and American deterrence in the region,” it added.

The US is targeting the Houthis because of the group’s attacks on shipping in the Red Sea, a crucial global trade route, and on Israel. The Houthis are also the last militant group in Iran’s self-described “Axis of Resistance” that is capable of regularly attacking Israel.

US discusses deadly port strike

The US is conducting strikes on Yemen from its two aircraft carriers in the region — the USS Harry S. Truman in the Red Sea and the USS Carl Vinson in the Arabian Sea.

On April 18, an American strike on the Ras Isa fuel port killed at least 74 people and wounded 171 others in the deadliest-known attack of the American campaign. Central Command on Monday offered an explanation for why it hit the port.

“US strikes destroyed the ability of Ras Isa Port to accept fuel, which will begin to impact Houthi ability to not only conduct operations, but also to generate millions of dollars in revenue for their terror activities,” it said.

Meanwhile, the Houthis have increasingly sought to control the flow of information from the territory they hold to the outside world. It issued a notice Sunday that all those holding Starlink satellite internet receivers should “quickly hand over” the devices to authorities.

“A field campaign will be implemented in coordination with the security authorities to arrest anyone who sells, trades, uses, operates, installs or possesses these prohibited terminals,” the Houthis warned.

Starlink terminals have been crucial for Ukraine in fighting Russia’s full-scale invasion and receivers also have been smuggled into Iran amid unrest there.