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The International Committee of the Red Cross has revealed that hackers have stolen data on over 515,000 “highly vulnerable people,” recipients of aid and services from at least 60 affiliates of the charitable organization worldwide.

During the investigation into the extent of the attack, which targeted a contractor in Switzerland that was storing the data, the Red Cross has been forced to temporarily halt a program that reunites families torn apart by violence, migration or other tragedies.

The biggest concern is that the hackers will ransom, leak or sell sensitive information on the families and their locations to bad actors who might seek to cause further harm to victims. The Red Cross says it typically reunites 12 missing people with their families every day, work that will be interrupted for fear of further danger.

The aid organization, known for its role in armed conflicts, on Wednesday pleaded directly with the hackers in a statement to keep the data confidential.

“The real people, the real families behind the information you have now are among the world’s least powerful,” said Robert Mardini, the ICRC’s director-general. “Please do the right thing. Do not sell, leak, or otherwise use this data.”

The Red Cross did not immediately attribute the attack to specific cybercriminals, terrorists or nation-state hackers, nor did it provide any information or speculation about potential motivation for the cyberattack on its contractor in Switzerland.

A spokesperson for the ICRC in Washington, D.C., Elizabeth Shaw, told NPR that “there have been no demands” from the hackers in exchange for stolen data, indicating that the breach was likely not a ransomware attack.

The Red Cross has partnered with “highly specialized firms” to help deal with what it’s calling a “sophisticated” attack, Shaw said. “Our message is to underscore that real people, real families are behind the data and sharing, selling or using it has the potential to harm,” she wrote in an email to NPR.

It’s still unclear why the hackers accessed the information, particularly as they haven’t communicated any demands. However, vulnerable people can make for ideal targets for other possible scams and extortion, while refugees can become political pawns in broader geopolitical conflicts. Aid organizations could be espionage targets as well. Both the United Nations and the State Department’s Agency for International Development were breached in 2021.

The families themselves, already victims of conflict and suffering, will be separated from family members longer periods of time, now fearful that they could be vulnerable to having their personal information exposed. “This cyber-attack puts vulnerable people, those already in need of humanitarian services, at further risk,” Mardini said.

Chris Painter, the president of the Global Forum on Cyber Expertise and the former top cyber diplomat at the State Department, told NPR the breach “highlights the human cost to hacking,” rather than simply the financial cost to most companies and organizations that are victims of cyberattacks.

Similar to other sectors, the humanitarian community has benefited from advanced technology to more easily store data and improve response time in crises. However, those organizations don’t always have the resources for advanced cybersecurity.

Niel Harper, the chief information security officer for the U.N. Office for Project Services, and Daniel Dobrygowski, the head of governance and trust at the World Economic Forum, wrote a piece earlier this week on why humanitarian organizations need to invest in cybersecurity — and why more well-endowed funders as well as tech companies should shoulder some of the cost. “Donors must view cybersecurity as critical to aid operations,” they wrote.

Cybersecurity experts called for an international response to the cyberattack against the Red Cross.

“Exposing data of vulnerable people in the Red Cross database should be urgently addressed by international community and the perpetrators should be brought to justice,” wrote Heli Tiirmaa-Klaar, the director of the Digital Society Institute in Berlin in an email to NPR. She previously served as Estonia’s ambassador-at-large for cyber diplomacy.

“This is another grim reminder that cyber risks have real world consequences, and should be dealt with utmost care and responsibility,” she added.

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A German law firm investigating the Catholic Church’s handling of child sexual abuse cases says former Pope Benedict XVI failed to take action in four instances — including two that resulted in legal charges — while he was the archbishop of Munich and Freising.

“In a total of four cases, we reached a consensus there was a failure to act,” said attorney Martin Pusch of the law firm Westphal Spilker Wastl, according to news site Deutsche Welle. Despite reports of abuse, Pusch said, the church allowed priests to continue working without restrictions.

In a summary of the findings, the Vatican’s news agency says:

• At least 497 people were abused in the archdiocese from 1945 to 2019;
• 60% of the victims were between the ages of 8-14;
• Most victims were young, with 247 male victims and 182 female;
• There were 235 perpetrators of abuse, including 173 priests

The report, presented by Pusch and others at a lengthy news conference Thursday, contradicts Benedict’s long-running denial that he covered up or ignored abuse. For much of the time in question, he was known as Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger. He served in the Munich post from 1977 to 1982.

“Two of the cases involved two perpetrators who committed the abuse while Ratzinger was in office,” NPR’s Rob Schmitz reports from Berlin. “The two were kept in pastoral work after being punished by the judicial system.”

“A third case involved a cleric who had been convicted by a court outside Germany and was put back into service in the Munich archdiocese despite evidence showing Ratzinger knew of the man’s past.”

During the news conference, lawyer Ulrich Wastl pointed to records of a meeting in which Munich church leaders agreed to accept the transfer of an abusive priest in early 1980. Benedict denied being present at the meeting — but the minutes of the session show he was, Wastl said.

The law firm’s report also criticizes Cardinal Reinhard Marx, who is currently the archbishop of Munich and Freising, for his role in two cases in 2008. Marx offered his resignation to Pope Francis last year, saying he was willing to take responsibility for his part in the sexual abuse crisis. But Francis did not accept his resignation.

Benedict, 94, resigned from the papacy in 2013, making him the first pope to step down in nearly 600 years. His tenure lasted just under eight years.

The long-awaited report, “Sexual abuse of minors and adult wards by clerics and full-time employees in the Archdiocese of Munich and Freising from 1945 – 2019,” runs nearly 1,900 pages.

The church in Munich plans to respond publicly to the report in one week, according to Vatican News. The agency says the church did not get an advance copy of the report before it was released Thursday.

Westphal Spilker Wastl conducted the inquiry at the archdiocese’s request, looking into decades of records involving how Catholic leaders handled instances of priests abusing children and adolescents.

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With the 2022 winter Olympics taking place in Beijing in less than two weeks, NBC Sports announced Wednesday that it will not be sending any announcing teams to this year’s Olympics games — citing “COVID concerns.”

“The announce teams for these Olympics, including figure skating, will be calling events from our Stamford (Connecticut) facility due to COVID concerns,” an NBC Sports spokesperson said in an email to NPR.

The spokesperson confirmed that the network will still have a large presence on the ground in Beijing, saying its coverage of everything related to the games will be “first-rate as usual.”

“Our plans are evolving by the day as they are for most media companies covering the Olympics,” the spokesperson said.

As first reported by USA Today, NBC Sports scheduled broadcasting teams to announce from Beijing covering figure skating, Alpine skiing and snowboarding. However, as of Wednesday, those plans have been canceled.

NBC’s Olympic lead prime time host Mike Tirico will still be traveling to Beijing to cover the first few days of the games before traveling to Los Angeles to cover Super Bowl LVI, USA Today reported.

Officials with NBC Sports told USA Today the network’s plan to cover the Olympics from its Stamford facility was a similar strategy used to cover the delayed 2020 Tokyo Summer Olympics last year.

“We’ll have more personnel there than in the host city,” Molly Solomon, president of NBC Olympics Production, told USA Today.

Earlier this week, the International Olympic Committee said no tickets will be sold for both the winter Olympic and Paralympic Games in Beijing due to the “grave and complicated situation of the COVID-19 pandemic.”

Instead, organizers announced this week that they would invite groups of spectators to attend the games in person.

“The organisers expect that these spectators will strictly abide by the COVID-19 countermeasures before, during and after each event as pre-conditions for the safe and sound delivery of the Games,” the Beijing 2022 organizing committee said in a statement.

The International Olympic Committee previously said they only would sell tickets to spectators living in mainland China who met certain COVID-19 safety protocols.

The winter Olympics will take place from Feb. 4 to Feb. 20, and the winter Paralympic Games are scheduled for March 4th through the 13th.

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LIMA, Peru — An oil spill on the Peruvian coast caused by the waves from an eruption of an undersea volcano in the South Pacific nation of Tonga prompted dozens of fishermen to protest Tuesday outside the South American country’s main oil refinery.

The men gathered outside the refinery in the province of Callao near Lima’s capital. Peru’s environment minister, Rubén Ramírez, told reporters that authorities estimate 6,000 barrels of oil were spilled in the area rich in marine biodiversity.

Under the eyes of police, the fishermen carried a large Peruvian flag, fishing nets and signs that read “no to ecological crime,” “economically affected families” and “Repsol killer of marine fauna,” which referred to the Spain-based company that manages La Pampilla refinery, which processes around 117,000 oil barrels a day, according its website. They demanded to speak with company representatives, but no executive had approached them.

The company did not immediately returned an email from The Associated Press seeking comment.

“There is a massacre of all the hydrobiological biodiversity,” said Roberto Espinoza, leader of the local fishermen. “In the midst of a pandemic, having the sea that feeds us, for not having a contingency plan, they have just destroyed a base of biodiversity.”

An Italian-flagged ship was loading oil into La Pampilla on Saturday when strong waves moved the boat and caused the spill. Repsol in a statement Sunday said the spill occurred “due to the violence of the waves.”

The eruption caused waves that crossed the Pacific. In Peru, two people drowned off a beach and there were reports of minor damage from New Zealand to Santa Cruz, California.

On Tuesday, northwest of the facility, on Cavero beach, the waves covered the sand with a shiny black liquid, along with small dead crustaceans. Fifty workers from companies that work for Repsol inside the refinery removed the oil-stained sand with shovels and piled it up on a small promontory.

Juan Carlos Riveros, biologist and scientific director in Peru of Oceana – an organization dedicated to protecting the world’s oceans – said that the species most affected by the spill include guano birds, seagulls, terns, tendrils, sea lions and dolphins.

“The spill also affects the main source of work for artisanal fishermen, since access to their traditional fishing areas is restricted or the target species become contaminated or die,” Riveros said. “In the short term, mistrust is generated about the quality and the consumption of fishing is discouraged, with which prices fall and income is reduced.”

Peru’s environmental assessment and enforcement agency estimates that some 18,000 square meters of beach on Peru’s Pacific coast have been affected by the spill.

In a statement, the Peruvian agency said Repsol “has not adopted immediate measures in order to prevent cumulative or more serious damage that affects the soil, water, flora, fauna and hydrobiological resources.” An AP reporter on Monday observed workers dressed in white suits collecting the spilled oil with plastic bottles cut in half.

José Llacuachaqui, another local fisherman leader, who was watching the cleanup, said the workers were only collecting the oil that reached the sand, but not the crude that was in the seawater.

“That is preying, killing, all the eggs, all the marine species,” he said.

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KYIV, Ukraine — As U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken visits Ukraine, the Biden administration said Wednesday it’s providing an additional $200 million in defensive military aid to the country amid soaring fears of a Russian invasion.

A senior U.S. State Department official said the assistance was approved in late December as part of American efforts to help Ukraine protect itself. Until Wednesday, however, the administration had refused to comment on it. The official wasn’t authorized to discuss the matter publicly before Blinken’s meetings in Kyiv and spoke on condition of anonymity.

“We are committed to Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity and will continue to provide Ukraine the support it needs,” the official said. The official did not detail the contents of the aid package.

The announcement came as Blinken opened a hastily arranged visit to Kyiv as he and other administration officials step up warnings about a possible Russian invasion of Ukraine. The White House said Tuesday that Russia could at any point launch an attack in Ukraine.

In comments to U.S. Embassy staff in Kyiv, Blinken went further by saying that Russian President Vladimir Putin has plans to significantly enhance Moscow’s military presence near Ukraine’s border, which now numbers roughly 100,000 troops.

“We know that there are plans in place to increase that force even more on very short notice and that gives President Putin the capacity, also on very short notice, to take further aggressive action against Ukraine,” Blinken said.

After his meetings with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and other senior Ukrainian officials and a short trip to Berlin for talks with German and other European allies on Thursday, Blinken will see his Russian counterpart in Geneva on Friday. That meeting is aimed at testing Russia’s willingness to resolve the crisis diplomatically, officials said.

“We’re now at a stage where Russia could at any point launch an attack in Ukraine,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Tuesday. “And what Secretary Blinken is going to go do is highlight very clearly there is a diplomatic path forward.”

The administration and its European allies have accused Putin of creating the crisis by massing troops along Ukraine’s borders and it is up to him and the Russians to decide whether to invade and suffer severe economic consequences.

The U.S. has not concluded whether Putin plans to invade or whether the show of force is intended to squeeze security concessions without an actual conflict. Russia has brushed off calls to withdraw its troops by saying it has a right to deploy its forces wherever it likes on its own territory.

Blinken’s meetings follow inconclusive diplomatic talks between Moscow and the West in Europe last week that failed to resolve stark disagreements over Ukraine and other security matters.

Instead, those meetings appear to have increased fears of a Russian invasion, and the Biden administration has accused Russia of preparing a “false flag operation” to use as a pretext for intervention. Russia has angrily denied the charge.

From Kyiv, Blinken will travel to Berlin, where he will meet with his German, British and French counterparts to discuss a possible response to any Russian military action. In Geneva on Friday, Blinken will be testing Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on Russia’s interest in a “diplomatic off-ramp” for the crisis, the State Department said.

“The trip follows extensive diplomacy with our European Allies and partners about a united approach to address the threat Russia poses to Ukraine and our joint efforts to encourage it to choose diplomacy and de-escalation in the interests of security and stability,” the department said.

CIA Director William Burns visited Kyiv last Wednesday to consult with his Ukrainian counterparts and discuss current assessments of the risk to Ukraine, a U.S. official said, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss Burns’ schedule, which is classified. While there, he also discussed the current situation with Zelenskyy and efforts to de-escalate tensions.

Blinken spoke by phone Tuesday with Lavrov, discussing the diplomatic talks and meetings held last week. The State Department said Blinken “stressed the importance of continuing a diplomatic path to de-escalate tensions” surrounding the Russia-Ukraine situation and “reiterated the unshakable U.S. commitment” to Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.

Russia has rejected the U.S. allegations that it’s preparing a pretext to invade Ukraine. Lavrov dismissed the U.S. claim as “total disinformation.”

Lavrov reaffirmed that Russia expects a written response this week from the U.S. and its allies to Moscow’s request for binding guarantees that NATO will not embrace Ukraine or any other ex-Soviet countries or station its forces and weapons there.

Blinken underscored to Lavrov on Tuesday that any discussion of European security “must include NATO Allies and European partners, including Ukraine,” the State Department said.

The Russian Foreign Ministry said Lavrov emphasized in the call with Blinken the key aspects of Russian draft documents envisaging “legally binding guarantees of Russia’s security in line with the principle of indivisibility of security approved by all countries in the Euro-Atlantic.” It said Lavrov stressed the importance for Washington to quickly deliver a written response to the Russian proposals.

Washington and its allies firmly rejected Moscow’s demands during last week’s Russia-U.S. negotiations in Geneva and a related NATO-Russia meeting in Brussels.

The White House said Friday that U.S. intelligence officials had concluded that Russia had already deployed operatives to rebel-controlled eastern Ukraine to carry out acts of sabotage there and blame them on Ukraine to create a pretext for possible invasion.

Ahead of Blinken’s visit to Kyiv, a delegation of U.S. senators was visiting Ukraine to emphasize congressional support for the country.

Speaking Monday on a visit to Kyiv, German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock warned that “any further escalation would carry a high price for the Russian regime — economic, political and strategic,” and she emphasized the need to continue negotiations.

Russia in 2014 seized the Crimean Peninsula after the ouster of Ukraine’s Moscow-friendly leader and also threw its weight behind a separatist insurgency in eastern Ukraine. More than 14,000 people have been killed in nearly eight years of fighting between the Russia-backed rebels and Ukrainian forces in the country’s industrial heartland called Donbas.

Putin has warned that Moscow will take unspecified “military-technical measures” if the West stonewalls its demands.

___

Associated Press writer Vladimir Isachenkov in Moscow contributed to this report.

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Three officers involved in the August death of 8-year-old Fanta Bility outside of a high school football game near Philadelphia have been charged with 12 counts of manslaughter and reckless endangerment, the Delaware County district attorney announced on Tuesday.

A two-month-long grand jury investigation led to the filing of criminal charges against Officers Devon Smith, 33, Sean Dolan, 25, and Brian Devaney, 41, of the Sharon Hill Police Department, who unleashed a hail of bullets at a car amid crowds of people.

“Police have to be held accountable as everybody else is for deadly force,” District Attorney Jack Stollsteimer said in a news conference.

Stollsteimer’s office also withdrew murder charges against the two teenage boys who started the deadly confrontation on Aug. 27. Angelo “AJ” Ford, 16, and Hasein Strand, 18, had both been charged with first-degree murder in Bility’s death, even after prosecutors determined it was not their bullets that had killed the young girl or injured any of the four other shooting victims.

The charges against the teens drew outrage from activists and local community members who described it as “a ruse to distract from the terrible decisions police officers made that day – and to allow them to evade scrutiny.”

On Tuesday, the district attorney clarified that Ford and Strand are still charged with aggravated assault for their involvement in the shootings.

According to Stollsteimer, Strand “accepted responsibility for his role in this tragedy” by pleading guilty to aggravated assault for his wounding of a child bystander during the gunfight and illegal possession of a firearm. He will serve between 2 1/2 to 5 years in a state correctional facility.

The violent altercation began with a heated verbal exchange between Ford and Strand following a football game at Academy Park High School. According to investigators, the argument resulted in shots fired, which drew the three officers in the direction of the gunfire. All three discharged their weapons more than two dozen times collectively at a passing car as Bility and her family as well as crowds of others leaving the game were in the same vicinity.

During the chaos of the shootout, the officers also injured Bility’s older sister, Mamasu Bility, 12, who suffered a graze wound to her neck, the Delaware Valley Journal reported. The newspaper also noted that Alona Ellison-Acosta was shot in the foot and Anya Kellan suffered a graze wound to her ankle.

Initially, officials believed it was either Ford or Strand who’d hit Bility but that turned out to be wrong.

“We have now concluded beyond a reasonable doubt that it was, in fact, shots from the officers that struck and killed Fanta Bility and injured three others,” the district attorney’s office said in a statement.

“They picked the wrong target, they shot in the wrong direction at it, and they shot as that target was moving through a crowd of people. And that is why Fanta Bility is dead,” Stollsteimer said on Tuesday.

Through their lawyer, Bruce Castor, the Bility family thanked the district attorney’s office “for following the evidence and the law in bringing forth these charges.”

“From the beginning [Stollsteimer] assured them that he would seek justice for Fanta, and today’s charges indicate that he’s done exactly that,” Castor said, adding that “they made the right call.”

NPR member station WHYY reported that “on hearing word of the charges, the Sharon Hill Borough Council announced in a statement that it plans on voting to fire the officers.”

Devaney, Dolan and Smith were taken into custody on $500,000 bail. It is unclear if any or all have been released. Attorneys for the three officers did not immediately respond to NPR.

They are expected to appear in court for a preliminary hearing on Jan. 27.

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