notorious assad regime in the notorious sednaya prison. and thousands gather for mass in corsica, as pope francis visits the island for the first time. hello, i'm samantha simmonds. it's feared that thousands of people may have been killed by cyclone chido in the french archipelago of mayotte in the indian ocean. a local official has been quoted as saying that the death toll may be in the thousands. residents have spoken of apocalyptic scenes in mayotte. the mayor of the capital, mamoudzou, said nothing had been spared. houses have been destroyed, along with schools and the hospital. french emergency personnel are now on mayotte to assist and the first aid flight has arrived. chido has now reached northern mozambique after picking up strength crossing the mozambique channel. greg mckenzie has this report. the french indian ocean territory of mayotte. cyclone chido made

landfall here on saturday. the devastation and aftermath cleared to see entire communities flattened by gusts of more than 140mph. islanders sheltering any way they can. officials fear the death toll will be in the hundreds, or even higher. located north—west of madagascar, mayotte is an archipelago comprised of one main island and several smaller ones. most of the island's 300,000 or so inhabitants live in shacks with sheet metal roofs. tens of thousands of people have lost their homes. electricity, water and internet connections are all down. translation: no matter how the houses were built, everything - has been destroyed. i think that you can see a little bit of that all around me. people are doing their best to try and rebuild their houses,

but the work is going to be extremely long. the government in paris has sent a military transport plane with supplies and emergency workers. mayotte hasn't seen a storm this intense in more than a decade. strict lockdowns in place for the whole population, including emergency services, have now been lifted as some try to buy what little provisions are available. we've come to get something to eat for the kids, for us adults, for everyone. we've got nothing left. we had stocked up, but the wind has taken it all away. we've had no water for three days now, so it's starting to be a problem. we're trying to get the bare minimum to live on because we don't know when the water will come back. now those in its path in the mozambique channel brace themselves with more heavy rain and flooding predicted. greg mckenzie, bbc news. in a television interview, the prefect of mayotte said

guy taylor is the spokesperson for unicef in mozambique, and he explained what the situation is like there and the challenges that lay ahead. we were hit very hard in the early hours of this morning when cyclone chido arrived in mozambique as an intense tropical cyclone. it brought winds of over 200km an hour and, as you said, very intense rainfall. and we've been out in the city today seeing some of the aftermath of that impact, so many houses destroyed or seriously damaged, health care facilities, schools put out of action. and obviously people are trying to pull together their lives after a very serious impact, so a very difficult situation here in mozambique. and what is unicef doing in terms of its crisis response there? yeah. well, fortunately, we saw this cyclone coming, as many others did, and that enabled us to prepare. we pre—positioned large quantities of essential supplies in pemba, where we have a warehouse, and we've already begun distributing those to the hardest hit. so things like water purification supplies, medications, supplies to prevent and treat the spread

of cholera and other waterborne diseases, which is another serious concern for us, given the large volume of rainfall. and, as you said, lots of homes, medical facilities, schools damaged. what are the longer term challenges the country is now going to face, and what help are you going to be able to offer? yeah. well, as you say, the longer term challenges are what we're particularly concerned about. i mean, mozambique is one of the poorest countries in the world. and cabo delgado, the province which has been hit, is one of the poorest provinces in the country. we already have about 3.4 million people in mozambique... sorry, 3.4 million children in need of humanitarian assistance. and this is only going to make the situation worse for them. we're concerned in the immediate term about loss of access to critical services — things like medical treatment, schools, clean water and sanitation, which are, of course, critical to preventing the spread of disease.

and then, as i mentioned, we're also worried about the spread of diseases like cholera and malaria over the longer term. so you're a major aid organisation that's there on the ground. is there any sign of any more international aid or help coming? we're working very closely together with other un partners and with support from our international supporters. we are very concerned about the scale of the need, particularly as it's exacerbating an already very difficult situation. and so we're we're calling urgently for additionalfunding to help us meet the needs of the people here who are really in a very, very difficult and very precarious situation. guy taylor from unicef. the israeli government has approved a plan to expand settlements in the occupied golan heights — a move considered illegal under international law. prime minister benjamin netanyahu defended the decision

because of what he called the "new front" that's opened up in syria. israel captured the golan heights from syria in 1967. an armistice was signed between them in 1974 and a buffer zone established. but after the fall of president assad, israeli troops entered the buffer zone — again in violation of the agreement. our correspondent lucy williamson reports now from the village of hader where she encountered israeli troops on syrian territory. an hourfrom damascus on a syrian country road, we met israel's army. an impromptu checkpoint on the only route into hadar village. military vehicles and troops in full combat gear. earlier this week, israel said it was seizing control of syrian territory in a demilitarised zone set up in a ceasefire agreement 50 years ago. hadar overlooks this buffer zone. parts of the village even jut into it.

the village chief points out the territory israel occupied in 1967 from the mountains of the golan to the galilee. many residents in this druze community have relatives still living there. now they see israeli forces moving around their own village. a week after president assad's regime fell, the sense of freedom here comes tinged with fatalism. maybe they leave. maybe they stay. maybe they go away. maybe they... they make the area safe and then go away to, uh, to the border. we want to hope. but in the future, we will wait and see. israeli bulldozers are clearly visible above the village. many syrians fear israel simply wants to grab more land. israel says it's motivated by the threat from jihadist groups and that its incursions

would be limited and temporary. the iran backed groups that israel was fighting here have been weakened by the fall of assad. israel is taking advantage of this moment to extend its reach here and deal with new potential threats. the village chief said dozens of men, including his own son, died defending the village from militia of all kinds during syria's war. translation: israel is a state. we can't stand up to it. we used to stand up to individuals, but israel is a superpower. israel's prime minister has talked about a new front in syria. syria's new islamist leader has warned of unnecessary escalation. its long awaited freedom overshadowed by talk of war. lucy williamson, bbc news, hadar.

israel says it will close down its embassy in dublin in light of "the extreme anti—israel policies of the irish government". in a statement, foreign minister gideon saar cited ireland's decision to recognise a palestinian state earlier this year and dublin's announcement of support for south africa's legal action accusing israel of genocide over its assault on gaza. irish prime minister simon harris has reacted, calling israel's decision "deeply regrettable" and saying that he "utterly rejected" the assertion that ireland is anti—israel. "ireland is pro—peace, pro—human rights and pro—international law," he has tweeted. the foreign secretary, david lammy, says the uk has made diplomatic contact with the rebel group in syria that ousted president assad. hts remains a proscribed terrorist organisation — but mr lammy said officials would deal with the group "where we have to". hts remains a proscribed organisation, but we can have diplomatic contact, and so we do

have diplomatic contact, as you would expect. we want to see a representative government, an inclusive government, we want to see chemical weapon stockpiles secured and not used, and we want to ensure that there is not continuing violence. and so, for all of those reasons, using all the channels that we have available — and those are diplomatic and, of course, intelligence—led channels — we seek to deal with hts when we have to. a week on from the fall of the regime our international editorjeremy bowen has been to the much feared sednaya jail on the outskirts of damascus, and looks at the challenges syria now faces. driving through the gates of sednaya prison was the journey no syrian wanted to take. many didn't come out alive. now the prison has been broken open, like the country

and on sednaya's forbidding hill outside damascus, there are signs in the prison yard of how far syria has come injust a week. volunteers are here to try to preserve sednaya's records. it looks as if someone tried to destroy what was done here. when dictators and their henchmen fall, making sure they don't take the truth with them is a big part of a better future. it's slow work. run away! yeah! a runaway guard. in sednaya's cell corridors, you can see how hard it will be to mend the country assad broke. families come here searching for those they've lost. it is estimated more than 100,000 people disappeared since 2011. after being detained by the old regime. the volunteers found that the truth was even worse than they had feared, in cells that still stink of misery.

translation: it is terrible, terrible. i there are bags of urine on the floor. they couldn't go to the toilet, so they had to put urine in bags. the smell... there is no sun or light. i can't believe people were living like this when we were breathing normally and living our normal lives. the rubble is left from attempts to find hidden cells. sednaya's basements were the dark heart of the assad regime. it used the fear of this place to coerce and repress the people. just punishing the torturers who lurked here and healing their victims is a huge undertaking on its own. this prison is full of horrible little details of the way that people were mistreated. this area is full of blankets, bits of clothing, uniforms. i'd say there's a strong possibility that they kept dozens of men cooped up in here like sardines in absolutely brutal,

bestial conditions. every syrian i've met has said that the future has to be built on justice for the past. these men in the prison yard called sednaya a mass grave and wanted bashar al—assad to be decapitated. ahmed, searching for the brother he said lives on in his dreams, did three years in sednaya. it was so bad. the torture, the food, everything we were suffering. translation: we are many. from al qamishli, hasakah, raqqa or looking for their loved ones. thousands are still in the streets looking for their children. it's notjust me. another huge challenge — reconstruction. who will pay? the economy was destroyed by the war and sucked dry by the corruption of the assads. this isjobar, close

to damascus city centre. we drove through the ruins to see hassan abu schwab back with his family after 11 years injail, sentenced to death for terrorism. the regime's word for rebellion, which he denies. the neighbours were firing into the air to celebrate the return of sons from the war. what do you think should happen to the sort of guys who tortured prisoners like you? translation: they should be punished. we are human souls, after all, not stones. otherwise we won't get through this. some of them tortured human beings to death. i saw a 49—year—old man in my cell die. they tortured him for three days, then wrote in the report that he had a stroke. you've been through a terrible experience. so has the whole country. how do you get over it and build a better place?

translation: we need to forget, to move on. | this is a happy time for all syrians. we need to get back to work. we turn the page. all the sadness is behind us. forgetting the assads is not easy when they've left 90% of syrians in poverty. these men came to sednaya from aleppo to find their brothers. now they're camping in the prison, nowhere else to go. and no escape from a hard future and a past full of pain. jeremy bowen, bbc news, damascus. the israeli prime minister benjamin netanyahu says he's spoken with us president—elect donald trump about developments in syria. the two spoke on saturday night, with the israeli prime minister saying they have no interest in a conflict with syria. mr netanyahu says they also spoke about a recent push to secure the release of israeli and foreign hostages held by hamas in gaza.

two people have been arrested after what police called �*a hazardous drone operation' near boston's logan airport airspace. the arrests come after a spate of drone sightings in recent weeks across six states in the north eastern united states. our correspondent rowan bridge has been following the story. well, this all happened yesterday afternoon. boston police said that they spotted a device flying dangerously close to boston's logan airport around 11:30, and they detected that it was being flown from an island just off the coast of boston, long island. the boston harbour police were dispatched. there were three people that they tried to track down there. they managed to get hold of two of them. one of them escaped. the two people who were arrested are 42—year—old robert duffy and 32—year—old jeremy folcik, and they also recovered a backpack with a drone in it. now, those two men are due to appear in court charged with trespass, they were on land they weren't officially meant to be on, but the police say they could face further charges

because this is obviously an ongoing investigation into what happened. i mean, flying a drone near an airport is extremely dangerous. they can cause potential damage to the aircraft or to a helicopter, which could be potentially extremely serious, but also they can cause aircraft to have to divert their course at the last minute, and that carries major risks as well. yeah, and in recent weeks we have been hearing about drone activity across the skies in the us, so just put this update into context for us. yeah. i mean, there's been a real sort of frenzy around this issue since sort of mid—november, when the first reported sightings of these drones happened, and they started off around the sort of newjersey area, and they've spread to a number of states, mainly in the north—east of the united states, but also some spotted in southern california as well. and, in fact, i wasjust reading a briefing that was given by some of the federal authorities. on that briefing, the fbi talked about how they set up a tip line because the emergency services were being inundated with calls about these drones, some of which are up

to almost two metres across. the fbi said that they've now had 5,000 calls to their tip line around these drones, but they say that actually most of them, they think, aren't anything suspicious, that, infact, a number of them, they suspect, are actually aircraft that have just been misidentified at night as being drones. but having said that, they are not dismissing this issue. they accept that there is a something going on with drones flying around the north—east, and nobody is exactly sure where they've come from. such is the sort of level of concern around this, alejandro mayorkas, the homeland security secretary, was out on tv this morning saying extra federal resources are being sent to newjersey to help to try and reinforce the effort to work out what's going on here. two russian oil tankers have sunk in bad weather in the kerch strait that separates russia from occupied crimea.

footage shows one tanker split in half. an operation is under way to rescue the crews and assess the extent of the oil spill. russia has been using a fleet of so—called �*ghost�* tankers to evade western sanctions. many of these are old and poorly maintained. seven people have been taken to hospital in fiji after suspected alcohol poisoning. it's believed all those affected were guests at a resort where they drank cocktails in the bar on saturday night and fell ill shortly afterwards. it comes just a few weeks after the death the resort said in a statement that they were taking it very seriously and conducting a thorough investigation. it comes just a few weeks after the death of six tourists in laos because of suspected methanol poisoning. our reporter — who's from fiji — vandhna bhan has the details. the alcohol incident in fiji happened near the south—west coast near a small town, and it happened that there five star resorts. it is very different to the incident we saw in laos

at a backpackers' hostel. fiji, unlike many parts of southeast asia, is not known for backpacking culture because it is expensive. it is predominantly tailored towards family holidays and honeymooners, a different demographic. the ministry of health says those hospitalised are aged between 18 and 56, four are australian, one american and two foreigners currently living in fiji, so expatriates, a very different demographic to laos where it was teenagers and young adults affected, some who sadly died. that was because of perhaps bootleg alcohol. in fiji bootleg alcohol. in fiji bootleg alcohol, orfake bootleg alcohol, or fake alcohol, bootleg alcohol, orfake alcohol, is not as big an issue as in southeast asia. fiji a very —— it's very protective about its tourism image on the international scale because it

makes up about 40% of their gdp, the largest industry. there are lots of questions at the moment adds to how and why this happened at a five—star luxury resort. the investigation is in its early stages and police have been on sight at the resort. the ministry of health has issued advice to the public to be careful about what they consume over the festive period, and the australian authorities have issued a warning to travellers to fiji during this busy summer period. we understand that two australian families are receiving consular support. this is a very unusual and out of the ordinary incident for fiji, so authorities will want to get to the bottom of this as soon as possible. the home secretary, yvette cooper, has refused to set out a timetable to reduce the number of boats crossing the channel — despite describing the figures as "far too high". it comes as the government said

it had returned 13,500 failed asylum seekers to their home countries since the election injuly. damian grammaticas reports. immigration enforcement raids, seeking to root out those in the uk without the right permissions. this is one arm of the government's strategy. it says deportations it says deportations have gone up. have gone up. and in italy this weekend, and in italy this weekend, the other arm of the strategy, the other arm of the strategy, the home secretary, shared the home secretary, shared a stage with ministers a stage with ministers from front line mediterranean from front line mediterranean states, france, italy and states, france, italy and malta. malta. how are you? how are you? this is about building this is about building partnerships with countries partnerships with countries either where migrant roots to this is really step by step. either where migrant roots start or which they start or which they pass through. pass through. yvette cooper, meeting her italian counterpart, yvette cooper, meeting her italian counterpart, said it's about recognising said it's about recognising migration is complex and can't migration is complex and can't be solved by empty slogans. be solved by empty slogans. there is a history of home there is a history of home secretaries and prime ministers secretaries and prime ministers making grand promises but never making grand promises but never actually having a proper plan. actually having a proper plan.

the approach we're taking the approach we're taking to this is really step by step. we are putting in place the things that we need, the agreements with other countries, the stronger returns arrangements, the much stronger law enforcement. earlier in the week in london, it was ministers from northern europe she was meeting.

enforced return happened despite hundreds of millions spent. the idea was a gimmick that did nothing to deter. and as yvette cooper was in italy, another rescue and more lives lost in the mediterranean. all part of the chain. the government is trying to break. damian grammaticas, bbc news. brazilian president luiz inacio lula da silva has been released from hospital after two emergency surgeries to fix a bleed on his brain. the 79—year—old spoke publicly at a hospital press conference in sao paulo, saying he was "healed" and "just needed to take care of himself". he stressed that he was keen to get back to work as soon as possible with his medical team's blessing. the pope has wrapped up the first—ever papal visit to the french island of corsica. pope francis arrived in the papal plane on sunday morning before moving through the packed streets of the capital ajaccio in his popemobile.

he held an open—air mass, before meeting with president emmanuel macron at the airport ahead of his departure. plenty more on that story and all of the day's other top stories on the bbc news website. stay with us here on bbc news. thanks very much for watching. hello there. much of the country today had a fine and largely dry one, and it was milder than it was yesterday, despite the lack of sunshine. now, this mild theme is here to stay, certainly for the first half of this upcoming week, but it will be dominated by low pressure, so it will be wet and windy at times, and then all areas will be turning colder from thursday onwards, with an increasing chance of wintry showers on hills in the north. at the moment, though, we're in this wedge of milder air, rather cloudy skies because of a lot

of moisture there. and on this boundary between the mild and colder air across northern scotland, we've got a weather front which is going to bring persistent rain, which will drive into the western highlands, rainfall totals really mounting up even as we head into monday as well. elsewhere, apart from some drizzle across western hills, it will be mostly dry, variable cloud and a mild night to come. so it starts mild on monday for all areas. we've got that rain still piling into the north and west of scotland, particularly the north—west highlands. elsewhere, variable cloud, some sunshine, a bit of drizzle i think, across western hills, but mild again with temperatures into 10 to 13 celsius. but we've got some concerns of the amount of rain just falling across the north—west highlands by the end of monday into early tuesday. some of the worst affected areas could be up to 150mm, so that could cause some localised flooding and some travel disruption. but as we move into tuesday, that weather front eventually starts to shift northwards as we start to pick up a southerly wind thanks to a renewed area of low pressure. and again it will be a mild start to tuesday. here it is, a new area

of low pressure, more isobars on the charts. this one's a bit more powerful than we've had over the weekend, so it looks like it'll be windier with gales around irish sea coasts. outbreaks of rain for northern ireland and into western scotland again, areas that really don't need any more rain. but i think the midlands eastwards and large parts of eastern england should stay dry all day on tuesday, but rather cloudy with limited sunshine. mild double figure values for most, wet, windy weather with gales spreads across the country during tuesday night. another area of low pressure will arrive later on wednesday, but we're in between the weather systems for wednesday, so we should see quite a bit of dry weather across the northern half of the country with some sunshine. a few showers across western scotland and then we'll start to see wet and windy weather pushing up from the south across england, wales into northern ireland. given some sunshine we could be up to 15 degrees across eastern england. it does turn colder for the end of the week. wintry showers across northern hills. a bit of sunshine in the south.

this is bbc news. the headlines. the authorities in the french indian ocean territory of mayotte say the number of dead following the devastation caused by cyclone chido will definitely be in the hundreds, and possibly in the thousands. the cyclone has largely destroyed sha ntytowns where about a third of the islands' population lives. an air bridge to provide relief has been put in place from reunion island, another french overseas territory.

the home secretary yvette cooper has refused to set out a timetable to reduce the number of small boats crossing the channel, despite admitting the figures are "far too high". she said slogans would not solve the problem and insisted international cooperation was the key to securing the uk's borders. over 13,000 migrants have been removed from the uk pope francis has made the first papal visit to the staunchly catholic french mediterranean island of corsica. he met the president and celebrated an outdoor mass. now on bbc news, newscast. this is the moment when we meet in person. it is. you are misleadingly shy for a moment. i didn't know it was me first, but i am next to henry on the sofa in his christmasjumper. it's christmassy, but it's quite but it's quite interesting i thought this was christmassy even though it has no trees or anything. it is a christmas adjacent pattern.