The conference, known as COP29, begins on Monday in Azerbaijan and is one of the most important multilateral talks to include the Taliban, who do not have outside recognition as the legitimate rulers of Afghanistan.

The National Environmental Protection Agency posted on social media platform X that a technical delegation had gone to Baku to participate.

Matiul Haq Khalis, the agency’s head, said the delegation would use the conference to strengthen cooperation with the international community on environmental protection and climate change, share Afghanistan’s needs regarding access to existing financial mechanisms related to climate change, and discuss adaptation and mitigation efforts.

Experts told The Associated Press that climate change has led to numerous and negative impacts on Afghanistan, creating serious challenges because of the country’s geographical location and weak climate policies.

“Climate change has resulted in higher temperatures, which reduce water sources and cause droughts, significantly affecting agricultural activities,” said Hayatullah Mashwani, professor of environmental science at Kabul University. “The reduction in water availability and frequent droughts pose severe threats to agriculture, leading to food insecurity and challenges to livelihoods.”

In August, the international aid agency Save the Children published a report saying that Afghanistan is the sixth most vulnerable country to the impacts of climate change and that 25 of its 34 provinces face severe or catastrophic drought conditions, affecting more than half the population.

Afghanistan also had the highest number of children made homeless by climate disasters of any country as of the end of 2023, according to the report.

Professor Abid Arabzai, from Kabul University, said the climate conference would help to secure international assistance and funding to address Afghanistan’s climate challenges.

“Afghanistan can clarify its climate actions and commitments to the global community, enhancing its international reputation,” said Arabzai.

Yet between 700 and 1,000 local residents remain, most of them living in the basements of apartment buildings, without running water, heating or electricity. The only place to charge phones is in the basement of the building now housing the city administration.

The exact number of people is impossible to determine because, since mid-October, no humanitarian volunteers have come to Kurakhove.

Under attack from artillery, multiple rocket launchers, aerial bombs and drones, Kurakhove has become the new Bakhmut, as Russia continues its drive westward to capture all of the Donbas region. On Friday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called the situation in Kurakhove, as well as the key city of Pokrovsk, “the most challenging.”

The hospital, schools, kindergartens, water treatment plant, refugee centre, post office, technical school and cultural centre have all been destroyed. Smoke hangs in the air as bombed-out apartment buildings burn against a backdrop of artillery fire and drones.

Artillerymen of the 33rd Brigade say they are firing around 50 shells per day on the Kurakhove front, indicating critical activity in the Russian army’s offensive operations and the brigade’s desperate attempts to stop Russian forces from encircling the city.

Local authorities remain in the city, as well as representatives of the police and local Territorial Defence Forces.

For Artem Shchus, head of police in Kurakhove, there is little hope of defending the city if it becomes surrounded.

“I don’t think it is possible, considering the reality of modern war and modern technologies. In that case, the logistics could be performed only by drones,” he says.

Shchus calls the road to Kurakhove, which is lined with burned-out civilian vehicles, the “road of death,” due to persistent Russian drone attacks. Five civilians have been killed while trying to leave.

No supplies would enter the city without the “White Angels” evacuation group, made up of local police officers and volunteers. They provide first aid to the wounded and remove the bodies of those killed in shelling, all while operating the city’s only functioning food store.

The White Angels bring in vital supplies in an armoured vehicle kitted out with electronic warfare equipment — the only way to enter the city, and still a journey fraught with risk.

“Without REB (jammers) it is just a lottery. With it, you might still have a chance to survive,” Shchus says.

The only way to escape the city is to travel with the White Angels. Each day, they risk their lives to evacuate between six and 12 people from different parts of the city and surrounding villages.

Although children are meant to have been evacuated, parents often hide them, both from the bombs and from law enforcement officers. Among the White Angels’ key missions is to find children and persuade their parents to evacuate.

When this mission is successful and children are removed from the basements, many are shocked by the state of the destroyed city, suggesting that they have been hiding underground for quite some time.

After dressing the children in bulletproof vests and helmets, the White Angels take them to the nearby city of Kostyantynopil, from where other volunteers transport them to refugee registration points in the regional centres of Dnipro or Zaporizhzhia.

“We evacuate people every day without stopping. We just dropped people off in Kostyantynopil, and we still have addresses to go through today,” Shchus explains.

Asked about adapting to work in such challenging and dangerous conditions, the police chief worries about the impact on his team.

“I think everyone has already adapted. I wouldn’t even call it ‘adaptation.’ It’s more like an unhealthy state of mind. I don’t know how this will influence them socially in the future,” he says. “These people are living in inhumane conditions, and they’re surviving on adrenaline. The war is their life. These are hard conditions to work in, but everyone is working.”

The external probe will keep alive a case that the court’s internal watchdog had closed within five days.

Karim Khan has categorically denied the accusations that he tried to coerce a female aide into a sexual relationship, and the claims come amid reports of an ongoing Israeli intelligence campaign to discredit the court’s prosecution of Benjamin Netanyahu for alleged war crimes in Gaza.

The external investigation was approved this week at a meeting of the court’s oversight body, the Assembly of States Parties to the Rome Statute, according to three people familiar with the matter who spoke to AP on condition of anonymity to discuss the closed-door deliberations.

It was unclear exactly who would conduct the probe, the people said, noting that possibilities included law enforcement officials from Europe and a law firm. The United Nations’ internal watchdog has also been discussed for such a probe but that could be fraught with conflict-of-interest concerns because Karim’s wife, a prominent human rights lawyer, had previously worked at the agency in Kenya investigating sexual harassment.

Neither Päivi Kaukoranta, a Finnish diplomat currently heading the ICC’s oversight body, nor Khan’s attorney immediately responded to requests for comment.

An AP investigation found that two court employees in whom the alleged victim confided came forward with the accusation in May, a few weeks before Khan sought arrest warrants against Netanyahu, his defence minister and three Hamas leaders on war crimes charges. A three-judge panel is now weighing that request.

AP reported that Khan travelled frequently with the woman after transferring her to his office from another department at the ICC’s headquarters in The Hague.

During one foreign trip, Khan allegedly asked the woman to rest with him on a hotel bed and then “sexually touched her,” according to whistle-blower documents shared with the court’s watchdog and seen by the AP. Later, he came to her room at 3 a.m. and knocked on the door for 10 minutes.

Other allegedly non-consensual behaviour cited in the documents included locking the door of his office and sticking his hand in her pocket. He also allegedly asked her on several occasions to go on a vacation together.

After the two co-workers reported the alleged behaviour, the court’s internal watchdog interviewed the woman but she opted against filing a complaint due to her distrust of the watchdog, according to the AP investigation. Khan was never questioned and the watchdog’s inquiry was closed within five days.

While the court’s watchdog could not determine wrongdoing, it nonetheless urged Khan in a memo to minimise contact with the woman to protect the rights of all involved and safeguard the court’s integrity.

Under Khan, the ICC has become more assertive in combating crimes against humanity, war crimes and related atrocities. Along the way, it has added to a growing list of enemies.

Last September, following the opening of a probe into Russian atrocities in Ukraine, the court suffered a debilitating cyberattack that left staff unable to work for weeks. It also hired an intern who was later criminally charged in the U.S. with being a Russian spy.

Israel has also been waging its own influence campaign ever since the ICC recognised Palestine as a member and in 2015 opened a preliminary investigation into Israel’s actions.

London’s The Guardian newspaper and several Israeli news outlets reported this summer that Israel’s intelligence agencies for the past decade have allegedly targeted senior ICC staff, including putting Khan’s predecessor under surveillance and showing up at her house with envelopes stuffed with cash to discredit her.

An external probe would go further than what Khan proposed when, following the AP report, he called on the ICC’s internal watchdog to investigate the matter and said he would fully cooperate.