The Guardian’s picture editors select photographs from around the world

Thousands of tourists arrived to see lava in recent weeks, but not all were prepared for treks up the Sicilian volcano

A river of fire from the depths of the Earth carves its way through the black rocks of a mountain blanketed white with snow. Above, the setting sun tints the clouds red. Fountains of lava that explode from a crater soar hundreds of metres into the air and Etna’s roar echoes across the Sicilian sky.

Its recent eruptions were a breathtaking spectacle, drawing thousands of tourists and unwary daytrippers – many there for a selfie. For some, the outcome was catastrophic.

Barely known to each other before they were abducted by the brutal al-Shabaab militants, a friendship forged in adversity helped them and their children find safety

Ancha*, who was 20, had been kidnapped and held captive in a house in northern Mozambique for two months when 17-year-old Fatima* was brought there. What their captors did not know – even after the young women’s daring escape together – was that they were cousins.

Both had grown up around Mucojo, a small coastal town 130 miles (210km) south of the Tanzanian border, from where they had been abducted in separate raids in 2020 by Ahlu Sunnah Wa-Jamaa militants, an Islamic State-affiliated group known locally as al-Shabaab (though it has no links with the Islamist militants of the same name in Somalia).