diff --git a/pkgs/development/libraries/libxml2/default.nix b/pkgs/development/libraries/libxml2/default.nix
index 2d2fb89d595..7ed50f61224 100644
--- a/pkgs/development/libraries/libxml2/default.nix
+++ b/pkgs/development/libraries/libxml2/default.nix
@@ -14,6 +14,20 @@ stdenv.mkDerivation rec {
     url = "http://xmlsoft.org/sources/${pname}-${version}.tar.gz";
     sha256 = "0wd881jzvqayx0ihzba29jl80k06xj9ywp16kxacdqs3064p1ywl";
   };
+  patches = [
+    # Upstream bugs:
+    #   https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=789714
+    #   https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/libxml2/issues/64
+    # Patch from https://bugzilla.opensuse.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1065270 ,
+    # but only the UTF-8 part.
+    # Can also be mitigated by fixing malformed XML inputs, such as in
+    # https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gnumeric/merge_requests/3 .
+    # Other discussion:
+    #   https://github.com/itstool/itstool/issues/22
+    #   https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/pull/63174
+    #   https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/pull/72342
+    ./utf8-xmlErrorFuncHandler.patch
+  ];
 
   outputs = [ "bin" "dev" "out" "man" "doc" ]
     ++ lib.optional pythonSupport "py"
diff --git a/pkgs/development/libraries/libxml2/utf8-xmlErrorFuncHandler.patch b/pkgs/development/libraries/libxml2/utf8-xmlErrorFuncHandler.patch
new file mode 100644
index 00000000000..9f4c99b0934
--- /dev/null
+++ b/pkgs/development/libraries/libxml2/utf8-xmlErrorFuncHandler.patch
@@ -0,0 +1,30 @@
+Index: libxml2-2.9.5/python/libxml.c
+===================================================================
+--- libxml2-2.9.5.orig/python/libxml.c
++++ libxml2-2.9.5/python/libxml.c
+@@ -1620,6 +1620,7 @@ libxml_xmlErrorFuncHandler(ATTRIBUTE_UNU
+     PyObject *message;
+     PyObject *result;
+     char str[1000];
++    unsigned char *ptr = (unsigned char *)str;
+ 
+ #ifdef DEBUG_ERROR
+     printf("libxml_xmlErrorFuncHandler(%p, %s, ...) called\n", ctx, msg);
+@@ -1636,10 +1637,16 @@ libxml_xmlErrorFuncHandler(ATTRIBUTE_UNU
+ 	    str[999] = 0;
+         va_end(ap);
+ 
++#if PY_MAJOR_VERSION >= 3
++        /* Ensure the error string doesn't start at UTF8 continuation. */
++        while (*ptr && (*ptr & 0xc0) == 0x80)
++            ptr++;
++#endif
++
+         list = PyTuple_New(2);
+         PyTuple_SetItem(list, 0, libxml_xmlPythonErrorFuncCtxt);
+         Py_XINCREF(libxml_xmlPythonErrorFuncCtxt);
+-        message = libxml_charPtrConstWrap(str);
++        message = libxml_charPtrConstWrap(ptr);
+         PyTuple_SetItem(list, 1, message);
+         result = PyEval_CallObject(libxml_xmlPythonErrorFuncHandler, list);
+         Py_XDECREF(list);