24 April 2020
Damascus resident Karam Mansour writes a first-hand account of life in the now-empty Syrian capital, where militiamen patrol the streets, shops do business in secret, and the homeless have abruptly disappeared.
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Moayad Hokan
The World Health Organization is failing to help Syrians face Coronavirus, much as it failed to help them battle polio several years ago, writes Orwa Khalife.
The shameful scenes this week on the Greek-Turkish border, where at least two have died, underscore the need to offer long-term stability to Syrians’ lives, in contrast to the extreme temporariness of their current existence.
After last week’s arrest in France of a former “Army of Islam” spokesman, Orwa Khalife recounts the gruesome history of the militia, from kidnappings in the Damascus suburbs to ethnic cleansing in the Turkish border zone.
From their numerous “observation posts” dotted across northern Syria, Turkish troops watch idly as Assad and Russia butcher and displace thousands of civilians. Why are they there at all?
Blaming everyone but itself, the Assad regime is fundamentally incapable of remedying the depreciation of the Syrian pound, which has lost over 40% of its value in 2019.
Over 400 Syrians have been killed trying to cross the border into Turkey in recent years. A writer with personal experience traversing the border charts its transformation from an open door to a deadly sealed fortress.
Military service, chants for Bashar, and pretending not to recognize friends in the street: A Homs resident describes life after the regime's recapture of opposition territory.
A young Damascus resident questions the value of the cultural initiatives sponsored by international NGOs in the regime-held capital.
The thriving trade in possessions and even infrastructure looted by the Syrian regime isn't just a symptom of economic crisis and a wider moral breakdown following the war; it points to the ever-worsening criminality that awaits the country's future under Assad.
A former inmate at ISIS’ Tabqa prison recounts the physical and psychological horrors visited upon the women, children, and even babies trapped therein.
The story of a Tartous café frequented by the city’s disillusioned youth offers a ground-level look at the hopes that drove the revolution and the fractures that tore the country apart.