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Syria’s women prisoners, drawn by an artist who was one

Azza Abo Rebieh got her guards to give her pencils and paper, then began sketching the faces and habits of fellow inmates in Syria’s notorious detention system. This is Hiam, a 65-year-old woman smoking a cigarette and sipping matteh, a warm herbal drink popular in Syria. It is...

A crime or a right? Some Danish Muslims to defy face veil ban

On Aug. 1, when face veils are banned in Denmark, Sabina will not be leaving her niqab at home. Instead, she will be defying the law and taking to the street in protest. In May, the Danish Parliament banned the wearing of face veils in public, joining France and some other European...

In Damascus, Syrians dare to hope war’s end may be near

Crossing into Syria from neighboring Lebanon, visitors are greeted by giant posters of President Bashar Assad. The signs proclaim: “Welcome to victorious Syria.” In the capital of Damascus, many of the checkpoints that for years have snarled traffic are gone. The city is...

Street by street, gutted Harasta begins reconstruction

Khaled’s delicate hands were accustomed to cutting and styling hair in his Syrian hometown Harasta. Now, they’re hauling concrete and sweeping floors in order to repair homes ravaged by years of fighting.Mountains of rubble still block many of the main thoroughfares in Harasta, a town...

Syria: ‘One country,’ or uneasy co-existence

Former Syrian rebel commander Omar Melhem has nearly come full circle. He was a colonel in the Syrian regime army when the uprising against Bashar Assad began in 2011. He defected a year later and joined the armed revolt against the Syrian leader. Then, when Assad’s forces marched...

Injured civilians turn to historic foe Israel amid Deraa bloodshed

The last thing Diaa, 24, remembers is the growl of an aircraft above his village in Deraa, Syria, the target of a brutal offensive by the regime against the rebels. He and an employee had gone outside their shop to take a look. The ground was suddenly ripped from beneath their feet. The...

Syrian girl born with no legs finds hope in Turkey

Earlier this month, Maya Merhi, 8, born with no legs due to a congenital condition, was moving around a Syrian displaced persons camp on artificial limbs made of plastic tubing and tin cans. But after pictures of her plight, including those taken by AFP in Syria, were seen around the...

Syrian mother reunites with children after 3 years

A Syrian mother rejoined her two children in Turkey's southeastern Sanliurfa province after a-three-year search with help from the Humanitarian Relief Foundation (IHH). Nur Naser was living with her husband and two children in Syria's Eastern Ghouta, which was besieged by Bashar...

Afghan peace march wins hearts of many

The peace march of peasants, students and farmers from Afghanistan’s restive Helmand province has already won hearts and minds of many war-weary Afghans halfway through their destination, Kabul. The Helmand Peace March evolved from the sit-in camps in this southern province when a...

Innovative Syrian father brings Eid joy to his children

An inventive father in Syria’s southern Daraa province has found and repaired an amusement park ride destroyed by regime shelling so his children might enjoy the Eid al-Fitr holiday. After finding the damaged ride in an abandoned, burnt-out amusement park near Daraa city, Abu...

Years after IS, Syrian Kurds rebuild Kobane alone

(AFP) - After giving up on getting help from Syrian Kurdish authorities, Ahmed Saleh relied on relatives abroad to repair his home in Kobane after it was heavily damaged in a battle against jihadists. Much of the border town along Syria's northern frontier with Turkey was left in ruins...

‘Cat man’ starts animal clinic in Syria

At an unlikely cat shelter in rebel-held northern Syria, Mohammed Alaa al-Jaleel gently holds a feline patient on her back as an ultrasound probe is rolled across her pregnant belly. In a time of war, she is one of hundreds to have received medical attention at the makeshift animal clinic in...

Displaced from Ghouta, Syrians seek refuge in emptied Afrin

Displaced from her home in Syria’s Eastern Ghouta, Umaima al-Sheikh and her family sought refuge in an abandoned house across the country in Afrin. The traditionally Kurdish town had been emptied of its residents just weeks earlier, after a brutal Turkish-led offensive forced tens of...

35,000 people settled in Afrin region amid ethnic repopulation claims

(Zaman Al Wasl)- Around 35,000 of those bussed out of the onetime rebel bastion of Eastern Ghouta near Damascus have resettled in Afrin region by Turkey as the original residents, mostly Kurds, see return as a distant dream. A Turkish-led assault this year displaced over 137,000...

Damascus displaced taste first Ramadan in makeshift camps

(Zaman Al Wasl)- After stranding in the displacement camps, the evacuees of southern suburbs of Damascus have welcome the holy month of Ramadan with a very tragic situation. The newly refuge what has the holy month a heavy guest on the residents of the camp of Deir Al Balout near...

Civilians risk their lives to cross river in Raqqa

Civilians in a northern Syrian city have been risking their lives to cross the Euphrates River after bridges that the YPG/PKK terrorists destroyed have not been repaired even after a year. The bridges, which link Raqqa city center with southern and western rural areas of the country, on...

War-weary Syrian refugees welcome Ramadan

Millions of civilians in Syria have entered their eighth Ramadan amid ongoing attacks by the regime and its allies. Tens of thousands of refugees who took shelter in camps near the Turkish border have been provided with humanitarian assistance. Aid organizations have set up makeshift...

Disabled activist 'wanted to show loyalty to Jerusalem'

Disabled Palestinian Fadi Abu Salah, 30, was among 62 martyrs killed by Israeli troops during Monday’s peaceful rallies near the Gaza-Israel fence, where Palestinians protested Israel’s occupation and the relocation of the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem. Born in the Gaza Strip in 1988,...