Syria

A New Mother Stays In Syria: 'For Sama' Is The Movie She Made For Her Baby

10:25pm July 24, 2019

by Rachel Martin

Waad al-Kateab's documentary is a series of intimate portraits of daily life, marriage and motherhood in Aleppo. Her documentary For Sama is written as a letter to her newborn daughter.

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Laundry dries on a chain link fence in an area for foreign families of suspected ISIS fighters at al-Hol camp in Hassakeh province, Syria.

World News

Thousands Of ISIS Fighters Must Be Tried Or Let Go, U.N. Rights Chief Says

2:45pm June 24, 2019

by Merrit Kennedy

Also, the family members of suspected fighters "should be repatriated, unless they are to be prosecuted for crimes" according to international standards, Michelle Bachelet said.

A Syrian boy walks among demolished shelters at a refugee camp in the northeastern Lebanese town of Arsal, in Lebanon's Bekaa valley, on June 10.

World News

Forced To Demolish Their Own Homes, Syrian Refugees In Lebanon Seek New Shelter

8:01am June 22, 2019

Lebanon requires refugees to live in shelters made of canvas or wood. A new military decree directs them to demolish concrete walls over 3 feet high by July 1. Many don't know where they'll live next.

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Jeelan, 11, the day after being rescued from an ISIS family who had held her captive for the past two years. She says she doesn't remember her Yazidi family. "I want to go back to Um Ali," she says, referring to the Iraqi woman who had been pretending to

World News

'I Want To Go Back': The Yazidi Girls Who Did Not Want To Be Rescued From ISIS

12:56pm June 19, 2019

by Jane Arraf

The girls, ages 10 and 11, were held captive for years and remember nothing of their Yazidi heritage. They miss the ISIS woman who looked after them and tell rescuers they want to return to her.

Caregiver Fajriya Khaled holds a child at an orphanage in northeastern Syria, home to 41 children of Yazidi mothers and ISIS fathers. The Yazidi community in Iraq forces the women to leave their children behind if they want to return home.

World News

In Syria, An Orphanage Cares For Children Born To Yazidi Mothers Enslaved By ISIS

2:54pm June 06, 2019

by Jane Arraf

Because their fathers were ISIS fighters, the Yazidi community rejects the children and forces their mothers to give them up. Some willingly do so, but others are desperate for news of their children.

Dr. Omar Ibrahim: "You have to be calm because people are scared, the civilians and the patients are scared, and they can't see you scared."

Health & Safety

As Bombs Fall, A Neurosurgeon Tells How He Keeps Calm In Syria

7:31pm June 03, 2019

by Diane Cole

Dr. Omar Ibrahim spoke to NPR via Skype from the only working hospital in south Idlib province. The staff, he says, has "just moved into the basement [because of] the attacks."

The People's Defense Court in the Rojava district of northeast Syria. Judges here have been holding trials of thousands of ISIS fighters. The Kurdish-led region broke from Syrian government control in 2012 and has developed its own justice system that it

World News

'Revenge Is For The Weak': Kurdish Courts In Northeastern Syria Take On ISIS Cases

9:42pm May 29, 2019

by Jane Arraf

Kurdish Syrian authorities have tried 7,000 ISIS suspects in a justice system that bans torture and the death penalty. Some of the judges are women, which comes as a shock to ISIS fighters on trial.

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Women sit on the floor as they wait in a clinic at the al-Hol detention camp.

World News

Misery Grows At Syrian Camp Holding ISIS Family Members

5:30pm May 26, 2019

by Jane Arraf

In recent visits to the camp, NPR was told of babies dying of malnutrition, and found women collapsed by roadsides. "There's a lack of supplies and the numbers of patients are huge," a doctor says.

On May 6, an air strike destroyed Nabd Al-Hayat hospital in Syria's Idlib province.

Health & Safety

In Syria, Reports Of 19 Medical Facilities Bombed Since April 28

6:34pm May 17, 2019

by Diane Cole

Strikes by the government and its allies have dealt a devastating blow to Idlib province in the north, where the conflict has escalated since late April.

Ibrahim, 2, in northeastern Syria a few hours after his freed Yazidi mother returned to Iraq without him. Ibrahim's father was an ISIS fighter. Although his mother wanted to take him home, the Yazidis do not allow children of ISIS fathers to live with the

World News

Freed By ISIS, Yazidi Mothers Face Wrenching Choice: Abandon Kids Or Never Go Home

9:35pm May 09, 2019

by Jane Arraf

Women kidnapped by ISIS five years ago are now being freed. But the Yazidi community does not allow children born in captivity of militant fathers to return with them.

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