Syria

Emergency teams search in the rubble for people in a destroyed building in Adana, Turkey, on Monday.

World News

More than 3,400 people have died after earthquakes hammer Turkey and Syria

5:09pm February 06, 2023

A powerful earthquake rocked southeastern Turkey and northern Syria early Monday, killing more than 3,400 people and injuring thousands more. Hundreds of families are still trapped.

Emergency team members search for people in a destroyed building in Adana, Turkey on Monday.

World News

Photos: A devastating earthquake hits Turkey and Syria

3:29pm February 06, 2023

Search-and-rescue efforts are underway as the death toll began soaring after a powerful earthquake struck southeastern Turkey and northern Syria early Monday.

ICARDA lab employee Bilal Inaty cuts a lentil plant in order to test it for various diseases at the ICARDA research station in the village of Terbol in Lebanon's Bekaa valley, on Dec. 21, 2022.

How ancient seeds from the Fertile Crescent could help save us from climate change

10:30am January 25, 2023

Some of the tens of thousands of seeds stored at a facility in Lebanon's Bekaa Valley may hold keys to helping the planet's food supply adapt to climate change. Many seeds were saved from Syria's war.

Queue Listen Now

Visitors, including Dead Sea researcher Yael Kiro from Israel's Weizmann Institute of Science (second from left), examine salt formations on the shore of the Dead Sea in Israel on Nov. 5.

The Dead Sea is dying. These beautiful, ominous photos show the impact

6:00am December 11, 2022

Its water level is dropping. Big sinkholes are swallowing up whole tracts of land around it. Here is why a disaster is unfolding at the Middle East's iconic salt lake.

Lebanese Red Cross ambulances, carrying the bodies of people who died in a boat sinking, cross between Lebanon and Syria on Friday.

World News

At least 77 people died when a boat carrying migrants sank off Syria, an official says

3:06pm September 23, 2022

by The Associated Press

The incident was deadliest so far as a surging number of Lebanese, Syrian, and Palestinians have been trying to flee crisis-hit Lebanon by sea for a better future in Europe.

A destroyed building next to flowers on Thursday in Borodianka, Ukraine. The region around Ukraine's capital continues to recover from Russia's aborted assault on Kyiv, which turned many communities into battlefields.

Russia-Ukraine war: What happened today (June 30)

5:01pm June 30, 2022

by NPR Staff

A roundup of key developments and the latest in-depth coverage of Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

A U.S.-led military raid in Syria captures a senior IS leader

5:39am June 16, 2022

by The Associated Press

The coalition did not name the person but identified him as one of the top leaders of the extremist group's Syria branch.

Mariana Vishegirskaya stands outside a maternity hospital that was damaged by shelling in Mariupol, Ukraine, on March 9. Vishegirskaya later gave birth to a girl in another hospital in Mariupol.

Health & Safety

Russia's strike on Ukraine maternity hospital is part of a terrible wartime tradition

6:00pm March 16, 2022

by Diane Cole

The attack on the facility in Mariupol reflects an unfortunate trend in wars in Syria, Ethiopia and other countries. The impact on health care in the short-term and the long run is beyond devastating.

Refugees fleeing the military operation zone from the Mariupol area of Ukraine sit in a bus as they arrive at the border crossing in Veselo-Voznesenka, Russia, on Monday.

What the war in Syria tells us about Russia's use of humanitarian corridors

10:11am March 08, 2022

by The Associated Press

Observers say Russia's use of such corridors were effective in attaining the goals of regaining control of opposition areas.

Russian President Vladimir Putin (right) hosts Syrian President Bashar al-Assad during a meeting in the Kremlin in Moscow on Sept. 13, 2021. The U.S. says Russia is recruiting Syrian fighters to help with its war effort in Ukraine.

Russia is trying to recruit Syrians to fight in Ukraine, U.S. says

5:01pm March 07, 2022

by Greg Myre

The reported Russian effort to find Syrians with urban combat experience is the latest indication that Russia's invasion of Ukraine is not going as planned.