Donate

Damascus

Hadi Jasim was an Iraqi translator for the US military. Now he's a "global guide" at the Penn Museum in Philadelphia.

This Philadelphia museum hired Iraqi and Syrian refugees as tour guides for its Middle East gallery

Arts, Culture & Media

Refugees from Syria and Iraq help visitors at the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology make connections between history and the present day.

View of Ghouta and Al Kiswah farms.

Bombed and gassed into oblivion: The lost oasis of Damascus

Conflict
buildings reduced to rubble in Eastern Ghouta

‘They are trying to to kill us all.’ Desperate Syrians plead for help in Eastern Ghouta.

Conflict
Smoke rises from the besieged Eastern Ghouta in Damascus, Syria, Feb. 27, 2018.

Opposing sides in Syria’s punishing civil war ask whether they can ever forgive

Conflict
A woman stands inside a Damascus grocery shop beside a picture of Syria's President Bashar al-Assad. The text beneath the Syrian leader reads "With you" in Arabic.

Middle class residents of Damascus cling to a surreal good life, even with ISIS pounding on the door

Conflict
A Syrian child who lost both of her parents attends a gathering organized by a charity for orphans in Douma, near Damascus.

Hope is all but gone in Syria, but some in the country still work for change

Justice

Most people who live in Damascus fear voicing an opinion that doesn’t echo that of either the government or the armed opposition. But some residents reject the bitter polarization that divides their country.

Diana Darke in the courtyard of her house in Damascus, Syria.

A British author fights to hang onto her home in Damascus

Conflict

Like many homeowners, Diana Darke simply fell in love with her house and couldn’t pass it up. But the British author’s dream home was in Damascus, now caught in the Syrian civil war. Yet Darke refuses to give up on her house — or Syria itself.

Syrians voted on Tuesday in an election expected to deliver an overwhelming victory for President Bashar al-Assad but which his opponents have dismissed as a charade.

Why some Syrians see their vote as a choice between barking dogs and baying wolves

Conflict & Justice

Syrians went to polls on Tuesday, at least in government-controlled areas where military planes buzzed the skies. One journalist in Syria says that some people pricked their fingers and voted in blood. Syrians went to polls on Tuesday, at least in government-controlled areas where military planes buzzed the skies. One journalist in Syria says that some people pricked their fingers and voted in blood.

Residents wait to receive food aid distributed by the U.N. Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) at the besieged al-Yarmouk camp, south of Damascus

Yarmouk is a man-made disaster zone, right inside the Syrian capital of Damascus

Conflict & Justice

It’s difficult not to be moved by some of the images coming out this week of one particular district in Damascus. In Yarmouk, a sea of grim faces stare out from two rows of bombed out buildings. This section of the Syrian capital, after being under siege for months, has become a man-made disaster zone.

Men ride bicycles past damaged buildings along a street in the Duma neighborhood of Damascus, December 2013.

Can independent radio journalism broadcast in Syria today?

Arts, Culture & Media

Until last year, Honey al-Sayed was the host of a drive-time radio program with a strong following of middle-class Syrians in Damascus. But when the government of Bashar al-Assad began to doubt her loyalty, she fled Syria to create her own radio station.