Written by Jack Bettar
Spread across fertile mountains, between olive and pistachio groves, and across windswept limestone hills, sits an assortment of ancient ruins, some mysterious, but all precious not just to Syria’s history but to the history of humankind in general.
In the Aleppo and Idlib governorates (provinces), there can be found unique and rare insights into life more than...
Written by Chris Ray, this article was first published by Monthly Review Online, 10 January 2020
Sanctioning Syria
By Chris Ray
The United Nations was willing to pay for doors, windows and electrical wiring in Alaa Dahood’s apartment but not for repairs to her living room wall torn open by a mortar strike. That was deemed to be ‘reconstruction’—an aid category forbidden...
Syria extends from desert landscapes to fertile plains. There are undulating hills with olive groves that stretch to the Mediterranean Sea. Under the night skies, the lights of villages twinkle. Snow-capped mountains look down on modern suburbs, but also on ancient columns, khans, castles and places of worship.
There is evidence of earthquakes and invasions stretching back millennia, but for...
Article by Rasha Milhem
22 April 2020
Above image: Church in Daraa, empty of its congregation for the Orthodox Easter Sunday service because of COVID-19 restrictions. (Ref: SANA, Christian denominations in Syria that follow Eastern calendar celebrate Easter)
Only international solidarity and cooperation among States can slow down and eventually defeat the common enemy
Professor Dr Alfred de Zayas
Syria’s Minister of Health, Nizar...
Posted by S. Dirgham, who accepts all responsibility for the technical glitches with the subtitles.
Translation of video interview by Rasha Milhem and Sarah Nachar.
This page is being posted on 17 April 2020 to celebrate Syria's 'Evacuation Day'. It is an especially significant day because April 2020 marks 100 years since the San Remo conference, a meeting of the prime...
This video interview with Professor Maamoun Abdulkarim took place in a Damascus cafe on 22 September 2019. It wasn't the best environment to discuss a serious subject, and I had no external microphone for my mobile phone, but we made do.
Susan Dirgham
(For a transcript of the interview, please go to the bottom of this page.*)
During the worst years of...
Tima Kurdi, author of ‘The Boy On The Beach’ (Simon & Schuster, 2018), was born and raised in Damascus.
In 1992, she immigrated to Canada but maintained close links with her family in Syria. There were joyful reunions back in Damascus, but in September 2015, a personal tragedy struck the Kurdi family.
Tima’s younger brother Abdullah, his wife Rehanna, and their...
Part 2: Tima Kurdi, author of ‘The Boy On The Beach’ (Simon & Schuster, 2018), speaks to Sarah Nachar and Susan Dirgham about:
Women in Syria
COVID-19 and Sanctions on Syria
Syria - Our Good-Hearted Mother
Women In Syria Today
Tima describes the dramatic changes that have taken place since she grew up in Syria, when women mainly stayed at home...
Published by Beloved Syria with the permission of the author.
Lady Damascus was first published in SYRIA through writers’ eyes, edited by Marius Kociejowski (Eland Publishing Ltd, 2010).
Brigid Keenan is a journalist and author. Her book Damascus: Hidden Treasures of the Old City (Thames & Hudson, 2000) and the photographer Tim Beddow who helped her produce it are mentioned in Lady Damascus. See this...
Written by Alex Ray and first published in Middle East Eye, 26 May 2019
The capital's green spaces symbolise how many are trying to revitalise the environment amid the blood of war.
By Alex Ray in Damascus
26 May 2019
Fareed Notafji sips the sweet, strong labourer’s tea as we sit in front of the guard shed at the SEA Environmental Garden in Damascus.
When...
