Ruth Sherlock
Ruth Sherlock is an International Correspondent with National Public Radio. She's based in Beirut and reports on Syria and other countries around the Middle East. She was previously the United States Editor for the Daily Telegraph, covering the 2016 US election. Before moving to the US in the spring of 2015, she was the Telegraph's Middle East correspondent.
Sherlock reported from almost every revolution and war of the Arab Spring. She lived in Libya for the duration of the conflict, reporting from opposition front lines. In late 2011 she travelled to Syria, going undercover in regime held areas to document the arrest and torture of antigovernment demonstrators. As the war began in earnest, she hired smugglers to cross into rebel held parts of Syria from Turkey and Lebanon. She also developed contacts on the regime side of the conflict, and was given rare access in government held areas.
Her Libya coverage won her the Young Journalist of the Year prize at British Press Awards. In 2014, she was shortlisted at the British Journalism Awards for her investigation into the Syrian regime's continued use of chemical weapons. She has twice been a finalist for the Gaby Rado Award with Amnesty International for reporting with a focus on human rights. With NPR, in 2020, her reporting for the Embedded podcast was shortlisted for the prestigious Livingston Award.
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The fall of a Syrian opposition town to the government this week after a siege and threats of air strikes serves as a reminder that the civil war continues.
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A Human Rights Watch report states there's little chance the probe will hold any ranking officials accountable — despite evidence they failed to act on warnings about dangerous chemicals at the port.
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The Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha finds people in Lebanon mired in an economic crisis that makes eating or paying rent difficult — let alone taking part in family celebrations.
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On Monday, flames swept through outbuildings of the al-Hussein Teaching Hospital in Nasiryah that had been set up to isolate COVID-19 patients.
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It was a decision that appalled and angered Syrian opposition groups and international medical organizations. On May 28 Syria was appointed to the World Health Organization's Executive Board.
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After Syria announced the expected victory of President Bashar Assad in an election widely condemned as fake, three Syrians talk about the country's future.
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The dictator's choice of voting location sent "a message telling the opposition that we are celebrating through your demise," one Syrian analyst tells NPR. The government said Thursday that Assad won.
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Parents on both sides had to find ways to protect their children. "Yes, the cease-fire has been enforced. But how are we going to deal with children traumatized by this?" asks a mother in Gaza.
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Yemenis who won the diversity visa lottery were stopped by the Trump administration's travel ban. Now they've had to start applying all over again. "Our lives have been destroyed," says one man.
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During the 11 days of fighting between Hamas and Israel, parents used special toys, breathing exercises and promises to calm their children's fears.