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 country of Oman is surrounded by conflict but has managed to stay neutral. It is now trying to lessen the tension between the U.S. and Iran.
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Oman plays an important role in trying to bridge relations between the U.S. and Iran and its incoming ambassador to the United Nations says he still has hope conflict can be averted.
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Syrians already suffering from war are seeing their source of food go up in flames amid widespread crop fires that appear to be intentionally set.
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President Bashar al-Assad has called on the millions of Syrians who've fled the brutal civil war to return home, but thousands who have come back end up imprisoned and often tortured.
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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. -
Two women and six children are being repatriated to the U.S. from northern Syria — at the request of the American government. It's likely they are family members of ISIS fighters.
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Government forces have been bombarding one of the last rebel-held areas of Syria. This is happening in an area that had been set aside as a buffer zone between Turkish and Russian-controlled areas.
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ISIS released a video Monday purportedly showing its leader's first appearance in about five years. He mentions the Sri Lanka suicide bombings and says the group will keep fighting.
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Amnesty International says U.S.-led forces killed 1,600 civilians during the fight to get ISIS out of the Syrian city of Raqqa. Reporting on the ground showed people shocked by the force used.
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Seven people were killed in a bombing of a Save the Children-supported hospital in Yemen.
