A suburb in the city of Homs in Syria has returned to the headlines. Just a few weeks ago, an agreement was reached to finally put the guns down in Al-Wa’er and allow relief agencies to deliver humanitarian assistance to an area not reached for almost two years. Al-Wa’er always brings vivid memories. It’s spring 2013 and… Read more →←
Author: Juliette Touma
Leaving the departures terminal in Baghdad airport is like walking into an oven. It is over 50 degrees. I haven’t been to Baghdad for three years. When I last left, I thought the country was on the right track. Things have, however, taken a sharp turn since June last year – and not in the right direction. More than three million… Read more →←
The highway from Beirut to Damascus is lined with brightly-coloured billboards, depicting some of the landmarks of this historic and beautiful country. There’s one from the souks in the Old City of Aleppo, another from a courtyard in Damascus and a third showing the imposing Crak des Chevaliers fortress outside Homs, built by the… Read more →←
I got on the plane to Erbil not knowing what to expect. I had mixed feelings about going back to Iraq, a country I worked in for more than three years. When I left in 2012, I thought Iraq was in a pretty good shape, I guess I was wrong. The drive from Erbil to a town only 9 KMs away from Mosul was long. It was over 40 degrees, a typical… Read more →←
“We’re done,” shouted an excited aid worker from across the fence. Thumbs up. Colleagues who had very quickly become friends applauded and cheered. We had just sent the last UNICEF truck. Truck number 16. Part of the first-ever UN humanitarian convoy that had gone from Turkey to Syria. Over the past four days, I had been at the… Read more →←
The drive to the border town of Mardin in southeast Turkey was long. We reached the town in the evening, a sleepy border town that has become a centre of attention in the past few days. Humanitarian aid to Syria was going in from Turkey for the first time ever since a brutal civil war began more than three years ago. We drove to the… Read more →←
