(Raqqa, Syria) – In late November dozens of volunteers wearing blue suits and white helmets roamed the streets of the city with cleaning supplies, distributing garbage bags in a scene that appeared strange after months of no sanitation services. They began volunteering with the Local Council of Raqqa City after it launched a clean-up campaign at the end of November, […]

(Raqqa, Syria) - Um Mar’ey, a woman in her forties, stands amid scattered tents after washing her children’s clothes in water warmed by wood fire. “We don’t have any blankets or covers. God only knows how we get through our days,” she says as she dries her shivering hands with an old rag.

(Raqqa, Syria) - New Islamist regulations in Raqqa are felt by students every day on a bus that transports them from Raqqa city to the private Ittihad University in the city’s suburbs. The male students sit in the front of the bus, while the girls sit in the back, because the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) has prohibited […]

Just carrying a camera is dangerous in areas controlled by powerful militant group (Ghaziantep, Turkey) — Words of prayer and longing are posted on the Facebook page of Faten Ajjan, a Syrian dissident journalist. Her photographer son, Abboud Haddad, was kidnapped around six months ago by the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS). He was seized in Atmah, in […]

(Raqqa, Syria) - The Free Syrian Army (FSA) has been effectively driven out of Raqqa. Three Salafist groups now dominate the city: the Islamic Movement of Ahrar al-Sham, Al-Nusra Front, and the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS). In light of this new reality, these factions have come to include the greatest number of other battalions, including those that […]

(Raqqa, Syria) - “Our families and people in Raqqa, please forgive us. We love nothing more than to enter a bit of joy and hope to your lives, our wish was that our final statement be in the time where the tyrant Bashar al Assad fell, but circumstances are stronger than we are. We ask god for the better of […]

By Abdel Karim Jaafar (Raqqa, Syria) – Thirteen-year-old Mahmoud was excited to return to his eighth grade classes in September in the north eastern Syrian city of Raqqa, after more than six months of closure. “I was so happy to go back to my desk. I missed my classmates and I missed studying,” he said. Mahmoud resumed classes at the […]

By Zaina Erhaim* (Raqqa, Syria) - Suad stands alone for hours outside the headquarters of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) group in the city of Raqqa in northern Syria, holding up a sign bearing the brightly-coloured inscription, “No to kidnapping, no to detention, no to theft in the name of religion.”

By Lava Selo (Raqqa, Syria) - Some days life seems normal in the city of Raqqa. The markets stay open until the late hours of the evening, people visit cafes and public parks, and playground toys are erected for children in public spaces where families sit on the grass. However, shelling or clashes could begin at any minute. The city […]

Abdul Karim Jaafar (Raqqa, Syria) - Marwan is a 30-year-old volunteer doctor in a field hospital in the city of Raqqa in northeast Syria. He asked his real name not be used due to the danger the disclosure could pose to him and his family. On most days he wakes up to the sound of explosions then quickly heads to […]