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Welcome to the archives of Water Deeply. While we paused regular publication of the site on November 1, 2018, we are happy to serve as an ongoing public resource on water resilience. We hope you’ll enjoy the reporting and analysis that was produced by our dedicated community of editors and contributors.
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To give you an overview of the latest news this week, we’ve organized the latest Syrian developments in a curated summary.
With power outages occurring in cities across Syria, some civilians are finding new ways to heat and power their homes, by using the natural resources around them – and even bomb craters. We report from East Ghouta.
After heavy rains hit this camp in Aleppo province, residents scramble to salvage their belongings and shovel away waste from makeshift sewage canals, saying they have been displaced from their homes once again - this time by Mother Nature,
Covering the refugee crisis from Lebanon, Jamjoom discusses rising sectarian tensions in Lebanon and the comparatively bad situation facing refugees there, as he watches children in the Bekaa Valley play in open sewage.
In an Atlantic Council policy brief, Faysal Itani and Caerus Senior Analyst Nathaniel Rosenblatt argue that before it can attempt to moderate negotiations, the U.S. needs to build more leverage with parties on both sides of the Syrian conflict,
The global humanitarian organization announces that 1.2 million of Syria’s refugees are children, nearly half of them are under the age of five. Another three million are living inside the country as IDPs.
Nawwar, who works with the Syrian Arab Red Crescent, describes his work with the group in this mountainous region of southern Syria, where rebel fighting groups are fighting hand to hand with Hezbollah-backed government forces.
Mona, a college graduate in a rebel-controlled area of Assad’s homeland, is working to get displaced students back into a classroom. But she’s facing obstacles – namely how to get a makeshift school up to international standards.
A ceasefire agreement was reached on Jan. 6 in this Damascus town. But people are split on whether it’s effective. We speak with an Assad soldier and a civil activist, who share light on each side’s view of the government-negotiated truce.
This is a special week in our coverage of Syria’s crisis. In a grim anniversary, it marks the milestone of three years since the start of Syria’s uprising.
Attareens, traditional Syrian druggists, are becoming popular with Syrian cancer patients for whom modern treatment has run nearly dry. But doctors warn that their natural remedies might not be safe – or effective.
Teachers in Deir Ezzor province have created classrooms out of cellars in an effort to protect their students from aerial shelling. Here, we tell the story of three teachers struggling to continue their students’ education as war closes in.
As part of our effort to highlight civilian stories, below is a conversation between Syria Deeply and Abu Mehdi, an activist from the city of Hama.
Once their main source of income, olive growing has become a burden for the crop’s Syrian farmers. In a country famous for its home-grown olives and olive oil, farmers are now forced to shoulder the increasingly exorbitant expenses of producing olives before the crops ever hit the market.
Anne Barnard reports on Syria and Lebanon for the New York Times, and has covered stories across the Arab world and Eastern Europe.
When Um Ahmad talks about her sons, she shows a resigned remorse. “I don’t see them anymore,” she says about Ahmad, who chose to fight on the side of the government, and Mohammed, who became an opposition activist.
DAMASCUS – The Syrian flag isn’t just waving over the neighborhoods of Damascus: now it’s also painted on their storefronts. In the Syrian capital, shopkeepers say that government officials are compelling them to paint the Syrian flag on all shop doors in the city of Damascus.
Abu Khaled, a butcher, sets out every day at dawn to the cattle market before returning to his shop in the Adwi neighborhood of Damascus.
As the world watches and worries about an escalating crisis in Ukraine, Russia’s bold moves to protect its interests there are sparking comparisons with its role in Syria.
Hospitals have become a prime target in Syria’s war, struck by both Syrian government forces and by jihadi rebel fighting groups.
On Feb. 26, Syrian state media and activists reported that a Hezbollah-led offense in Ghouta, eastern Damascus, had killed 175 rebel fighters.
This week, fighting erupted in Syria’s majority-Kurdish northeast between the YPG, the official armed wing of the Kurdish Supreme Committee, and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.
Ever since April 2013 the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria has largely controlled the city of Raqqa.
KILIS – Abo Esmael, a 43-year-old originally from Mrrata in Idlib province, was once the owner of a land registry office in Tishreen, the Damascus neighborhood where he lived with his pregnant wife and five daughters.
Amer, a 24-year-old in Moadimiya, has vowed not to leave his hometown. But he says life in this besieged pro-opposition enclave near Damascus is getting harder.
ISTANBUL – In a deserted neighborhood on the outskirts of this city, 40 Syrian families have taken shelter in what once was a refuge for packs of stray dogs. .
CNN’s Arwa Damon has been covering the Syrian conflict since its start. Based in Beirut, she has reported extensively from across the Arab world. But this, she says, is a different story.
This weekend saw a breakthrough in diplomacy and practical action around Syria’s crisis, in the form of a unanimous U.N. Security Council resolution on humanitarian aid.
This week, the Syrian National Coalition announced that it had removed the head of its Supreme Military Council and commander of the Free Syrian Army, Gen. Selim Idris, after he reportedly [clashed with members of the opposition in exile.
On Feb. 16, a Jordanian army spokesman said that Jordan border patrols killed a gunman who opened fire at them as he attempted to cross in from Syria.
Human Rights Watch said that Bashar al-Assad’s forces have resumed their use of cluster bombs in Hama.
Caerus Associates, a strategic consulting firm that focuses on fragile and conflict states, has released a set of what it calls “time-series” data collected from the streets of Aleppo.
Last week, more than 700 civilians were evacuated from Homs, an outcome of concessions between opposition and government delegations made during peace talks in Geneva.
Earlier this week, a cease-fire was struck between the government and opposition groups in the southern Damascus suburb of Babila.
The PYD, a Syrian Kurdish militant group, has established its own autonomous government in the largely Kurdish province of Hassakeh. .
ALEPPO – It has been three months since the Syrian government launched its offensive on this city’s opposition neighborhoods using barrels packed with explosives.
Rebel infighting in Deir Ezzor province has reignited, with the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS) struggling to displace its extremist rival, Jabhat al-Nusra.
The second round of Syrian peace talks in Geneva closed with an air of failure this weekend.
This week, more than 700 civilians were evacuated from besieged areas of Homs city, under the cover of a ceasefire that was the only tangible concession made during the first week of Geneva II peace talks.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has been Bashar al-Assad’s vital political ally since the start of the Syrian conflict three years ago.
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