FOUND: 3 | Mind Blowing Facts

‘I feared I would end up in the trench’: Digging Assad’s mass graves in Syria

IN FOCUS: Bel Trew reports from the site of a mass grave at Qutayfah, about 25 miles from the Syrian capital Damascus. There, she speaks to someone who dug the trenches before realising the true horror of what was happening at the site – while others warn of the scale…

The Independent UK · Dec 21, 2024

Could Syria return as a tourism destination? What to consider after years of devastation under Assad

Exclusive: While Damascus airport is currently closed, daily flights connect the UK with Beirut, which is only 60 miles from the Syrian capital

The Independent UK · Dec 17, 2024

Syria’s rebels took Homs back from Assad in a matter of days. Now they have to police it

ON THE GROUND: Bel Trew meets the new police chief in Syria’s third city, tasked with keeping the peace now that forces led by the Islamist Hayat Tahrir al-Sham have ousted the regime of Bashar al-Assad. Every city across the country is now facing the same question: who will rule…

The Independent UK · Dec 16, 2024

‘They used us as a testing ground for all kinds of weapons’: Syrians return to destroyed town

ON THE GROUND: Bel Trew visits Jobar – north of Damascus – which was devastated by some of the fiercest battles of the civil war. She meets residents returning home for the first time in more than a decade. Both they, and Syria itself, face major challenges in starting anew

The Independent UK · Dec 11, 2024

‘We think he died just before regime collapsed’: Syrians scour morgues full of tortured bodies

SPECIAL DISPATCH: From Assad’s slaughterhouse jail to the hospital morgue piled up with mutilated bodies, desperate Syrians search for family members disappeared under a despot’s brutal regime, reports Bel Trew

The Independent UK · Dec 10, 2024

The Independent’s Bel Trew shows struggle of crossing Syria border after fall of Assad dictatorship

A border that would have been populated by Bashar al-Assad's regime forces was deserted as The Independent international correspondent Bel Trew crossed over from Lebanon.

The Independent UK · Dec 10, 2024

‘Death is chasing us’: Syrian refugees flee Lebanon airstrikes straight into jaws of fresh war against Assad

SPECIAL REPORT: Bel Trew and Rana Najjar speak to those who have tried to escape Israeli strikes, only to find themselves on the front of another conflict, and visit a refugee camp in Lebanon to speak to those who fear for their relatives

The Independent UK · Dec 7, 2024

Ghost towns rattled by sporadic gunfire: Tensions run high in fragile Lebanese-Israeli ceasefire

On the ground: Three days after Israel and Hezbollah agreed a ceasefire, Bel Trew visits the decimated towns on the southern Lebanese border where locals are not yet allowed to return

The Independent UK · Dec 1, 2024

Lebanon counts cost of the war between Israel and Hezbollah: ‘We need a miracle to rebuild’

ON THE GROUND: Bel Trew and Rana Najjar meet residents in and around Beirut looking to reconstruct their lives as a fragile ceasefire holds

The Independent UK · Nov 28, 2024

Abortion rights won major victories on Election Day. But Trump and his allies could threaten them

Trump says he wants to leave reproductive healthcare up to the states, where millions of women delivered a powerful rebuke to anti-abortion laws. Lawyers and civil rights groups are bracing for what’s next, Alex Woodward and Bel Trew report

The Independent UK · Nov 7, 2024