Syria civil war: Germany holds unprecedented state torture trial (BBC News)
“Two men accused of committing crimes against humanity for the Syrian state have gone on trial in Germany.
It is thought to be the first case worldwide examining the use of torture under President Bashar al-Assad's rule.”
Syria's divisions damage efforts to mobilise against coronavirus (Al Jazeera English)
“Like al-Matar, thousands of Syrians have started moving back to the Idlib region since a truce brokered by Russia and Turkey took effect in March, halting an offensive in the last remaining rebel stronghold.
Saher al-Ali, 32, a driver, also went back to Nairab to try fixing his house.
‘What will happen next, only God knows,’ he told Reuters news agency. ‘Where was I supposed to live? In the camps or in the street? If the battles come back, we will flee again.’
President Bashar al-Assad controls the rest of the country, including the main cities. WHO has steered most of its anti-coronavirus help through his government, forcing the UN agency to work with an opaque system that has not extended help to non-government areas.
Covid-19: 'If there was a severe outbreak in Syria, there would be a bloodbath’ (France 24)
“While the Covid-19 pandemic has killed more than 180,000 people worldwide and infected more than 2.5 million, Syria has officially reported relatively few cases. If the epidemic were to worsen there, the death toll would be all the higher as the country, still under international sanctions, lacks basic medical equipment.”
In Syria, people build makeshift ventilators to fight coronavirus (Al Jazeera English)
“‘If coronavirus cases start to surface here, it will spread widely,’ said Ayoub Abdul-Karim, a 20-year-old graduate who specialises in medical equipment. ‘We're working on this today because there won't be enough machines. We suffer in the hospitals from a big lack of ventilators.’
His homemade ventilator is assembled inside a brown wooden box, with white plastic hoses sticking out to help the patient breathe.”
Makeshift oil refineries a necessary evil for locals in north-east Syria, study finds (The Guardian)
“Black pools, long trenches and charred earth have become common sights in the fields of north-west Syria, signs of an informal oil economy that has developed during the war.
Despite damaging both the environment and health, up to 5,000 backyard oil refineries, crucial to the livelihoods of besieged Syrians, have cropped up in recent years, identified through satellite imagery in a report by open source investigators Bellingcat.”
