Several thousand residents evacuated two pro-government towns in northern Syria on Thursday, putting an end to one of the longest sieges of the country's seven-year civil war. Fuaa and Kafraya in Idlib province were the last remaining areas under blockade in Syria and a rare example of pro-government towns surrounded by rebel forces. The Shia-majority towns were besieged for three years by rebels and Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), a militant […]
Civilians continue to flee Syria's Eastern Ghouta and Afrin in record numbers as Syrian and Turkish military operations continue against their respective foes. Roughly 50,000 people have fled the two areas - 20,000 from Eastern Ghouta, a Damascus suburb, and 30,000 from Afrin, in Syria's Kurdish-dominated northeast - according to some counts. Eastern Ghouta has been at the centre of fighting between rebels and President Bashar al-Assad's Russian-backed forces in […]
US and EU sanctions against Syria are punishing the population and make aid work in the war-torn country almost impossible, a leaked UN report and internal letters have revealed. The restrictive measures contributed to the destabilization of every sector of the economy in Syria that used to be self-sufficient before the war began in 2011. The country now heavily depends on aid, which is hard to deliver as sanctions make […]
VOC became the first Muslim radio station in South Africa when a special events license was granted to the station in Ramadan/January 1995. Subsequent temporary broadcast licenses were granted, permitting the station to broadcast for 24 hours.
