Ruth Sherlock
speaker
937 appearances
123 recordings
4 series
first heard Nov 2024
last heard 1 Jul
Ruth Sherlock’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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recordings per month · last 12 monthsRecordings per month over the last 12 months — 88 in all, peaking in Jun 2026 with 19.
Appearances
Well, you know, you might be able to hear the high caliber rounds being fired behind me. It's the rebels testing weaponry they've acquired. But apart from these explosions, they seem to be trying to keep a pretty light touch here, Michelle.
You know, they swept down from this rural province of Idlib and they seem to be trying to show Damascenes, people from here, that they can go about their business. And there's not even a lot of checkpoints, for example. And what is quite extraordinary is is they seem to now be handling a relatively managed handover of power. They've formed this new transitional government.
And this even includes some politicians from the old regime. They're pardoning soldiers who were conscripted into the military service, but they are dismantling the feared security apparatus, the intelligence bases of the regime, and saying that they will bring war criminals to justice.
A lot of the new faces in this new government are similar to those in the Islamist-led government in the rebel-held province of Idlib that they controlled for years. They are projecting moderate stances for now, saying women can dress as they please, for example. But, you know, many Syrians say it's still really too early to know how this will go.
Well, look, a big priority here is the missing. You know, this regime ruled with fear and rights groups estimate tens of thousands of people disappeared into prisons and detention centres of the regime's main intelligence agencies. And under Assad, their families weren't even told where they were being held, why they were being held, or even if they were alive. So we went to Sednaya prison.
That's one of the most feared complexes known for torture, mass executions. And now it's just open. You can walk right in. And the prisoners were released by rebels in the first hours after the regime fell. But so many more are still missing and now the prison is full of relatives.
They're searching for clues about their loved ones that were taken in jail and mainly, you know, maybe trying to find some kind of closure. One elderly man, Ratib Zamalkani, he was walking away from the prisoners we walked up and he had this rope tied like a noose in his hand and he said he believed this was used to hang prisoners. He's saying, why did they have to put my son in cells underground?
Where is he? Where is he? He asks. And he tells us he took the noose from the prison to show the world the cruelty of the Assad regime.
Well, Israel has carried out hundreds of airstrikes in Damascus and around to stop what it calls strategic weapons from falling into the wrong hands. The Russians still have their air base here and a naval port in Syria's Tartus. And the Americans are still here with a mission to help Kurdish allies fight the extremist group ISIS that is still operating in the central Syrian desert.
So there are a lot of foreign countries involved here still. That is NPR's Ruth Sherlock and Damascus.
Damascus is calm, but there were these huge plumes of smoke rising from buildings that were hit by heavy bombardments by Israel, who's been targeting military positions of the former regime. So the air was thick with this kind of acrid dust and it catches in your throat. We saw people wandering around into security bases and palaces. And these are places they couldn't have stepped inside before.
And now they're curious, trying to see the insides of this regime that ruled them for so long.
People are dazed and incredulous. You know, there's celebrations across the country. Like you said, you know, Leila, this regime was in power for over 50 years. And then there was 13 years of devastating civil war. And the Assad family seemed to have won. Then it collapsed like a house of cards. The regime collapsed in the space of just over a week.
So there's now major celebrations across the country, but also among the millions of Syrian refugees, many of whom now want to return. NPR producer in Lebanon, Jawad Rasallah, went to Arsal, that's a town on the border with Syria where families have lived in tents for years. He asked a refugee there, Mahmoud Satouf, to describe what was happening.
And, you know, in Damascus there's been celebrations, also some looting, but also Syrians are accessing places they've never been before, like Assad's family palace. This war plunged people into extreme poverty. Now you're seeing the opulence in which the Assad family lived, like sports cars in the garages, and Syrians are coming out of the palace holding fine china and silverware. Shh!
Well, over 100,000 detainees are believed to be unaccounted for in Syria, and now their loved ones want to find them. So you've got families combing the Sednaya prison in Damascus. There's this huge complex. It was synonymous with fear and torture during the regime. Thousands of people have disappeared there.
And now, you know, rights groups say that many of the prisoners have died there of neglect, of torture. There were mass executions in the prisons. But we're also seeing these incredible scenes of detainees being freed.
What you're hearing here is, you know, the sound from a video showing cell doors being bashed open as prisoners, gaunt and grey and dazed, are crying wildly as they learn that the regime has fallen. Some are too injured to walk, so you're seeing them drag themselves towards the exit.
And rescuers believe, though, there are many more prisoners underground in these cells behind thick walls, so now they're searching for a way to free them too.
President Biden says the White House believes he is alive and his parents, Mark and Deborah Tice, have never given up. They're speaking to the media, calling on Syrians to find Austin and help him. Deborah Tice said, direct him to his family, please.
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