Tom Rollins

Author

Tom Rollins

Editor-in-Chief

Tom Rollins is Editor-in-Chief at Syria Direct. He previously worked as an independent journalist in Egypt and Lebanon, and has written for Al Jazeera English, IRIN and Mada Masr. His work focuses on human rights, reconstruction and Palestinian refugees from Syria.

ARTICLES

Syrians in former opposition pockets still using smugglers, corrupt security officials to transport themselves north amid ‘false promises’ of reconciliation

April 11

Residents of formerly opposition-held areas are paying smugglers thousands of dollars to transport them to the country’s last rebel stronghold.

New legal initiative launches for ‘invisible’ families of Syria’s countless detained and disappeared

March 28

The stories are often similar, repeated tens of thousands of times over: uniforms bursting through the door, loved ones taken away. Then, the silence.

‘When things happen in the dark, there’s a higher risk that abuses occur’: HRW’s Nadim Houry on post-IS transitional justice

March 25

Seemingly endless lines of Islamic State fighters streamed out of the group's last pocket, Baghouz, last weekend as US-backed fighters from the Syrian Democratic Forces rendered t...

Final IS territory reduced to ragged strip of Euphrates river bank as SDF closes in

March 19

Backed by warplanes from the US-led anti-IS coalition, the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) advanced on a long-besieged pocket of territory held by fighters from the Islamic State (...

Turkey attempts to salvage Sochi agreement as bombing devastates Idlib

March 13

Explosion after explosion rocked the southern Idlib city, where shelling has become an almost daily feature of life.

Displaced months ago, ‘undocumented’ Palestinians in Syria’s rebel-held northwest hope for end to civil status limbo

March 04

Residents threw their bags onto the roofs of the evacuation buses, years-old rubble tumbling from their apartment blocks into the streets outside.

As IS defeat in Deir e-Zor nears, concern turns to tribal tensions, sleeper cells

February 14

Men thought to be IS fighters leave Baghouz Fawqani with their families on Wednesday. Photo by Fadel Senna/AFP. AMMAN: The murky outline of one corpse, maybe more, lies in the mi...

‘War continued through other means’: How reconstruction risks perpetuating violence in a post-war Syria

February 12

"Down with gangster rule." Graffiti in downtown Beirut, February 2. Photo by Tom Rollins for Syria Direct. When the reconstruction of downtown Beirut first began in the 1990s, on...

In downtown Beirut, signs of the coming cost of Syria’s reconstruction plans

February 12

Residential tower blocks under construction in downtown Beirut, February 2. Photo by Tom Rollins for Syria Direct. BEIRUT: In the streets around downtown Beirut one weekend after...

Key Syrian reconstruction figures sanctioned by EU as business delegation heads to UAE

January 21

An overhead view of the Marota City construction project, from an October 2018 promotional video. AMMAN: The European Union on Monday announced sanctions against 11 prominent Syr...