Displaced Syrian grows mushrooms to feed family

The Syrian province of Idlib, one of the last remaining rebel strongholds in the country's north, is experiencing a new wave of Covid-19 infections, driven by the more contagious Delta variant. This comes as the regime intensifies bombings in the region, putting local hospitals under even greater pressure. We take a closer look.

The upsurge in violence in Syria combined with its plummeting economy are making life increasingly bleak for civilians, United Nations investigators say.

Russian President Vladimir Putin condemns the presence of foreign troops in Syria at talks in Moscow with the war-torn country's President Bashar al-Assad. Russia has been a key ally of the Assad regime throughout the Syrian conflict, which erupted in 2011 with the repression of anti-government protests. Russia's military intervention in 2015 helped turn the tide of the war in Assad's favour.

Here are a few reasons to pick up a copy of The Guardian on Thursday. Find these stories and much more when you grab a copy of The Guardian on Thursday.⁣⁣

A new Syrian-Jordanian deal on energy for Lebanon is being seen by some as another step towards the international rehabilitation of the brutal Assad regime.

In its first report on the Syrian war death toll since 2014, the UN said at least 350,209 people have died in the decade-long conflict. But admitted the real toll is likely to be much higher.

A civil war has been raging in Cameroon since 2016. Separatists in Anglophone regions want their own state, called Ambazonia.

Rifaat al-Assad, dubbed the butcher of Hama, was exiled by the Syrian president's late father. He was facing four years behind bars in France for laundering embezzled funds.

Between 1991 and 2002, the small West African nation of Sierra Leone was ravaged by a decade of war, which left between 50,000 and 200,000 people dead. The conflict was also marked by rapes, mutilations and the forced use of child soldiers in both the rebel and regular armies. Twenty years on, the country is still trying to recover from the civil war, one of Africa's most brutal. Sierra Leone remains deeply divided and plagued by corruption. And despite its many riches, it is one of the poorest countries in the world.

Here are a few reasons to pick up a copy of The Guardian on Wednesday. Find these stories and much more when you grab a copy of The Guardian on Wednesday. ⁣

The missionaries had been heading home from building an orphanage when they were pulled off a bus by a gang, according to media reports. Haiti has witnessed more than 300 kidnappings already this year.

At least 10 civilians were killed and another 35 injured on Wednesday by an Assad regime attack in Idlib, northwestern Syria, according to medical sources. Artillery of regime forces and Iranian-backed foreign terrorist groups targeted a marketplace in the center of the town of Ariha in rural southern Idlib, an area under opposition control.