<![CDATA[EL PAÍS]]>

<![CDATA[EL PAÍS]]>https://english.elpais.comTue, 19 May 2026 10:35:42 +0000en1hourly1<![CDATA[Six centuries of resistance of the Roma people in Europe: from Romania to Seville, Spain]]>https://english.elpais.com/society/2026-04-30/six-centuries-of-resistance-of-the-roma-people-in-europe-from-romania-to-seville-spain.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/society/2026-04-30/six-centuries-of-resistance-of-the-roma-people-in-europe-from-romania-to-seville-spain.htmlThu, 30 Apr 2026 17:26:06 +0000She was born on the road, at the foot of a cart loaded with cauldrons and stills, about 70 years ago. Maria Stanescu grew up a nomad, helping in the family business of distilling. She slept under the open sky, next to the fire that served as both hearth and stove. She was free, even though she lacked basic necessities like shoes. Thirty years ago, “the winters were so harsh” that she and her family decided to abandon their nomadic life and build a house in the Romanian village of Fetesti, 145 kilometers east of Bucharest. After becoming a widow, she became the matriarch of a three-generation Roma family who now gather at the entrance of the house.

]]>Alex Onciu<![CDATA[Baghdad’s decline two decades after the war: A mirror for Tehran ]]>https://english.elpais.com/international/2026-04-13/baghdads-decline-two-decades-after-the-war-a-mirror-for-tehran.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/international/2026-04-13/baghdads-decline-two-decades-after-the-war-a-mirror-for-tehran.htmlMon, 13 Apr 2026 10:59:14 +0000“Cairo writes, Beirut publishes, and Baghdad reads,” goes a well-known Arab proverb about the cultural roles these capitals played in the past. A faded grandeur that transformed mid-19th-century Baghdad into one of the intellectual beacons of the Middle East. The Iraqi capital’s prestigious book market now sprawls across the Al Mutanabbi district, named after one of the greatest Arab poets. Turning its back on the Tigris, it opens onto a promenade lined with street booksellers, cafes frequented by artists and intellectuals, street portraitists, and benches where locals sit and read in the sun. Just a 200-meter walk leads to the iconic Shabandar Cafe, bringing one back to reality.

]]>Natalia Sancha<![CDATA[Pilgrims under the bombs on their way to Iraq]]>https://english.elpais.com/international/2026-04-07/pilgrims-under-the-bombs-on-their-way-to-iraq.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/international/2026-04-07/pilgrims-under-the-bombs-on-their-way-to-iraq.htmlTue, 07 Apr 2026 09:44:43 +0000It’s hard to breathe with dozens of bodies pressing in from all sides. The easiest thing to do is to let yourself be carried along by a dense black wave of abayas and chadors. It’s the older women who move forward with the most determination, through the security lines, where the guards conduct thorough pat-downs and searches of bags. The elderly women also set the pace, chanting religious slogans that the rest join in with. They walk barefoot in the mausoleum in the Iraqi city of Karbala toward the tomb of Imam Hussein, son of the fourth caliph Ali — cousin and son-in-law of the Prophet Muhammad — who died in battle in that city in 680, the founding date of the Shia schism of Islam, the branch practiced by between 10% and 15% of the world’s two billion Muslims, according to the Pew Research Center. More than 20 million worshippers visit this pantheon annually, the world’s leading Shia pilgrimage destination. But the war that the United States and Israel launched against Iran in Febrauary has impacted this formidable flow of people.

]]><![CDATA[Shia militias fighting in Iraq lash out at the US: “Iran didn’t start the war”]]>https://english.elpais.com/international/2026-04-04/shia-militias-fighting-in-iraq-lash-out-at-the-us-iran-didnt-start-the-war.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/international/2026-04-04/shia-militias-fighting-in-iraq-lash-out-at-the-us-iran-didnt-start-the-war.htmlSat, 04 Apr 2026 04:00:00 +0000There are city names like Fallujah and Mosul that evoke war and destruction, even though few can locate them on a map of Iraq. The former became associated with the fierce resistance against the U.S. Marines during the 2003 invasion, which toppled Saddam Hussein and ushered in a new political system dominated by Shia parties, which hold a majority in the country. The latter became a symbol of the rise of jihadism when, in June 2014, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi proclaimed the so-called caliphate of the Islamic State (ISIS) from the pulpit of the Great Mosque of al-Nuri.

]]>Natalia Sancha<![CDATA[Mohammed Shia’ al-Sudani: ‘Iraq does not want to be a party to this war, which lacks any legal basis’]]>https://english.elpais.com/international/2026-03-31/mohammed-shia-al-sudani-iraq-does-not-want-to-be-a-party-to-this-war-which-lacks-any-legal-basis.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/international/2026-03-31/mohammed-shia-al-sudani-iraq-does-not-want-to-be-a-party-to-this-war-which-lacks-any-legal-basis.htmlTue, 31 Mar 2026 11:01:13 +0000To reach the Government Palace in Baghdad — where Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia’ al-Sudani received EL PAÍS this Monday — you have to go into the so-called green zone, a part of the capital walled off by concrete blocks that faces the western bank of the Tigris and houses diplomatic and government headquarters, including the U.S. Embassy, a frequent target of attacks by pro-Iranian militias.

]]>NATALIA SANCHA<![CDATA[Iraq mourns its dead after worst strike against its army since the start of the war: ‘Why did the Americans attack us?’]]>https://english.elpais.com/international/2026-03-27/iraq-mourns-its-dead-after-worst-strike-against-its-army-since-the-start-of-the-war-why-did-the-americans-attack-us.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/international/2026-03-27/iraq-mourns-its-dead-after-worst-strike-against-its-army-since-the-start-of-the-war-why-did-the-americans-attack-us.htmlFri, 27 Mar 2026 10:18:32 +0000The pungent smell of explosives fills the air as soldiers’ boots turn over the earth where, just 24 hours earlier, the clinic at the Iraqi army base in Habbaniyah had been operating. The base was reduced to rubble and craters on Wednesday after being struck by two missiles. Officer Abdullah was in the clinic with several colleagues at 9 a.m. when he heard a loud bang, followed by another. The next thing he remembers is being trapped under a concrete wall that had been breached by the impact. His colleagues rushed to his aid when “the plane turned around in mid-air, descended, and began firing bursts of machine-gun fire,” the soldier recalls from a hospital bed in Fallujah, where some of the 23 wounded have been taken. This attack, which resulted in seven deaths, is the worst suffered by Iraqi troops since the United States and Israel began their war against Iran on February 28.

]]>Natalia Sancha<![CDATA[Kurdish-Iranian militias seeking the end of the Islamic Republic: ‘Never in 47 years have we been so close to seeing the regime fall’]]>https://english.elpais.com/international/2026-03-24/kurdish-iranian-militias-seeking-the-end-of-the-islamic-republic-never-in-47-years-have-we-been-so-close-to-seeing-the-regime-fall.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/international/2026-03-24/kurdish-iranian-militias-seeking-the-end-of-the-islamic-republic-never-in-47-years-have-we-been-so-close-to-seeing-the-regime-fall.htmlTue, 24 Mar 2026 11:58:15 +0000Wearing sneakers and military fatigues, General Rebaz Sharifi walks over mounds of rubble scattered around a crater left a few days ago by an Iranian ballistic missile at his military base in Erbil province, northeastern Iraq. He claims to command more than 500 fighters in the ranks of his Kurdistan Freedom Party (PAK) and Kurdish-Iranian forces opposed to the Tehran regime, based in the semi-autonomous Kurdish region of northern Iraq for the last three decades. The military complex is deserted, including the housing. Only a couple of dogs wander among some colorful swings built for the fighters’ children.

]]>Natalia Sancha<![CDATA[The dilemma of Iraqi Kurds in the face of their Western allies’ offensive against Iran: ‘It’s not our war’]]>https://english.elpais.com/international/2026-03-23/the-dilemma-of-iraqi-kurds-in-the-face-of-their-western-allies-offensive-against-iran-its-not-our-war.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/international/2026-03-23/the-dilemma-of-iraqi-kurds-in-the-face-of-their-western-allies-offensive-against-iran-its-not-our-war.htmlMon, 23 Mar 2026 17:33:36 +0000With Iraqi airspace closed due to the U.S.-Israeli war against neighboring Iran, the main gateway to Iraqi Kurdistan is through the Turkish border crossing at Khabur. The journey to the Kurdish capital, Erbil, takes about five hours along roads that, as night falls, are illuminated by countless flashes in the sky. Some are caused by lightning from an untimely nighttime storm. Others are from drones or missiles launched from the east, from Iran, either to strike — or be intercepted en route to — a U.S. installation or a base of the Kurdish-Iranian forces stationed on Iraqi soil. Amid the flashes of the storm and the war, fireworks lit up the sky on March 20 to celebrate the unusual coincidence of the Kurdish New Year, Nowruz, with Eid, which marks the end of the Muslim month of fasting, Ramadan. The colored balls shot into the crowded sky by young Kurds and Arabs were followed by cheers, the clamor of a people who refuse to be dragged into war once again.

Seguir leyendo

]]>Natalia Sancha<![CDATA[Pax Israeliana for the Middle East]]>https://english.elpais.com/international/2026-03-10/pax-israeliana-for-the-middle-east.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/international/2026-03-10/pax-israeliana-for-the-middle-east.htmlTue, 10 Mar 2026 10:39:11 +0000The youngest country in the Middle East is the one redrawing the region’s contours. Israel didn’t yet exist when two diplomats—Britain’s Mark Sykes and the Frenchman François Georges-Picot—sketched a map of influence in May 1916 to divide the provinces of the dying Ottoman Empire. In the folds of those poorly drawn outlines, the seeds of a century of conflict grew. The agreement inaugurated the era of Franco-British tutelage, under the maxim of “divide and rule,” pitting Arab tribes against each other after seducing them with promises of nation-states.

]]>Alex Brandon<![CDATA[The network of Shiite militias that Iran can activate against the US and Israel]]>https://english.elpais.com/international/2026-02-28/the-network-of-shiite-militias-that-iran-can-activate-against-the-us-and-israel.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/international/2026-02-28/the-network-of-shiite-militias-that-iran-can-activate-against-the-us-and-israel.htmlSat, 28 Feb 2026 16:47:17 +0000The Middle East is holding its breath after the United States and Israel launched a “major combat operation” against Iran on Saturday — a move which could drag the region into a war of attrition marked by attacks and reprisals. Unlike the last attack in June 2025, U.S. President Donald Trump has not only threatened to destroy Iran’s nuclear program, but has also spoken of regime change, prompting Tehran to adopt survival mode.

]]>Bilal Hussein<![CDATA[UNRWA chief: ‘Gaza is becoming the graveyard of international humanitarian law’]]>https://english.elpais.com/international/2025-09-01/unrwa-chief-gaza-is-becoming-the-graveyard-of-international-humanitarian-law.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/international/2025-09-01/unrwa-chief-gaza-is-becoming-the-graveyard-of-international-humanitarian-law.htmlMon, 01 Sep 2025 11:57:30 +0000Famine is now official in Gaza, where more than 313 people have died of starvation, adding to nearly 63,000 who have died since the war began in October 2023. The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) has been expelled from Israel and the occupied Palestinian territory in East Jerusalem, and continues to suffer the consequences of a virulent disinformation campaign launched by the Israeli state: it has lost a third of its funding in the midst of war, 90% of its facilities have been partially or completely destroyed, and more than 360 of its 12,000 staff members have died under the bombardments.

]]>Natalia Sancha<![CDATA[Nawaf Salam, Lebanese prime minister: ‘The disarmament of Hezbollah is the goal, not the starting point’]]>https://english.elpais.com/international/2025-05-14/nawaf-salam-lebanese-prime-minister-the-disarmament-of-hezbollah-is-the-goal-not-the-starting-point.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/international/2025-05-14/nawaf-salam-lebanese-prime-minister-the-disarmament-of-hezbollah-is-the-goal-not-the-starting-point.htmlWed, 14 May 2025 12:09:23 +0000“The disarmament of Hezbollah and the complete withdrawal of Israel from Lebanese territory [whose troops still occupy five strategic border towns] must be achieved through negotiation,” says Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam, a former president of the International Court of Justice, aware of the risk of a descent into civil war if his adminstration attempts to do so by force. Three months have passed since he formed a new government of 24 ministers — including five women — who today face a colossal task, the first aspect of which is precisely that: to extract the country from the destructive war waged since October 8 by Israel and the Shia Islamist party-militia Hezbollah, which they must attempt to disarm. Then, or rather simultaneously, they must rebuild parts of southern Beirut and Lebanon devastated by Israeli air strikes, revive an economy in free-fall, and provide jobs and services to lift nearly three-quarters of the Lebanese population out of poverty.

]]>Natalia Sancha<![CDATA[A handful of psychiatrists for Syrians traumatized by 14 years of civil war]]>https://english.elpais.com/international/2025-04-11/a-handful-of-psychiatrists-for-syrians-traumatized-by-14-years-of-civil-war.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/international/2025-04-11/a-handful-of-psychiatrists-for-syrians-traumatized-by-14-years-of-civil-war.htmlFri, 11 Apr 2025 15:28:42 +0000“I’m late for prison,” Dani repeats every few minutes. He is a 28-year-old Syrian who was released in December when rebel militiamen opened the doors of the Suwayda prison in the south of the country, before ending half a century of dictatorship under the Assad family. He believes he is “75 years old,” and despite having never set foot in Egypt, he claims to be from there, speaking with a pronounced accent from the Syrian province of Homs. He rubs his bony hands on the bed and slurs his words, the effect of the antipsychotics he takes to treat the trauma of six years in the dungeons of Bashar al-Assad’s regime. His parents admitted him to the Ibn Rush Psychiatric Hospital in Damascus on January 12, but the doctors have yet to get him to say what was done to him.

Seguir leyendo

]]>Natalia Sancha<![CDATA[Ragheed al-Tatari, the face of freedom in Syria after 43 years in Assad’s prisons]]>https://english.elpais.com/international/2025-04-02/ragheed-al-tatari-the-face-of-freedom-in-syria-after-43-years-in-assads-prisons.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/international/2025-04-02/ragheed-al-tatari-the-face-of-freedom-in-syria-after-43-years-in-assads-prisons.htmlWed, 02 Apr 2025 15:03:41 +0000The lock on his cell in the prison in the Syrian city of Tartus creaked. “You’re free,” they told him. After 43 years and 15 days in prison, pilot Ragheed al-Tatari was walking in the sunshine as a free man, at the age of 70, having been Syria’s longest-serving political prisoner. The calendar read Monday, December 9, 2024, when jubilation filled the penitentiary where, aware of the recent fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime, the jailers decided to release the prisoners before fleeing. Ragheed was one of them.

]]>Natalia Sancha<![CDATA[In Syria, there is a new kind of war against ISIS]]>https://english.elpais.com/international/2021-04-01/in-syria-there-is-a-new-kind-of-war-against-isis.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/international/2021-04-01/in-syria-there-is-a-new-kind-of-war-against-isis.htmlThu, 01 Apr 2021 15:52:41 +0000In the early morning darkness, a militiawoman loosens her braid under her balaclava before grabbing a rifle and taking up a frontline position with a group of the Anti-Terrorist Units (known by their Kurdish acronym YAT).

Seguir leyendo

]]>natalia sancha<![CDATA[The transformation of ISIS women in Syria’s Al Roj camp]]>https://english.elpais.com/international/2021-03-26/the-transformation-of-isis-women-in-syrias-al-roj-camp.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/international/2021-03-26/the-transformation-of-isis-women-in-syrias-al-roj-camp.htmlFri, 26 Mar 2021 08:06:16 +0000Widad can’t resist moving her head to the rhythm of the song Con Altura whose music video shows five dancers in skintight clothes performing with Spanish singer Rosalía. A 34-year-old German woman, Widad controls the television showing the music video that is also being watched by five other Western women who sit crosslegged in a tent in the Kurdish-run Al Roj camp for the families of Islamic State (ISIS) fighters in northeast Syria. Painted lips, multiple earrings, dyed red, straightened hair, jeans and elegant shoes contrast with the sea of abayas (a long loose-fitting robe) in the surrounding 800 tents, which are guarded by the Kurdish-Arab militias allied to the international coalition. “Last March 8, on Women’s Day, we decided to take off our veils,” says Widad, who has four young children fathered by two jihadist husbands.

Seguir leyendo

]]>Natalia Sancha<![CDATA[Yemen: inside the ‘world’s worst humanitarian crisis’]]>https://english.elpais.com/international/2020-12-02/yemen-inside-the-worlds-worst-humanitarian-crisis.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/international/2020-12-02/yemen-inside-the-worlds-worst-humanitarian-crisis.htmlWed, 02 Dec 2020 08:30:41 +0000“This is a fantastic place. It’s a journey through time.” A British woman named Munazza Chamdhary wrote these words on November 30, 2007, in the guest book inside the small museum of Habban, in the province of Shabwah in central Yemen. It is one of many villages in the country that now lie deserted and afflicted by poverty. The powdered milk tins and canned tomatoes dating back to the days when Yemen was a British colony share dusty shelf space with locally made washbowls inside this old adobe building. But the last tourist left long ago, the final pages in the guest book are blank and children now burst into tears when they see a foreigner.

]]>Natalia Sancha<![CDATA[ISIS women impose their own caliphate in Syria’s Al Hol camp]]>https://english.elpais.com/elpais/2019/10/25/inenglish/1571990542_345221.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/elpais/2019/10/25/inenglish/1571990542_345221.htmlFri, 25 Oct 2019 14:54:41 +0000ISIS women have taken advantage of the chaos caused by the fighting between local pro-Turkish paramilitary groups and Kurdish militants, and the expectation surrounding the new map that Ankara and Damascus are redrawing in the north of Syria, and set up a mini Islamic State run by women in the Al Hol camp. The camp, located 120 kilometers south of the Turkish border and seven kilometers from the Iraqi border, is where 70,8000 people, most of them wives and children of imprisoned jihadist fighters, went after the fall of the caliphate on March 23. The group is headed by a woman, an emir, who sets down the rules on living arrangements and the dress code in the camp, receives information on the movements of guards, and decides what punishments to mete out.

]]>NATALIA SANCHA<![CDATA[On the Syrian front line: Accounts from both sides of the Turkish offensive]]>https://english.elpais.com/elpais/2019/10/18/inenglish/1571392260_899772.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/elpais/2019/10/18/inenglish/1571392260_899772.htmlFri, 18 Oct 2019 13:11:19 +0000The withdrawal of American troops from northern Syria has once again stirred up a conflict that directly affects the balance of power in the Middle East. In this article, EL PAÍS reports from both sides of the Turkish-Syrian border on the impact of the new alliances: in the city of Qamishli, inhabited by Kurds, Arabs, Muslims and Christians, who are suffering bombing by Erdogan’s forces while they face the risks of the pact with Damascus; and also in Ceylanpınar, one of the Turkish cities where residents, alarmed by the conflict in neighboring Syria, have fled.

]]>DELIL SOULEIMAN<![CDATA[The 16 Spanish children left trapped after the fall of the ISIS caliphate]]>https://english.elpais.com/elpais/2019/08/27/inenglish/1566895514_945780.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/elpais/2019/08/27/inenglish/1566895514_945780.htmlTue, 27 Aug 2019 13:50:32 +0000Her name is Asiyah, she is one week old, and she was born inside a tent at Al Roj camp in northeastern Syria. For the last five years this area had been part of the Islamic State’s self-proclaimed caliphate, which the child’s parents, the Spanish citizens Luna Fernández and Mohammed el Amin, had joined. But these days, it is Kurdish militias who are in charge of an area dotted with camps, and where more than 80,000 jihadist women and their children are waiting to be returned to their countries of origin.

]]><![CDATA[After a seven-year odyssey, Syrian families end up living in a Madrid park]]>https://english.elpais.com/elpais/2019/07/25/inenglish/1564066887_283934.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/elpais/2019/07/25/inenglish/1564066887_283934.htmlFri, 26 Jul 2019 05:19:04 +0000Around 50 Syrians, including 20 minors and four heavily pregnant women, have been living since July 10 in a public park in Madrid. This situation is common in the countries that border Syria, and which are currently housing the large majority of the 5.7 million refugees who have fled the war-torn country. But the sight in the Spanish capital of women chopping garlic and cooking vegetables over a camping gas stove is far from normal. A few meters away, some of the children are washing their younger siblings in a public fountain or in improvised bathtubs made of plastic. Clothes are drying on shrubs while a stone’s throw away, a group of men stare intently at a bunch of wrinkled documents.

]]><![CDATA[The Spanish ISIS women who are caught in a legal limbo]]>https://english.elpais.com/elpais/2019/06/18/inenglish/1560848590_179213.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/elpais/2019/06/18/inenglish/1560848590_179213.htmlTue, 18 Jun 2019 15:00:09 +0000The first to arrive at the Al-Hol camp on March 1 was Luna Fernández Grande, who was born in Madrid in 1989. She was five months pregnant and taking care of eight children under the age of 16, four of whom were hers and the other four orphans belonging to the second wife of her husband, a Spanish jihadist who died in Syria.

]]><![CDATA[Spanish ISIS women speak out: “We just want to get out of here”]]>https://english.elpais.com/elpais/2019/04/04/inenglish/1554359664_475890.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/elpais/2019/04/04/inenglish/1554359664_475890.htmlWed, 10 Apr 2019 10:21:03 +0000“We just want to get out of here. […] They can’t condemn us for taking care of our household and our children in Islamic State.” So say Yolanda Martínez, Luna Fernández and Loubna Fares. The first two women are Spanish citizens, while the third is a Moroccan with residency in Spain, with three Spanish children and who is also the widow of an Iranian jihadist who had Spanish citizenship. All three traveled with their husbands to Syria in 2014 and have survived the collapse of the so-called Islamic State (ISIS) caliphate in its last stronghold in Baghouz, an oasis on the eastern border of Syria with Iraq.

]]><![CDATA[The uncertain future of the children of ISIS fighters]]>https://english.elpais.com/elpais/2019/04/02/inenglish/1554200951_824451.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/elpais/2019/04/02/inenglish/1554200951_824451.htmlTue, 02 Apr 2019 15:04:13 +0000“Take care of my children, because even if I die, they are the seeds of the Caliphate.” This is what a Jihadist woman told the head nurse of a Kurdish hospital in northeastern Syria, pointing to the cribs of the more than 75 children of Islamic State (ISIS) fighters who are fighting for their lives. These children of African, Asian and European descent were born in Baghouz, in eastern Syria, a former ISIS stronghold on the border with Iraq, and evacuated from ISIS camps in the Syrian desert. Some of them are orphans, but others are visited by their mothers who remain captive in nearby camps.

]]>N.S<![CDATA[Syria begins to rebuild]]>https://english.elpais.com/elpais/2017/12/04/inenglish/1512390729_211293.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/elpais/2017/12/04/inenglish/1512390729_211293.htmlTue, 05 Dec 2017 07:54:56 +0000It’s been a year since government forces entered this vibrant urban sprawl and expelled around 2,000 rebels and jihadists who had dug beneath the streets to bomb their opponents. Now there are signs of life emerging from the mounds of rubble: for example, a colorful line of washing on a balcony, indicating that at least one family of refugees has come home.

]]>Natalia Sancha<![CDATA[Last Spanish family finally escapes the ISIS stronghold of Raqqa]]>https://english.elpais.com/elpais/2017/11/15/inenglish/1510735732_721000.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/elpais/2017/11/15/inenglish/1510735732_721000.htmlWed, 15 Nov 2017 16:18:27 +0000Yunes is four months old today. He has been on this earth for as long as his beleaguered family have been trapped in the border town of Azaz in the north of Syria. They are the last Spaniards to have left Raqqa, the stronghold of the so-called Islamic State (ISIS) that was liberated last month. Finally, Spanish diplomatic authorities in Turkey have managed to persuade the Turkish authorities to allow all 13 of them – of whom 11 are Spanish nationals and nine are minors – to cross to safety and put their four-year ordeal under ISIS behind them.

]]><![CDATA[The Al Saids’ journey from Syria to a new life in Spain]]>https://english.elpais.com/elpais/2017/07/21/inenglish/1500633893_200218.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/elpais/2017/07/21/inenglish/1500633893_200218.htmlFri, 21 Jul 2017 13:59:19 +0000Just a few hours later, the family boarded a plane for the first time in their lives and landed in Spain on Thursday, joining 199 other Syrian refugees living here. In total, the Spanish government has taken in 1,742 international protection seekers out of the 17,337 that were negotiated two years ago in Brussels. That is barely 9.9% of the total. And the deadline expires on September 26.

]]>Natalia Sancha<![CDATA[UN peacekeepers in Lebanon running network selling food rations]]>https://english.elpais.com/elpais/2016/05/25/inenglish/1464191032_796649.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/elpais/2016/05/25/inenglish/1464191032_796649.htmlWed, 25 May 2016 16:40:15 +0000According to testimony obtained by this newspaper from three international and three local Unifil employees, the clandestine ring involves Lebanese drivers and businesspeople, and also UN peacekeepers in charge of food shipments in at least five of the 21 distribution points that the mission uses to provide food for its 10,000 or so soldiers.

]]>MAHMOUD ZAYYAT<![CDATA[Spanish UN soldier killed by Israeli fire on Lebanese border]]>https://english.elpais.com/elpais/2015/01/28/inenglish/1422449799_946744.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/elpais/2015/01/28/inenglish/1422449799_946744.htmlWed, 28 Jan 2015 13:14:29 +0000A Spanish soldier working as a United Nations peacekeeper in Lebanon was killed by an Israeli mortar on Wednesday morning, military sources reported.

]]>KARAMALLAH DAHER