| The New Humanitarian

President al-Assad's multi-million-dollar urban redevelopment project
Eviction notice from Basateen al-Razi
Basateen al-Razi in 2015. Demolitions have more recently allowed government planners to plot a new road network through Basateen al-Razi, in some places where houses once stood.
In 2014, gradual demolitions of crops and housing had cleared the south-western edge of the Basateen al-Razi plot, making way for the Decree 66 project HQ where Assad laid the development's foundation-stone in March 2016.
The informal settlement, seen here in 2011, is located in the south-western suburbs of Damascus. To the west lies Al-Mezzeh, home to key government buildings and foreign embassies, including the Iranian Embassy.
In 2009, before the uprising, Basateen al-Razi was typical of the many informal settlements ('ashwiyaat) that spread out on the outskirts of Syria's cities. By the mid-2000s, some 40 percent of the national population lived in informal settlements.
IDPs are falling through the cracks
Bodies of IS suspects, according to Iraqi federal policemen, thrown into a ravine on the outskirts of west Mosul in March
Trying to get ahead

Photothèque