Durrie Bouscaren
Reporter
Durrie Bouscaren is an Istanbul-based reporter for The World. She covers migration, politics and social change in Turkey, Iran and the Middle East. Before moving to Turkey, Bouscaren covered local news for St. Louis Public Radio and Iowa Public Radio. She was the 2018 John Alexander Fellow for NPR, where she spent two months in Papua New Guinea investigating gender based violence. When not reporting, she can be found riding her bike along Istanbul’s old city walls, or figuring out how to grow grapes on her roof.
Lungs of stone: How Silica has sickened a generation of quartz cutters
Quartz is used for countertops in millions of homes around the world — the manmade stone is popular for its beauty and durability. But for workers who make, cut and install quartz counters, it can be deadly. The World reported from Turkey, Spain and Australia — three stops along the quartz countertop supply chain — to learn more about silicosis, an incurable and often fatal lung disease caused by inhaling dust laden with excessive amounts of a mineral called silica.
Life returns to Antakya, a city nearly leveled by earthquakes in southern Turkey
Two months after devastating earthquakes killed more than 57,000 people in Turkey and Syria, survivors are living in tent camps and shipping containers outside the ruins of their former homes. As mobile businesses and streetside kebab shops return to the city of Antakya, some people are determined to stay in their hometown to grieve and rebuild.
After deadly quake in Turkey, rescue teams struggle to help amid frigid temps
The death toll has surpassed 5,000, with thousands of others injured after a 7.8-magnitude earthquake struck large parts of southeastern Turkey and northern Syria on Monday. Rescue teams are trying to find people buried under the rubble of collapsed buildings.
In Turkey, refugee children face hurdles to school enrollment
Many Syrian families in Turkey face school enrollment challenges due to a Turkish law that says no more than 30% of schoolchildren in a single class can be foreigners. Families in border cities like Gaziantep say their children are being turned away with few alternatives.
Desperate pet owners turn to illegal drug markets to cure a rare cat virus
If a cat contracts feline infectious peritonitis, a chronic wasting disease, it is almost always fatal. A pharmaceutical company, however, developed a recipe for a cure. Global drug manufacturers are now marketing off-label versions of the medication — and cat owners say it works.
Stuck without passports in Kazakhstan, Russians who avoided the draft face a ticking clock
As hundreds of thousands of young men streamed into Central Asia to avoid the draft in Russia at the end of September, activists realized that many of the new arrivals were now jobless, homeless — and without legal papers.