Richard Hall

Correspondent, Lebanon

Richard Hall has reported from across the Middle East since 2009, covering Lebanon, Iraq, Syria and Turkey.

Richard Hall is a correspondent for Public Radio International's The World and PRI.org, covering the Middle East from his home base in Lebanon. He has reported across the region since 2009, covering Lebanon, Iraq, Syria and Turkey.Richard began his career at Lebanon’s Daily Star, an English-language daily newspaper in Beirut.Since then he has contributed to numerous publications in the US and UK, including the Guardian, Al Jazeera, Esquire Magazine and USA Today, and has worked on staff for The Independent and Agence France-Presse. He began at GlobalPost in 2014 as a Middle East editor and correspondent in Beirut, before becoming a PRI correspondent in 2015.Richard has written extensively on the Syrian civil war and the rise of the Islamic State. His reporting on the Kurdish issue has taken him across Turkey and up the Qandil Mountains in northern Iraq.

Migrants are brought aboard a Save the Children rescue boat

Inside Italy’s plot to infiltrate migrant rescue boats in the Mediterranean

June 28, 2018Conflict & Justice

Our reporter was invited on a migrant rescue trip organized by Save the Children. Unbeknownst to everyone on the boat, including us, he wasn’t the only person aboard working for someone else.

Residents and members of the Syrian Civil Defense, or "White Helmets," look for survivors at a damaged site after what activists said was a barrel bomb dropped by forces loyal to Syria's President Bashar al-Assad in the Al-Shaar neighborhood of Aleppo, Sy

Trump freezes funding for ‘White Helmet’ volunteers as part of larger cut to Syrian aid

May 4, 2018Conflict

Hands hold a hose over a child's head and water streams down his hair and face.

Chemical attack in Syria grabs Trump’s attention, but he has few options available

April 9, 2018Conflict

A man holds a child after an airstrike in eastern Ghouta, Syria, Feb. 7, 2018. In the Damascus suburb, besieged by government forces since 2013, about 78 civilians were killed by airstrikes and artillery fire on Tuesday, according to monitors. A further 2

Syria’s war enters a dangerous new phase

February 7, 2018Conflict

A migrant carrying a child waits to cross the border with Croatia near the village of Berkasovo, Serbia, Oct. 19, 2015. Women face assault, harassment and sexual violence at every step of the way along the European migrant trail, including on European soi

As the European migrant trail has gone underground, the threat of sexual violence has increased

January 31, 2018Conflict

A man leads a caravan of camels at the King Abdulaziz Camel Festival in Saudi Arabia, a monthlong extravaganza honoring the “ships of the desert” and their place in the country’s history.

What a camel beauty contest can tell us about the future of Saudi Arabia

January 26, 2018Culture

The King Abdulaziz Camel Festival is a monthlong extravaganza honoring the “ships of the desert” and their place in Saudi Arabia’s history. But this year, it’s about more than just camels — it’s about a closed-off kingdom showing signs it wants to open up.

Smoke rises as people inspect damage at the site of airstrikes in the city of Saada, Yemen, Jan. 6, 2018.

Saudi Arabia promises $1.5 billion in aid to Yemen — but it’s still bombing the country

January 24, 2018Conflict

Saudi Arabia announced $1.5 billion in new aid for Yemen this week, a move it says is aimed at alleviating the country’s humanitarian crisis nearly three years into a Saudi-led military campaign there. But critics, among them a number of Yemenis, have questioned the motives behind the donation, given the Saudis’ own role in prolonging the crisis.

St. Shmuni Church in Bartella, Iraq, shows damage sustained while the town was under ISIS control for two years.

ISIS turned this young Iraqi Christian into an atheist

January 12, 2018Conflict

Ibrahim, 17, and his mother spent two years as ISIS prisoners when the group controlled the area around Mosul. He says his Christian faith helped him survive. But after his release, the ordeal made him question religion altogether.

Migrants wait for food distribution inside an abandoned factory close to the Croatian border near the town of Sid, Serbia, Dec. 19, 2017. There are about 8,000 refugees and migrants stranded in Serbia, a result of a tougher European border policies that f

Migrants stuck in Serbia play a desperate ‘game’ to reach the EU

January 3, 2018Conflict

Nearly 8,000 refugees and migrants are currently stranded in Serbia. Iraqis and Syrians have the best chances of being granted asylum. People with money can pay a smuggler to take them across the border. It’s only the most desperate that try to cross the border into Croatia — and the European Union — illegally.

Two migrants play checkers with bottle caps in an abandoned warehouse where they live on the Greek island of Lesbos.

Trapped by border closings, these young migrants are hiding out in an abandoned warehouse

December 29, 2017Conflict

In an abandoned warehouse on the Greek island of Lesbos, a group of young migrants are eking out an existence on their own, set apart from the overcrowded refugee camps on the island. Their claims for asylum have either been rejected or placed at the bottom of the pile and they live in fear of deportation. They are stuck.