Soraya Sarhaddi Nelson
Special correspondent Soraya Sarhaddi Nelson is based in Berlin. Her reports can be heard on NPR's award-winning programs, including Morning Edition and All Things Considered, and read at NPR.org. From 2012 until 2018 Nelson was NPR's bureau chief in Berlin. She won the ICFJ 2017 Excellence in International Reporting Award for her work in Central and Eastern Europe, North Africa, the Middle East and Afghanistan.
Nelson was also based in Cairo for NPR and covered the Arab World from the Middle East to North Africa during the Arab Spring. In 2006, Nelson opened NPR's first bureau in Kabul, from where she provided listeners in an in-depth sense of life inside Afghanistan, from the increase in suicide among women in a country that treats them as second class citizens to the growing interference of Iran and Pakistan in Afghan affairs. For her coverage of Afghanistan, she won a Peabody Award, Overseas Press Club Award, and the Gracie in 2010. She received the Elijah Parish Lovejoy Award from Colby College in 2011 for her coverage in the Middle East and Afghanistan.
Nelson spent 20 years as newspaper reporter, including as Knight Ridder's Middle East Bureau Chief. While at the Los Angeles Times, she was sent on extended assignment to Iran and Afghanistan following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. She spent three years an editor and reporter for Newsday and was part of the team that won the 1997 Pulitzer Prize for covering the crash of TWA Flight 800.
A graduate of the University of Maryland, Nelson speaks Farsi, Dari and German.
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The latest uprising in Iran is about much more than mandatory hijab. We've complied a list of books that offer insight into the lives of Iranian women and what is happening in their country. -
There's a deep fascination in the West with how women function in ultra-conservative societies where repression can be violent and even deadly. This anthology pulls back the curtain on those places.
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The new U.S. ambassador to Germany upset his hosts, and Democratic senators back home, with his announced support for right-wing populists in Europe. -
Trips down memory lane — to a highly regimented place that no longer exists — are the hallmark of this Dresden home for the elderly. -
This year, 59 civilians have been killed and 280 injured as fighting continues in a 3-year-old war between Russian-backed separatists and government forces. Residents despair of ever seeing peace. -
Providing care to asylum seekers has been a challenge, not least due to language barriers. Two entrepreneurs have turned shipping containers into mobile clinics, with 24-hour access to translators. -
Ambivalence about refugees runs high in Denmark. Danes are critical of a new law requiring police to take cash and valuables from asylum seekers. But they're also nervous about rising refugee numbers. -
Months of training culminated with reaching the summit of a 16,500-foot peak, which they named. But there were frustrations and squabbles along the away, and uncertainties as they returned to Kabul. -
After the Paris attacks, refugees in Berlin have felt increased scrutiny, as police comb their numbers for potential threats. But many Syrians there say they fear ISIS as much as their hosts do. -
Germany has struggled with a record number of refugees, prompting calls for increased deportations. But German businesses see an opportunity in these newcomers to ease a shortage of skilled workers.
