All posts tagged: recount

Audrey Hepburn’s Sons Recount Her Remarkably Resilient Life

Audrey Hepburn’s Sons Recount Her Remarkably Resilient Life

Published by Sam Flores

War Child “I knew the cold clutch of human terror all through my teens,” Hepburn once said. “I saw it, felt it, heard it—and it never goes away. You see, it wasn’t just a nightmare: I was there, and it all happened.” In 1939, the Baroness misguidedly evacuated her daughter from Kent, believing she would be safer in neutral Holland. But in May 1940, the Nazis invaded Holland, and five years of hell on earth began. Ferrer believes World War II was the profound experience that most shaped his mother’s life, and the horrors she witnessed make this thesis highly believable. Hepburn and her family survived firebombing, starvation, and daily terror. Her family’s money was confiscated; her favorite uncle, Otto, was murdered by the Nazis; shrapnel lodged in Hepburn’s neck, giving it its beguiling tilt. One day at a train station, Hepburn saw Jewish families being transported to the concentration camps, an image she could never forget. She aided the underground resistance, delivering messages and pamphlets to those in hiding. While delivering a message to …

‘We were just praying’: Pakistani students recount escape from war-hit Iran | Israel-Iran conflict News

‘We were just praying’: Pakistani students recount escape from war-hit Iran | Israel-Iran conflict News

Published by Sam Flores

Islamabad, Pakistan – It was the first working day of the week and Muhammad Raza, a 23-year-old Pakistani medical student, was assisting the doctors treating patients at Tehran University of Medical Sciences hospital in the Iranian capital. A loud explosion brought the ward to a halt. Israel and the United States had began bombing Iran in a joint operation on the morning of February 28. Recommended Stories list of 4 itemsend of list “We had been hearing about an imminent attack, and when it did strike, it sent a surge of anxiety and panic through my body,” Raza told Al Jazeera from inside a bus on his way to Islamabad on Tuesday. As chaos and fear gripped Tehran following the bombings, Raza rushed to his hostel near the hospital compound and immediately called the Pakistani embassy, less than 2km (1.2 miles) away. The mission instructed him and other students to gather with essential belongings by the evening before arrangements could be made to send them home. “It was really scary. All of us were afraid of …

Owners recount panic after Nazgul gatecrashes race on doggy day out

Owners recount panic after Nazgul gatecrashes race on doggy day out

Published by Sam Flores

TESERO, Italy, Feb 20 : When the Varesco family headed off to watch the biathlon at the Winter Olympics on Wednesday they left their two-year-old Czechoslovakian wolfdog Nazgul locked in his kennel at home in Tesero. In their absence, Nazgul became the most unlikely star of the Milano Cortina Games after escaping from the house and wandering onto the nearby Olympic cross-country course before sprinting down the finishing straight alongside the skiers.  “We were on the train to Anterselva to watch the biathlon,” Alice Varesco told Reuters on Friday.  “We were three hours from home when friends started sending us videos. That was the panic moment. We realised we could not do anything.” For a few surreal seconds during the qualifying races, spectators thought a wolf had wandered onto the course.  Instead, it was Nazgul, lean and silver-grey, ears pricked, locking onto the skiers ahead of him and instinctively joining the chase.  He even appeared in an official photo finish image, which was how Alice and Ernesto Varesco ultimately confirmed it was their dog. “Concern, for …

Escaped Syrian detainees recount chaos after Kurdish forces withdraw

Escaped Syrian detainees recount chaos after Kurdish forces withdraw

Published by Sam Flores

Ahmed Hussein (a pseudonym), age 25, whose skull was injured during torture sessions in detention, was staying with relatives in Northeast Syria on January 24, 2026. PHILÉMON BARBIER/HORS FORMAT FOR LE MONDE Sitting in a circle in the garden of the Hussein family home (a pseudonym) in a village in Deir Ezzor province, neighbors and relatives gathered to see a man they thought was lost. After six years in Al-Kam Al-Sini prison, on the outskirts of Al-Shaddadah in Hassakeh province, Ahmed Hussein, 25, escaped on January 18. He took advantage of the chaos surrounding the withdrawal of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) from the prison, as government forces advanced with the support of an uprising by local Arab tribes. Hussein could hardly believe he survived the hellish ordeal that was Al-Kam Al-Sini prison. In a 2024 report, the human rights organization Amnesty International documented numerous instances of torture, abuse and disease in this prison, which was administered by the SDF in Northeast Syria. “There, all I thought about was death. I was convinced I …

‘As in wartime’: Iranian doctors recount deadly crackdown on protesters

‘As in wartime’: Iranian doctors recount deadly crackdown on protesters

Published by Sam Flores

One month after Iran launched a bloody crackdown on nationwide protests that has left thousands dead, information and witness accounts are beginning to emerge.   The protests started on December 28 over a rise in the cost of living following a sharp fall in the Iranian rial and rapidly spread nationwide. They were met with a violent response, the full extent of which only began to surface after more than two weeks of an unprecedented nationwide internet blackout.   Watch moreA timeline of events in Iran: From cost-of-living protests to political revolt Several Iranian doctors who have since left the country told FRANCE 24 they were mobilised at the height of the protests, on the evenings of January 8 and January 9.   Their accounts converged, describing scenes of unprecedented chaos that some called “apocalyptic”, and injuries resembling those seen in war. Medical facilities were quickly overwhelmed as dozens of wounded patients poured into each department, forcing staff to prioritise treatment according to the severity of injuries, they said. “Just imagine: It was Thursday evening, there was no internet, communications were cut, and it was extremely difficult …

Iran’s doctors recount crackdown on protesters

Iran’s doctors recount crackdown on protesters

Published by Sam Flores

Families search for their loved ones among bodies placed in body bags outside the Kahrizak forensic center in the suburbs of Tehran, Iran, January 13, 2026. SIPA “We were all walking around the emergency room in boots on the night of January 8, because there was so much blood on the floor.” This voice message, sent by an on-call doctor in northern Iran who wished to remain anonymous, reached his family group on January 15, thanks to a miraculous internet connection lasting just a few minutes. Since January 8, the night of the first major protest against the Iranian regime, most citizens have been cut off from the internet, while protests against the regime have faced an unprecedented crackdown. “We were forbidden from having phones inside the facility,” the doctor added. “That night in our hospital, which is a small facility, we counted seven lifeless bodies. There was a 16-year-old boy who had been shot, and we had to remove a kidney. For another patient, we were forced to amputate a leg below the knee. …