Asmaa al-Omar

Asmaa al-Omar is a journalist who has reported extensively on the Middle East, human rights violations, and conflict for multiple publications.

She began her career in 2016, covering the Syrian civil war and the European migrant crisis from Istanbul for BuzzFeed News and Le Figaro. These experiences crystallized her interest in refugee issues. In 2018, she began contributing to The Guardian, focusing on refugee issues, including the deportation of Syrian refugees back to war-torn Syria, and prostitution trends among refugees. This has become one of her primary beats. Her commentary on refugee issues in Turkey appeared on the BBC World Service.

She later broadened her focus on Middle East politics to include a geopolitical perspective when she joined The New York Times and The Financial Times. Her work includes reporting on GCC countries' affairs, investigating Syrian mercenaries in

Libya and Ukraine, uncovering corruption linked to governments—such as Assad's drug empire in Syria—and exploring socioeconomic crises and armed conflict in Iraq and Yemen.

Asmaa also worked on both visual and audio documentaries related to Syrians in Turkey, her latest was an audio documentary exploring the lives of Syrian refugees in Turkey for the BBC World Service Documentary Podcast.