Leila Fadel
Leila Fadel is a national correspondent for NPR based in Los Angeles, covering issues of culture, diversity, and race.
Most recently, she was NPR's international correspondent based in Cairo and covered the wave of revolts in the Middle East and their aftermaths in Libya, Tunisia, Egypt, and beyond. Her stories brought us to the heart of a state-ordered massacre of pro-Muslim Brotherhood protesters in Cairo in 2013 when police shot into crowds of people to clear them and killed between 1,000 and 2,000 people. She told us the tales of a coup in Egypt and what it is like for a country to go through a military overthrow of an elected government. She covered the fall of Mosul to ISIS in 2014 and documented the harrowing tales of the Yazidi women who were kidnapped and enslaved by the group. Her coverage also included stories of human smugglers in Egypt and the Syrian families desperate and willing to pay to risk their lives and cross a turbulent ocean for Europe.
She was awarded the Lowell Thomas Award from the Overseas Press Club for her coverage of the 2013 coup in Egypt and the toll it took on the country and Egyptian families. In 2017 she earned a Gracie award for the story of a single mother in Tunisia whose two eldest daughters were brainwashed and joined ISIS. The mother was fighting to make sure it didn't happen to her younger girls.
Before joining NPR, she covered the Middle East for The Washington Post as the Cairo Bureau Chief. Prior to her position as Cairo Bureau Chief for the Post, she covered the Iraq war for nearly five years with Knight Ridder, McClatchy Newspapers, and later the Washington Post. Her foreign coverage of the devastating human toll of the Iraq war earned her the George. R. Polk award in 2007. In 2016 she was the Council on Foreign Relations Edward R. Murrow fellow.
Leila Fadel is a Lebanese-American journalist who speaks conversational Arabic and was raised in Saudi Arabia and Lebanon.
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After weeks of bombarding the city, Russia offered the ultimatum on Sunday: If Mariupol surrenders, it will let civilians leave and humanitarian aid enter. Ukrainian officials refused. -
Supplies are running low at Lviv's regional cancer hospital in Ukraine. The patient load has doubled and supplies in Kyiv are inaccessible. But hospital staff choose the duty of care over safety. -
The package by the White House includes missiles to take out tanks and bring down Russian aircraft — as well as drones that the U.S. hasn't provided previously.
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The first of Ukraine's fallen soldiers are starting to come home. Two men were killed on the front lines in Russia's war on Ukraine. Hundreds gathered to mourn at their funeral on Tuesday. -
The twin boys, Lenny and Moishe, were born just as Russia invaded Ukraine. A specialist team of U.S. Army veterans hatched a desperate plan to bring them into Poland and, hopefully, to safety. -
On her new album, Asha's Awakening, the artist Raveena sends her protagonist on a thousand-year intergalactic journey of discovery, all in order to better understand her own place on Earth. -
Former cop Derek Chauvin changed his not guilty plea to guilty of willfully depriving George Floyd, a Black man, of his constitutional rights when Chauvin used excessive force that killed Floyd.
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There are three high profile court cases going on in three different parts of the country. Central to all are race and racism in the United States.
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One in 4 Asian Americans fear they may be attacked because of their race or ethnicity, according to a new NPR poll. Native Americans and Blacks also fear the rise in racially motivated violence. -
NPR's Leila Fadel talks with Meg Linehan of The Athletic about her investigation into former National Women's Soccer League coach Paul Riley, who has been accused to sexual coercion.
