Olivia Acland

Journalist + photographer. Previously in DR Congo for The Economist + part of SourceMaterial investigations. Intermittent on Twitter [email protected]

[The Observer @ObserverUK]

Mauritania is a launch point for Africans trying to reach the EU. One in five die on the crossing. @Aclandoli meets Abdul, the man who collects their bodies

https://t.co/tg4io2cHAg

[Telegraph Global Health Security @TelGlobalHealth]

(2/6) Sweat and blood still cling to the walls of Sednaya — Assad’s most notorious prison, once called “the human slaughterhouse”

When rebels stormed it in December 2024, over 24,000 prisoners emerged from years of torture, starvation, and silence

[Telegraph Global Health Security @TelGlobalHealth]

(3/6) Most survivors have untreated TB, broken bones, rotting teeth, and deep psychological trauma

“You disassociate from reality,” says Massa al-Maari, a psychiatrist who co-founded SELA, an organisation offering free healthcare to former prisoners

[Telegraph Global Health Security @TelGlobalHealth]

@aclandoli (6/6) Former prisoners remain in a “fragile limbo,” battling pain, disease and trauma in a health system that cannot support them

But, as Omar says: “Assad and his aides were unable to destroy our will…we want to live”

[Telegraph Global Health Security @TelGlobalHealth]

@aclandoli (5/6) Syria’s health system is in ruins — less than half of its hospitals are still fully operational

Basic healthcare has become extortionate

Worst of all, some 70% of medical workers fled Syria during the war

[Telegraph Global Health Security @TelGlobalHealth]

(4/6) Omar al-Badawi, 40, survived four years in Sednaya prison

He tells @aclandoli that guards urinated in prisoners’ mouths when they begged for water and force fed them cockroaches through a hatch in the cell door

“I had nothing, no will to live,” he says

[Telegraph Global Health Security @TelGlobalHealth]

(1/6) ‘I wanted to be dead’: Survivors of Assad’s prisons battle trauma and disease

Thousands of political prisoners held in Syria’s detention centres are now dependent on a health system broken by war

Dispatch by @aclandoli - free to read 🔓
https://t.co/ipYBYU1IpB

[Olivia Acland @aclandoli]

Mustapha was trafficked to Myanmar + forced to scam people online for 18 hours a day. He escaped. 375,000 people are still trapped in scam farms in S.E Asia. Chinese gangs make £50bn from them. Pls see Mustapha's story in my long read in The Sun Times Mag

https://t.co/2Ga0d2A0wA

[Serena Tarling @serenatarling]

Listen to Olivia’s excellent dispatch on the scam centres in Myanmar. Download From Our Own Correspondent podcast @BBCSounds 📻

[Olivia Acland @aclandoli]

Great working on this important piece with the brilliant @suelinwong - https://t.co/yTirrcPl60

[Olivia Acland @aclandoli]

I spoke to Danie, a Sierra Leonean man who was trafficked into a scam farm in Myanmar. A Chinese gang forced him to scam pensioners for 18 hours a day

Pls tune in - the topic is very close to my heart. I'm 17.19 mins in. Thanks @BBCFooC, @serenatarling
https://t.co/turfZjVzzS

[Olivia Acland @aclandoli]

Excellent investigation into such an important topic @Global_Witness

[Jonas Gerding @JonasGerding]

Luxembourg based commodities trader Traxys is accused of sourcing coltan from DRC’s Rubaya mine, controlled by Rwandan backed M23 rebels https://t.co/S4SSKmJxFH

[Olivia Acland @aclandoli]

My video on Deutsche Welle. Thanks to WFP Sierra Leone for their amazing work documenting and raising awareness about the heartbreaking devastation https://t.co/MJidTBTA4h

[Olivia Acland @aclandoli]

My day out with the rangers in Sierra Leone. Western Pen. Nat Park is being decimated by:
- corrupt officials giving land to friends to build on
- cannabis farms in the park
- a Chinese org illegally quarrying
- charcoal sellers
It lost 1,330 football fields of trees last yr

[Olivia Acland @aclandoli]

My piece on an amazing woman fighting FGM in Sierra Leone. Around 80% of women in SL have been cut.

Rugiatu Turay has given her life to this fight because of what happened to her.

"I fought hard... then I felt the sharp cut."

https://t.co/RjSvtnA1XI

[Olivia Acland @aclandoli]

DR CONGO: Speaking to friends locked in their houses. The noise of gunshots all around Goma. No water or electricity for 6 days. They tell me M23 (Rwandan rebels) using bombs to flatten houses and grab territory. This is huge. This is heartbreaking. 💔

[Mélanie Gouby @Melaniegouby]

#Goma fighting is still ongoing this morning according to several sources who confirm at least one FARDC unit + Wazalendo are refusing to stand down. Fighting around Mount Goma and near the lake. #M23 has already announced controlling the city.

[Ed Cumming @edcumming]

Amazing @aclandoli tale of what happened to Sao Miguel, the island in the Azores, when a bazillion bags of cocaine washed up on the beach https://t.co/QNMsNu5E95

[Olivia Acland @aclandoli]

One of the wildest stories I've written - how life on a remote island was turned upside down when hundreds of packets of extraordinarily pure cocaine washed up on its shores

[Ed Cumming @edcumming]

Amazing @aclandoli tale of what happened to Sao Miguel, the island in the Azores, when a bazillion bags of cocaine washed up on the beach https://t.co/QNMsNu5E95

[Olivia Acland @aclandoli]

@sallyhayd @IrishTimes Goodluck, look forward to reading you