USA Today reporter shares story of one woman raped

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"I was interviewing a Syrian rebel sniper, a woman of about my own age who had been jailed years before the conflict began," writes Kristin Deasy in USA Today of a woman she spoke to a year previously. "I had just asked her, through a translator, if there had been any sexual abuse during her imprisonment. ...

"I don't exactly know how to describe what happened to her when she realized what I was asking — her eyes dilated briefly and then collapsed in on themselves. I lost all connection with her face, which is huge when you're interviewing in a language you don't understand. Her chair scraped loudly as she abruptly got up to walk around the corner and calm herself before returning to answer the question in the affirmative."

Deasy writes that the woman "told me she was repeatedly gang-raped and tortured, lighted cigarettes ground into her arms while in prison."

Deasy goes on to say that she wrote about the woman at the time but that the piece was never published.

The exact dates of the reported sexualized violence are unknown. Because Syrian government officials currently refuse to allow access to journalists, researchers, and aid workers, WMC's Women Under Siege cannot independently verify this report of sexualized violence in Syria.