Matt Williams

I am a writer and journalist with eight years of experience covering humanitarian crises and conflicts around the world. I previously reported for The Economist. For more than eight years, I have written and reported on humanitarian crises and conflicts around the world including Ukraine, Syria, Afghanistan and Ethiopia.

At The Economist, I reported on the systemic campaign of enforced disappearances conducted by Vladimir Putin’s forces in Ukraine and the reemergence of Russia’s brutal detention centres since the Kremlin’s full-scale invasion of the country in 2022. I also covered Russia’s missing soldiers crisis, and how the war in Ukraine has left thousands of families in legal limbo.

I have contributed to coverage of Afghanistan’s crisis, covering violence under the Taliban and the country’s deepening humanitarian crisis. I also did some daily news briefings on the civil war in Myanmar, including the government’s scorched earth policy and the Rohingya refugee crisis. I have covered broader human rights issues, including the imprisonment of journalists and the killing and kidnapping of aid workers. I have worked previously at Financial Times, The Telegraph and The New Humanitarian and formerly worked in the non-governmental sector at the Centre for Information Resilience, Amnesty International and Action Against Hunger. I am currently writing my first book on Syria’s civil war — A Kingdom of Ash: The Rise and Fall of the Assad Dynasty

The Economist