Salma Abdelaziz is an award-winning International Correspondent based in London. With nearly a decade of experience reporting on frontlines from Syria, Iraq, Yemen and Israel and the Palestinian territories to Ukraine and Afghanistan, she has delivered distinctive coverage of some of the most consequential stories impacting our world.

Abdelaziz has earned multiple accolades for her journalism, including four Emmy Awards and three Peabody Awards. She was also honoured by the Gracies in 2019 and won the AIB’s Breakthrough Talent award in 2018.

Abdelaziz fronted the network’s early coverage of the humanitarian crisis inside Gaza after Israel declared war in response to the October 7th Hamas attacks. Drawing from eyewitness accounts and on-the-ground footage, Abdelaziz crafted impactful video packages that have garnered more than 25 million views on social media.
Her reporting focused on the plight of the more than 2 million people, half of them children, caught in the crossfire. Abdelaziz leaned on her extensive experience covering the Israeli-Palestinian conflict since the 2014 Gaza war, when she spent a month inside the enclave to, a few months prior to the war, her live on-the-ground coverage of Israel’s military incursion on Jenin in June 2023.

Abdelaziz was on the ground in Ukraine after Russia invaded the country in February 2022 and spent weeks covering the greatest refugee crisis since World War II. She reported live from the Ukraine-Poland border as families, forced to flee in an instant, scrambled to find shelter in make-shift refugee centres. She witnessed the aftermath of Russian missile attacks on apartment blocks and a shopping mall in Kremenchuk and spoke to officials investigating the Kremlin for war crimes. She followed a Ukrainian-American woman as she turned to smugglers to extract her family from Russian-occupied territory, and she shadowed Ukrainian troops as they attempted to find and identify the many thousands missing or killed in the brutal conflict.

She returned to the country several more times to cover Moscow’s continued assault on civilian areas, follow a Ukrainian military bomb disposal unit, and witness some attempts to return and rebuild the suburbs of Kyiv.

After the death of Mahsa Amini sparked a protest movement in Iran, Abdelaziz reported on the execution of demonstrators amid a brutal government crackdown.
She followed Tehran’s tentacles to Paris where activists in-exile said they faced threats, intimidation, and harassment for defying the regime abroad. Abdelaziz later led an investigation into Tehran’s covert weapons shipments. Her team utilized vessel tracking data to identify ships in the Caspian Sea suspected of moving drones, bullets, and mortar shells to bolster Russia’s fight in Ukraine. The findings were later confirmed by White House officials that warned Iran intended to utilize the naval route to provide more drones to Moscow.

In February of 2023, Abdelaziz was deployed to Turkey to cover a devastating 7.8 magnitude earthquake that claimed nearly 60,000 lives. She followed the frantic efforts to help the countless victims made homeless in freezing cold conditions. Abdelaziz also reported on the impact inside Syria utilizing first-hand accounts and verified third-party footage to bring viewers inside the war-torn country struck by yet another tragedy.

During the global pandemic, Abdelaziz frequently fronted coverage of the Covid crisis in the UK, often working solo as an all-platform journalist. Her reporting highlighted the disproportionate impact on minority communities. She spoke to Hindu and Muslim faith leaders fighting vaccine hesitancy.
She also collected testimony from Black nurses who said they were fighting the twin pandemics of racism and Covid on the frontlines.

After the murder of George Floyd, Abdelaziz extensively covered the anti-racism movement in the UK and followed a Black Lives Matter protestor who said she faced threats for her activism.
She led an investigation that uncovered strong links between Liverpool City Council and neo-confederate groups in the US.
And after the departure of Meghan Markle and Prince Harry from Buckingham Palace, she provided analysis across multiple platforms and elevated Britain’s minority voices amid a chorus of controversy.

In September of 2021, Abdelaziz hosted CNNI’s first edition of the new Marketplace Middle East show from Riyadh where she spoke to the young women driving the Kingdom’s technological innovation.

When the “partygate” scandal broke in the UK, Abdelaziz reported live from 10 Downing Street as Prime Minister Boris Johnson faced multiple investigations into his actions.
She spoke to families, who made great sacrifices to follow lockdown rules, that demanded Johnson’s resignation.

Prior to her on-air role, Abdelaziz worked behind the camera as a Field Producer on some of CNN’s toughest and most dangerous assignments.
Alongside senior talent, she obtained exclusive access to the frontlines of the ISIS war, followed the trail of US weapons in Yemen, and travelled to Tehran as the US ramped-up sanctions. Abdelaziz later served as Producer to CNN’s Chief International Correspondent Clarissa Ward.

The pair won multiple accolades for their collaborations including embedding with the Taliban in 2019, years prior to the fall of Kabul, and going undercover in rebel-held Syria as Russia intensified its assault of the enclave in 2016.

Abdelaziz was born in Shibin el-Kom, Egypt and grew-up in the United States. She is a native Arabic speaker and holds a B.S. in International Affairs from Georgia Tech and an M.A. in Mass Communication from Georgia State University.