Radio Al-Furatiya (formerly Sawt Al-Raqqa) is an independent community radio station broadcasting in the Raqqa and Deir al-Zor regions and parts of the Hasaka countryside in east Syria. It started broadcasting in June 2017, as the area was being liberated from ISIS.
Most of the radio's staff are local residents and IDP's from the Raqqa and Deir al-Zor areas who had fled to al-Jazeera or to refugee camps in NE Syria. All broadcasts are therefore in the local Raqqa and Deir al-Zor dialects.
The name of the station is derived from the name of the Euphrates river in Arabic, which connects these regions.
Al-Furatiya reaches wide sections of the population in the Raqqa and Deir al-Zor areas in east Syria, as well as IDP's from other parts of Syria living in these regions, including the Al-Hol refugee camp in the countryside of Hasaka.
Audience research commissioned by IREX in 2019 found that Al-Furatiya (then Sawt Al-Raqqa) ranked #1 in the Raqqa region. 39% of the respondents indicated that Sawt Al-Raqqa was “the most credible” media outlet in the region, while 77% indicated that they would “turn to it” for news and information.