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370,000 dead: Syria’s war in numbers
BEIRUT, March 15, 2019 (BSS/AFP) – The Syrian conflict, which entered its
ninth year on Friday, has ravaged the lives of millions of people since it
started in 2011 with the brutal repression of anti-government protests.
Here are some figures:
– Victims –
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which has a vast
network of sources across Syria, says it has recorded the deaths of more than
370,000 people since unprecedented protests began on March 15, 2011.
Those killed have included 112,623 civilians, of whom 21,000 were children
and 13,000 women.
– Handicapped – According to the United Nations Office for the
Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) 2.9 million people are living
with a permanent disability.
A study conducted by French group Handicap International in 2017 and 2018
says that more than three fifths of Syrian refugee families include a
disabled person.
– Refugees –
According to the US non-governmental organisation CARE, the conflict has
caused the biggest population displacement since World War II.
The fighting has pushed close to 13 million — more than half the
country’s pre-war population of 23 million — from their homes, according to
the United Nations.
The UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) says 6.2 million people have
been displaced within Syria itself since 2011, while 5.6 million people are
refugees in the region.
Turkey alone, the main host country, has taken in more than 3.6 million
Syrian refugees.
It is followed by Lebanon, which says it hosts 1.5 million Syrians against
a total population of four million.
Less than one million of those are registered with the UNHCR. Most of the
Syrian refugees in Lebanon live in insecurity and depend on international
aid. In Jordan, where UNHCR says it has registered 657,000 Syrians, the
government says it is hosting 1.3 million refugees.
At least another 246,000 Syrians have taken refuge in Iraq and 130,000 in
Egypt, the UN agency says.
MORE/SSS/1640 hrs
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Hundreds of thousands of Syrians have also headed to Europe, notably to
Germany, where they account for the majority of asylum seekers.
– Jailed, tortured –
Since the start of the conflict, President Bashar al-Assad’s regime has
been accused of human rights abuses and of cases of torture, rape and summary
executions.
According to the Observatory, at least 60,000 people have died under
torture or due to dire conditions in regime prisons.
Half a million people have gone through regime jails since the outbreak of
the war, it says.
In 2017, Amnesty International said authorities had hanged around 13,000
people between 2011 and 2015 at the infamous Saydnaya prison near Damascus.
It said a further 17,700 people had died in custody since the conflict
began.
Several thousand have died over the same period in prisons run by
jihadists or other rebel groups, Amnesty says.
– Lack of schooling –
Five million Syrian children have been born since 2011 — one million of
them in refugee-hosting countries — the UN children’s fund UNICEF says. An
estimated 2.1 million Syrian children are out of school, it says, and more
than one in three schools have been damaged or destroyed.
– Economy in ruins –
According to OCHA, 13 million people inside the country are in need of
humanitarian aid.
Some 6.5 million people in Syria are unable to meet their food needs, the
UN’s World Food Programme says.
With unemployment, power cuts and gas shortages, more than 80 percent of
Syrians live under the poverty line, according to OCHA.
The oil and gas sector has since 2011 lost an estimated $74 billion,
according to Syrian authorities.
While the energy sector is the hardest hit, every sector has been damaged
by the conflict.
The United Nations estimates the overall cost in damages at nearly $400
billion.
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