More than 215,000 dead in four years of Syria war – monitor

More than 215,000 people have been killed in Syria in four years of conflict, a monitoring group said as the brutal civil war entered its fifth year.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said it had documented the deaths of 215,518 people in Syria since March 2011, among them more than 66,000 civilians.

The country has been carved up by government forces, jihadist groups, Kurdish fighters and the remaining non-extremist rebels.

Diplomacy remains stalled, with two rounds of peace talks achieving no progress and even a proposal for a local ceasefire in Aleppo fizzling out.

The conflict began as an anti-government uprising, with protesters taking to the streets on 15 March, 2011, inspired by similar revolts in Egypt and Tunisia.

But a fierce government crackdown on the demonstrations prompted a militarisation of the uprising and its descent into today’s brutal multi-front conflict.

The consequences have been devastating.

The UN refugee agency UNHCR says Syria is now “the biggest humanitarian emergency of our era”.

Around four million people have fled abroad, with more than a million taking refuge in neighbouring Lebanon.

Inside Syria, more than seven million people have been displaced, and the UN says around 60 percent of the population now lives in poverty.

The country’s infrastructure has been decimated, its currency is in freefall and economists say the economy has been set back by some 30 years.

 

 

http://www.rte.ie/news/2015/0315/687239-syria/