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The war in Syria explained in five minutes

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Syria War & Syria Conflict - To understand the bloody, convoluted war happening inside and outside of Syria's borders, you need to watch this. This 5 minute video will tell you who is with who and why: 1. Why US is backing Syrian Rebels? 2. Russia is back Assad? 3.

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The number of civilians killed in the besieged enclave of Eastern Ghouta since February 18 might be 1,100, if you believe the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. Doctors Without Borders said it crossed 1,000 on Friday. The local health authority says it is well over 1,300.

It is hard to be sure how many have died during a relentless aerial and artillery bombardment of the area, once the breadbasket of Damascus, where at least 300,000 people still live. That is because many are still (and might always be) under the rubble of their destroyed homes. Some are buried by their families immediately after they are recovered, rather than taken to hospitals where they would be added to the death toll.

It is a striking fact that despite knowing 200 people have probably been killed, it is the circumstances of their death that has precluded them from being counted. After terrorist attacks around the world, personal stories of those prematurely robbed of their lives are often circulated and retold with images of them smiling, so that the victims do not become a mere number.

Syrians have long lost the luxury of being counted.

The UN stopped counting civilian casualties in Syria in late 2013 after the death toll passed 100,000. It said it could no longer reliably verify figures it was receiving from various sources. The UN's special envoy on Syria, Staffan de Mistura, said in April 2016 that his estimate of the casualties was 400,000, while the Syrian Centre for Policy Research said it was as high as 470,000. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said on Monday that the figure was 511,000, including fighters on all sides of the conflict.

The lowest death toll is by the Violations Documentation Centre, which has identified 160,247 dead because it often tries to find out their names and publish them on the database.

They have been killed by various deliberate means: air strikes, shelling, suicide bombs, barrel bombs, sarin gas, explosive weapons and mines, incendiary armaments, gas cylinders used as mortars, sniper fire, machineguns, and by burning, drowning and beheading.

All of the figures are probably underestimates. They do not include those who have died under torture in the notorious prisons of President Bashar Al Assad's regime, or who were made to disappear by ISIL in its reign of terror that captured part of the country in 2014. They do not include those who starved to death under medieval sieges, or were felled by chronic illnesses such as diabetes or kidney failure because the lack of medical supplies under blockade meant they could not have dialysis machines or pills that would aid their survival.

No one knows how many bodies remain unclaimed under the rubble of homes that caved in during the last desperate weeks in the siege of Aleppo. And there is no count of those buried under the cement that once stood as their homes before the shelling in Eastern Ghouta.

In neighbouring Lebanon, 17,000 people who disappeared during the country's 15-year civil war remain missing, many in Syrian government prisons. Their families still gather at the tent of the disappeared outside the UN offices in Beirut, 35 years after their first meeting. As long as there are no answers, the wounds will fester and there will be no closure.

Despite the sheer carnage and the scale and length of civilian suffering in Syria, which has often prompted what aid officials describe as donor and audience fatigue, the name of a child that accompanies an image of her dusty face after death is always a slap in the face. The name is a reminder of a life unlived, of dreams yet to be born that were cruelly crushed under the heel of a thermobaric missile or the shrapnel of a barrel bomb.

But if the dead remain at the very least uncounted, when the guns finally fall silent in tortured Syria, will all those ghosts be at rest?

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Seven years of war: A tragedy for Syria, a catastrophe for the world

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The number of civilians killed in the besieged enclave of Eastern Ghouta since February 18 might be 1,100, if you believe the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. Doctors Without Borders said it crossed 1,000 on Friday. The local health authority says it is well over 1,300.

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The fighting in Aleppo has ended. Life is resuming for children, but it's a very different life for some of them.

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Images from inside Aleppo show a city utterly destroyed - its roads and buildings reduced to rubble as pro-government forces' push to retake the eastern part of the city from rebels. Scenes of widespread destruction and harrowing messages of hopelessness caught the attention and hearts of celebrities as efforts to evacuate civilians from rebel-held territories in eastern Aleppo got off to a shaky start Wednesday. As images and reports continued to pour out of Syria, many celebrities tweeted about Aleppo to draw attention to the humanitarian crisis.

Although a ceasefire deal brokered Tuesday appeared shaky Wednesday following reports of renewed shelling, evacuation efforts resumed Thursday, enabling aid organizations to assist civilians in fleeing rebel-held territories in the war-torn city's eastern neighborhoods. A statement released Thursday by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) claimed two evacuation operations had managed to take some 3,000 civilians and more than 40 wounded from eastern Aleppo, Reuters reported. According to opposition forces, one person was allegedly killed early Thursday and several others injured when pro-government forces reportedly fired on a convoy of evacuees led by the ICRC and the Syrian Arab Red Cresent.

Celebrities expressed a range of emotions and urged their followers to consider donating to the nonprofit organizations currently working inside Syria.

1. Adriana Lima

Many celebrities - like Adriana Lima - sought to use their fame to help spread the word about Aleppo.

2. Ruby Rose

The Orange Is the New Black actress stressed that information is power.

3. James McVey

James Mcvey, a member of the British band The Vamps, pointed out that the humanitarian crisis in Aleppo is not a new problem.

4. Kris Jenner

Reality TV star Kris Jenner encouraged fans to donate to Doctors Without Borders, UNICEF, and Save The Children in a series of tweets about Aleppo.

5. Khloé Kardashian

Recent images from Aleppo also inspired Khloé Kardashian to use her celebrity platform to advocate for increased awareness and aid for Syrians in the besieged city.

6. Priyanka Chopra

Indian actress Priyanka Chopra said she was praying for Aleppo.

7. Tyler Oakley

YouTube star Tyler Oakley encouraged his Twitter followers to read more about what's happening in Aleppo and begin discussing ways to help.

8. Bette Midler

Bette Midler spoke out against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

9. Jessica Chastain

Actress Jessica Chastain, who stars in the film Miss Sloane, encouraged her fans to help families fleeing Syria with a donation to the Preemptive Love Coalition.

10. Ellen DeGeneres

Talk show host Ellen DeGeneres admitted to feeling powerless.

11. Lauren Jauregui

Fifth Harmony member Lauren Jauregui encouraged her fans to call both their government representatives and the Russian embassy in their country to demand safe evacuation for those fleeing Aleppo.

12. Alyssa Milano

Actress Alyssa Milano advocated for the children in Aleppo.

13. P!nk

Singer P!nk urged her fans not to be complacent regarding the crisis in Syria.

14. JoJo

Singer Joanna "JoJo" Levesque tweeted directly to a Syrian activist in Aleppo.

15. Madonna

The Queen of Pop asked fans to pray for an end to the Syrian Civil War.

16. Mark Ruffalo

Actor Mark Ruffalo tweeted an article criticizing both Assad and President-elect Donald Trump.

17. Laura Benanti

Actress Laura Benanti criticized Trump for his apparent lack of interest in the crisis currently unfolding in Aleppo right now.

18. Rose McGowan

The Charmed actress directed fans to nine charities working to aid those in Aleppo in a simple tweet.

19. Kathleen Fuentes

YouTube star Kathleen Fuentes said images of the destruction in Aleppo had left her speechless.

20. Justin Baldoni

The Jane the Virgin actor posed a very good question.

21. Mariska Hargitay

Like so many of us, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit actress Mariska Hargitay was left feeling helpless, outraged, and praying for peace.

22. Phoebe Tonkin

The Vampire Diaries actress urged her followers to spend less time talking about celebrity gossip and more time discussing the Syrian Civil War.

23. Milla Jovovich

Milla Jovovich urged those feeling helpless about Aleppo to consider donating to Doctors Without Borders, the White Helmets, and the International Rescue Committee.

24. Wesley Snipes

Actor Wesley Snipes sought to raise awareness about the crisis in Aleppo and Syria.

25. Jordan Doww

The actor and YouTube personality urged folks to speak up and help.

26. Danielle Brooks

The Orange is the New Black actress expressed sadness over what's happening in Aleppo.

27. Chloe Bennet

The Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. actress shared a list of organizations working to assist Syrians.

And there are many many more celebs doing the same thing, as well as other ways to become involved and support those experiencing the horrors in Aleppo, even if you're located in the United States.

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Images from inside Aleppo show a city utterly destroyed - its roads and buildings reduced to rubble as pro-government forces' push to retake the eastern part of the city from rebels. Scenes of widespread destruction and harrowing messages of hopeless...

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A US-based activist's post, ostensibly meant to "raise awareness" about Syrian civilians, turned out to be a complete fabrication. Twitterati found the photos he used were actually from Gaza and Mosul.

A Cleveland-based user who goes by the name of Sami Sharbek has posted two photos on his Twitter account - one showing Middle Eastern-looking residential blocks being bombed from the air; the other depicting a man carrying a crying child. "This is not a movie. This is Syria," he wrote in the caption.

The post was widely retweeted and liked. As of Wednesday morning, it had racked up over 125,000 shares and 154,000 likes. However, what many people failed to notice is that the photos portraying the perils of war were shot outside Syria.

Some users have shared the links to news stories featuring the original photos. "Wrong," John Mangun, BusinessMirror Columnist, tweeted, sharing a link to a 2014 Independent story covering Israeli air raids on Palestine.

This photo shows the same airstrike featured in the photo tweeted by Sharbek. It comes from Reuters' coverage of an Israeli strike on eastern Gaza city.

In a subsequent post, he continued jabbing Sharbek with photo proofs, posting a Reuters image of the US-backed Mosul siege; an event which became notorious for its high civilian death toll and the all-round destruction of Iraq's second-largest city.

Shortly after, Sharbek acknowledged the post was a fake and apologized for the error. "I wasn't aware that the images came from Gaza and Mosul," he wrote. "My only intention was to show awareness for my country."
READ MORE: Red paint not blood: Photographer nabbed shooting fake images of 'Aleppo suffering' in Egypt
Regardless, he still asked users to make donations, sharing a link to a non-profit organization called the Syrian American Medical Society. What's more, he again posted a series of photos whose credibility is doubtful - at least in the case of the infamous image of a little boy allegedly pulled from the rubble after an air strike on Aleppo.

Bogus photos on the horrors of war in Syria have surfaced on more than one occasion. In 2016, Egypt's Interior Ministry said it had arrested a group of five people caught producing images purportedly depicting scenes of suffering in Aleppo.

One particular photo that they had planned to pass off as a real picture from Syria featured a small girl holding a teddy bear in a white dress marked by splotches of blood, with the 'ruins of Aleppo' behind her.

The ministry said that the residents of Port Said, a city on the Suez Canal, were caught in the middle of their photo shoot as the 12-year-old girl, Ragd, was posing for 21-year-old Mustafa, who told the authorities that he "normally photographed weddings and ceremonies, but had an idea for something else."
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Activist 'raising awareness' for Syria on Twitter used photos from Gaza & Mosul

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A US-based activist's post, ostensibly meant to "raise awareness" about Syrian civilians, turned out to be a complete fabrication. Twitterati found the photos he used were actually from Gaza and Mosul.

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Recruiting children for military purposes is harmful for a number of reasons.

Children's development, health and well-being are disrupted when they are drawn into military organisations. Recruited children, particularly those used in armed violence, run a high risk of being killed or maimed, and of suffering serious psychological and social problems afterwards. Some children can be tremendously resourceful in finding ways to cope, but they should not have to face risks such as these.

Witnessing killing, and especially taking part in it, is particularly harmful to a child, who is still developing psychologically and emotionally. Children associated with military forces also face a higher risk of being sexually abused by adults or other children in their military group. Such traumatic events can disrupt children's development, staying with them for the rest of their lives.

In some cases, children are recruited but not normally used in armed conflict until they turn 18, as is the case in at least 43 states worldwide and in some non-state armed groups. But even when children are not used in war, recruiting them is harmful:

Military training is designed to break children down psychologically until they obey commands without question, which can alter their personality in the long term.

Bullying, physical violence and sexual harassment are common in a military environment.

In most cases, child recruits are bound by military regulations that would be unlawful in civilian employment, and which can leave them with no right to leave for several years.

Usually, recruiters target children from disadvantaged communities and troubled family backgrounds, particularly for frontline roles carrying the greatest risks once recruits turn 18 and can be sent to war.

In addition, it is common for recruiters to glamorise military life without fully informing children of the risks and legal obligations involved.

Find out more:
Take action now to stop the recruitment of child soldiers.

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Recruiting children for military purposes is harmful for a number of reasons. Children’s development, health and well-being are disrupted when they are drawn into military organisations. Recruited children, particularly those used in armed violence, run a high risk of being killed or maimed, and of suffering serious psychological and social problems afterwards.

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UNICEF | Children's Rights & Emergency Relief Organization

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Child recruitment by armed forces or armed groups

Around the world, thousands of boys and girls are recruited into government armed forces and rebel groups to serve as combatants, cooks, porters, messengers or in other roles. Girls are also recruited for sexual purposes or forced marriage. Many have been recruited by force, though some may have joined as a result of economic, social or security pressures. Situations of displacement and poverty make children even more vulnerable to recruitment.

As emphasized in the United Nations report on the impact of armed conflict on children (Machel Study, 1996), children associated with armed forces or armed groups are exposed to tremendous violence - often forced both to witness and commit violence, while themselves being abused, exploited, injured or even killed as a result. Their condition deprives them of their rights, often with severe physical and emotional consequences.

UNICEF works to release children from armed forces and armed groups as soon as possible even during armed conflict, and help them return to their families. In doing so, UNICEF supports services that care for the physical and mental health and well-being of such children, provide them with life skills and engage them in positive activities towards their future, including education, vocational skills and livelihoods training. A community-oriented approach is adopted that includes support to other vulnerable children who have also been severely affected by the conflict so as to promote reconciliation and avoid discrimination. These actions require a long-term perspective and long-term commitment to these children and to the conflict affected communities into which they return.

More than 100,000 children have been released and reintegrated into their communities since 1998 in over 15 countries affected by armed conflict. In 2010 alone, UNICEF supported the reintegration of some 11,400 children formerly associated with armed forces and armed groups along with 28,000 other vulnerable children affected by conflict.

(click on the image for the full size infographic)

Since the mid-1980s, UNICEF and its partners have advocated for, and secured the release of, children from armed forces in conflict-affected countries including Afghanistan, Angola, Burundi, Central African Republic, Colombia, Cote d'Ivoire, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia, Mozambique, Nepal, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Sri Lanka, Sudan and Uganda.

UNICEF also promotes the legal and normative framework that underpins prohibitions against the recruitment and use of children by armed forces and armed groups, notably through ratification and implementation of the Optional protocol to the Convention on the rights of the child on the involvement of children in armed conflict, and endorsement of the Paris principles and guidelines on children associated with armed forces or armed groups and the Paris commitments to protect children from unlawful recruitment or use by armed forces or armed groups.

Visit the resources page for more information.

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Child recruitment by armed forces or armed groups

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Around the world, thousands of boys and girls are recruited into government armed forces and rebel groups to serve as combatants, cooks, porters, messengers or in other roles. Girls are also recruited for sexual purposes or forced marriage. Many have been recruited by force, though some may have joined as a result of economic, social or security pressures.

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A five-hour pause in the Syrian government's assault on the rebel-held area of Eastern Ghouta near Damascus has now begun.

The respite was ordered by Syria's ally Russia, which said it would be repeated daily to allow civilians to leave.

It's not clear if aid agencies will be able to bring food and medicine into the area, where around 400,000 people have been under relentless bombardment.

The US has urged Russia to use its influence to secure a 30-day ceasefire.

That ceasefire was agreed in a UN Security Council resolution passed last Saturday but it was not given a specific start date.

More than 560 people have been killed in the enclave in the past eight days, monitors say.

Life in Eastern Ghouta - read residents' stories

Syria conflict: Will powers end up in direct war?

Why is there a war in Syria?

Russia has said the pause will run from 09:00 until 14:00 local time (07:00-12:00 GMT) daily.

The Syrian Red Crescent is to help set up a corridor and people will be informed about it via leaflets, text messages and videos, Russia said.

Buses and ambulances will be waiting at a crossing to evacuate the sick and wounded.

"Five hours is better than no hours, but we would like to see an end to all hostilities extended by 30 days, as stipulated by the Security Council," UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric told AFP news agency.

Is this the same as the UN's truce call?

No. The Security Council resolution demanded that "all parties cease hostilities without delay for at least 30 consecutive days" to allow humanitarian aid deliveries and medical evacuations of critically ill people.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said on Monday that the resolution needed to be implemented immediately, warning: "Eastern Ghouta cannot wait. It's high time to stop this hell on Earth."

But Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told reporters that the UN-mandated truce would "start when all sides of the conflict agree on how to introduce it".

The jihadist groups Islamic State (IS) and al-Qaeda are excluded, as well as the major Islamist rebel factions Ahrar al-Sham and Jaysh al-Islam.

Mr Lavrov called them "partners of al-Nusra Front" - the name of a former al-Qaeda affiliate whose latest incarnation is an alliance of jihadists called Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS). It has a small presence in the Eastern Ghouta.

What is the significance of Russia's move?
By Jeremy Bowen, Middle East editor, BBC News
If it works, President Putin's announcement of a daily humanitarian truce is the best news the hard-pressed people in the Eastern Ghouta have had since the bombardment intensified more than a week ago. However, it is not the full implementation of the UN Security Council resolution.

That resolution was weakened by the compromises necessary to stop it being vetoed by the Russians, who are Syrian President Assad's most essential allies.

No start date was agreed for the ceasefire demanded by the resolution. Instead, it used the wording "without delay". That leaves a lot of scope for Russia to impose conditions to buy more time for attacks on armed opposition groups.

Operations against the jihadists of IS and al-Qaeda are excluded from the resolution. But Moscow also says it will continue to hit Jaysh al-Islam. It is by far the most powerful opposition group in the Eastern Ghouta, is backed by Saudi Arabia, and has been to the Geneva peace talks. Jaysh al-Islam has accepted the ceasefire, while reserving the right of self-defence.

Russia and the Syrian government regard all the opposition groups as terrorists.

What is happening in the Eastern Ghouta?

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a UK-based monitoring group, said the overnight situation in the Eastern Ghouta had been relatively calm, though the town of Douma had been hit by four rockets in the morning.

The group says 36 people have been killed in the enclave since the UN resolution was passed at the weekend.

On Monday, 22 people were killed in air and artillery strikes on Douma and Harasta, it reported.

The Syria Civil Defence, a rescue organisation whose volunteers operate in rebel-held areas, said nine civilians had been killed in a strike on one building in Douma.

Government health official Zaher Hajjo told Reuters news agency that rebel shellfire had caused 36 deaths and a number of injuries in the past four days.

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A five-hour pause in the Syrian government's assault on the rebel-held area of Eastern Ghouta near Damascus has now begun. The respite was ordered by Syria's ally Russia, which said it would be repeated daily to allow civilians to leave.

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North Korea has been sending equipment to Syria that could be used in chemical weapons manufacturing, US media report, citing findings by UN experts.

The materials include acid-resistant tiles, valves and pipes, reports say.

An as-yet-unreleased UN report also says Pyongyang's missile specialists have been seen at Syrian weapon-making facilities, the New York Times says.

The allegations come after fresh reports of chlorine gas being used by Syrian forces, which the regime denies.

North Korea is under international sanctions over its nuclear programme.

The supplies reported to have been illicitly sent to Syria by North Korea included high-heat, acid-resistant tiles, corrosion-resistant valves and thermometers. The tiles are said to be used to construct facilities where chemical weapons are produced.

Five shipments were sent to Syria via a Chinese trading firm during late 2016 and early 2017, the Wall Street Journal says. They are allegedly part of dozens of shipments over several years.

The Scientific Studies and Research Center (SSRC) - a Syrian government agency - is said to have paid North Korea via a number of front companies, the newspaper reports.

The report - also seen by the Washington Post - was compiled by the UN Panel of Experts, which assesses North Korea's compliance with UN resolutions.

In a September 2017 report, which is publicly available, the group said it was "investigating reported prohibited chemical, ballistic missile and conventional arms cooperation" between Syria and North Korea.

It said that two UN member states had intercepted shipments bound for Syria, and that the goods were suspected to be supplied by North Korea's main arms exporter as part of a contract with front companies representing the SSRC.

UN spokesman Stéphane Dujarric did not say whether the leaked report would be published, but told the New York Times: "I think the overarching message is that all member states have a duty and responsibility to abide by the sanctions that are in place."

North Korea flouting sanctions, UN told

Shelling and strikes despite Syria 'pause'

Syria conflict: Will powers end up in direct war?

The Syrian government is reported to have told the UN panel that the only North Koreans present in Syria are sports coaches and athletes.

Syria signed up to the Chemical Weapons Convention and agreed to have its declared chemical weapons stock destroyed in 2013 after a sarin gas attack killed hundreds of people in Ghouta.

It has been accused of repeatedly using banned chemical weapons in the civil war since then.

Q&A: Syria chemical weapons disarmament deal

Syria 'still producing chemical weapons'

The spectre of nerve agents in Syria - again

The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) concluded that sarin nerve gas was used in Khan Sheikhoun, in Idlib province, last April in an incident that killed more than 80 people. UN investigators said the Syrian air force was to blame.

The US carried out missile strikes on a Syrian air base in response but President Bashar al-Assad maintained the incident was faked.

Suspected chlorine gas attacks have been recently reported in Syria, including on Sunday in the Eastern Ghouta, a besieged rebel-held enclave near the capital Damascus.

The OPCW is investigating those attacks, Reuters news agency reports, citing diplomatic sources. UK Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson is among Western leaders who have suggested the Syrian regime could be attacked if there is fresh "incontrovertible" evidence that chemical weapons have been used against civilians.

US to impose 'largest' N Korea sanctions

Reality Check: How North Korea does business

Experts say that North Korea has long offered military supplies and weapons know-how around the world in exchange for cash.

The UN report is said to highlight its efforts to illicitly trade with dozens of countries and groups in the Middle East, North Africa and Latin America.

Syria and North Korea have decades-old military ties.

Last week, US President Donald Trump said Washington was imposing a fresh set of sanctions on North Korea, targeting more than 50 ships and maritime transport companies in several countries.

North Korea is already under a range of international and US sanctions over its nuclear programme and missile tests.

Viewpoint: Chemical weapons 'threat to West'

North Korea crisis in 300 words

But it continued tests last year, including tests of a nuclear weapon and a long-range ballistic missile capable of reaching the US.

The US says the new sanctions are designed to put a further squeeze on North Korea, cutting off sources of revenue and fuel for its nuclear programme and clamping down on evasion of already existing restrictions.

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N Korea 'helping Syria chemical weapons'

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North Korea has been sending equipment to Syria that could be used in chemical weapons manufacturing, US media report, citing findings by UN experts. The materials include acid-resistant tiles, valves and pipes, reports say. An as-yet-unreleased UN report also says Pyongyang's missile specialists have been seen at Syrian weapon-making facilities, the New York Times says.

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Once the centre of the Islamic Caliphate, Syria covers an area that has seen invasions and occupations over the ages, from Romans and Mongols to Crusaders and Turks.

A country of fertile plains, high mountains and deserts, it is home to diverse ethnic and religious groups, including Kurds, Armenians, Assyrians, Christians, Druze, Alawite Shia and Arab Sunnis, the last of whom make up a majority of the Muslim population.

Modern Syria gained its independence from France in 1946, but has lived through periods of political instability driven by the conflicting interests of these various groups.

Since 2011 political power, long held by a small mainly Alawite elite, has been contested in a bitter civil conflict initially sparked by the Arab Spring that turned into a complex war involving regional and international powers.

See more country profiles - Profiles compiled by BBC Monitoring

FACTS

LEADERS
President: Bashar al-Assad
In power since succeeding his father in 2000, Bashar al-Assad is fighting for control of his country after protests against his rule turned into a full-scale war.

He inherited a tightly controlled and repressive political structure from long-time dictator Hafez al-Assad, with an inner circle dominated by members of the Assad family's minority Alawite Shia community.

But cracks began to appear in early 2011, in the wake of the "Arab Spring" wave of popular dissent that swept across North Africa and the Middle East.

MEDIA

Syria has a complex and changeable media landscape, split between pro-government outlets and those run by armed groups and the opposition.

More than 200 media workers been killed since the start of the revolt, says Reporters Without Borders.

Social media are used by the government, the opposition and jihadist groups to deliver their messages.

Read full media profile

TIMELINE
Some key dates in Syria's history:
1918 October - Arab troops led by Emir Feisal, and supported by British forces, capture Damascus, ending 400 years of Ottoman rule.

1920 - San Remo conference splits up newly-created Arab kingdom by placing Syria-Lebanon under a French mandate, and Palestine under British control.

1946 - Independence.

1958-61 - Short-lived union of Syria with Egypt as the United Arab Republic.

1967 - Egypt, Jordan, and Syria are defeated in the Six-Day War with Israel. Israel seizes the Golan Heights.

1970 - Hafez al-Assad comes to power in a coup. His rule is characterised by repression and a major arms build-up.

1973 - Egypt and Syria launch surprise attack on Israel in October to try reverse defeats of 1967.

1976 - Syria intervenes in the Lebanese civil war. It maintains military presence there for next three decades and exerts significant influence on Lebanese politics.

1982 - Muslim Brotherhood uprising in the city of Hama is suppressed in a month-long siege by the military, who kill tens of thousands of civilians.

2000 - President Assad dies and is succeeded by his son Bashar.

2005 - Syrian forces withdraw from Lebanon under international pressure following assassination of Lebanese premier Rafiq al-Hariri.

2011 - Unrest inspired by "Arab Spring" uprisings. Confrontation between government and opposition soon develops into civil war that draws in world powers and triggers refugee crisis.

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Once the centre of the Islamic Caliphate, Syria covers an area that has seen invasions and occupations over the ages, from Romans and Mongols to Crusaders and Turks. A country of fertile plains, high mountains and deserts, it is home to diverse ethnic and religious groups, including Kurds, Armenians, Assyrians, Christians, Druze, Alawite Shia and Arab Sunnis, the last of whom make up a majority of the Muslim population.

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BBC Newsround - great introduction and background info.

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BBC Newsround - great introduction and background info.

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There's been a civil war in Syria for the last eight years, with different groups trying to seize control of the country.

The fighting has been between:

Soldiers who support the Syrian president Bashar al-Assad

Fighters known as , who don't want Assad to be in power anymore

The group that calls itself Islamic State (IS)

In the chaos of fighting between the government and anti-government fighters, IS took over large parts of Iraq and then moved into eastern Syria, where they were able to gain land and power.

By March 2019, IS had lost control of all the land they once occupied. More than 12,000 suspected IS members are now being held by Kurdish forces.

The situation is very complicated because other countries have got involved in the conflict.

The Syrian government's key supporters are Russia and Iran, while the US, Turkey and Saudi Arabia backed the rebels. The UK, France and other western countries have also provided varying levels of support to what they consider to be "moderate" rebels.

Fighting continues. Recently, the US removed troops from north-east of the country, which gave way for Turkey to launch a military attack against Kurdish-forces in northern Syria.

According to the United Nations (UN) - a group of countries working together to try to bring peace - at least 6.2 million ordinary people have had to leave their homes inside Syria, while another 5.6 million have left to go abroad.

Why did the fighting in Syria first begin?

Even before the conflict began in Syria, many Syrians were complaining about high unemployment, officials not behaving as they should do, and a lack of political freedom under their President Bashar al-Assad.

However, the event which caused the situation to develop into a full-blown civil war dates back to 2011, to the Syrian city of Deraa.

Local people decided to protest after 15 school children were arrested - and reportedly tortured - for writing anti-government graffiti on a wall.

The protests were peaceful to begin with, calling for the release of the children, democracy and greater freedom for people in the country.

The government responded angrily and, on 18 March 2011, the army opened fire on protesters, killing four people. The following day, they shot at mourners at the victims' funerals, killing another person.

People were shocked and angry at what had happened and soon the unrest spread to other parts of the country.

At first, the protesters just wanted democracy and greater freedom.

But after government forces opened fire on peaceful demonstrations, people demanded that President Bashar al-Assad resign. However, he refused to do this which made the protesters extremely angry.

President Assad still had a lot of people in Syria that supported him and his government, so they began to fight against people who were against the government.

In July 2012, the International Red Cross said the violence in Syria had become so widespread that it was in a state of civil war.

Who are the rebel fighters?

There isn't one single group of people fighting against President Assad and the government's army.

The group who want the president to step down - called the opposition - is made up of several kinds of people. These include groups of rebel fighters, political parties who disagree with Assad, and those living in exile who cannot return to the country.

When the conflict began, it was thought that there could have been as many as 1,000 different groups opposing the government since the conflict began, with an estimated 100,000 fighters.

Right now there are a handful of groups remaining and the number of fighters has reduced as well.

How did Islamic State become involved?

It wasn't long before the crisis in Syria became more than just a war between people who are for or against President Assad.

In 2011, the group calling Islamic State (IS) joined the rebellion against President Bashar al-Assad in Syria, where it found a safe haven and easy access to weapons.

IS is a militant group with extreme, violent views, which has used this violence against anyone who doesn't agree with what they think. They have also persecuted other groups, including Christians and Yazidis.

In 2014, the group began to take over large areas of a country called Iraq, next door to Syria. Then, they moved into eastern Syria and - in the chaos of the war - they were able to gain land and power there too.

Raqqa was the first big city captured by IS in Syria in early 2014. The group went on take over large parts of the country towards Aleppo in the north, and along the Turkish border.

Both Assad's forces and the rebels were fighting a separate battle against IS at the same time as fighting each other.

To try to stop IS, in September 2014 the US used planes to attack IS fighters in Iraq. These attacks are known as airstrikes.

Just over a year later, UK MPs voted in favour of military action against IS in Syria too. The first airstrikes were carried out by RAF Tornado jets within hours of the vote in the House of Commons.

Towards the end of 2017, Syrian Kurdish and Arab fighters joined together - backed by America - to take back the city of Raqqa in the north-west. This ended three years of rule by IS which had made Raqqa its headquarters.

Following this, Syrian state TV - controlled by President Assad's government - said the Syrian army had retaken the city of Deir al-Zour, the largest city in eastern Syria. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a UK-based activist group, said government forces had taken control of the city after weeks of fighting.

This was a big stronghold of IS in Syria, which showed how much IS had lost the control it once had. The city had been very important to IS because it is close to the border with Iraq.

But there was still some disagreement over whether IS had been cleared from the area completely. Syrian state TV reported that the city was completely free from terrorism, while other reports said the Syrian army and its allies were still clearing IS fighters from the area.

In March 2019, the US-backed Kurdish fighters in Syria declared military victory over IS. The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) (a group largely made up of Kurdish fighters) gained control of the town Baghuz, which was the final stronghold of IS.

This was a major moment in the fight against IS. At the group's most powerful, they controlled 34,000 square miles of land - approximately the size of the UK - stretching across Syria and Iraq.

Now, IS occupy a few hundred square metres near Syria's border with Iraq.

There are still concerns about IS though, as it is thought that some of its fighters are still operating in hiding.

Also, some believe that Turkey's recent invasion of north-east Syria risks the revival of the Islamic State group.

What has been the impact of the war on people living in Syria?

Millions of ordinary people living in Syria have had to escape from their homes to find somewhere safer to live.

According to the United Nations (UN), a group that works to try to solve some of the world's problems, more than five million Syrians have had to leave the country. Many have gone to neighbouring countries, like Jordan, Lebanon, Turkey or Iraq.

More than six million more people have tried to find safety elsewhere in Syria.

Turkey is the largest host country of registered refugees with over 3.6 million Syrian refugees living in the country.

By December 2018 the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights recorded that 367,965 people had lost their lives, including more than 120,000 ordinary people who aren't even soldiers or meant to be involved in the fighting. This figure doesn't include people who are missing or who aren't recorded though, so the actual number is thought to be much higher.

By February 2019, some 13 million people were estimated to be in need of humanitarian assistance, including 5.2 million in desperate need.

Lots of children can no longer go to school because their schools have been destroyed or there are no teachers where they have moved to.

When people are forced to leave the country where they live like this, they become known as refugees. The conflict in Syria has caused one of the largest refugee movements in recent history.

Many refugees made the decision to try to reach Europe. This is because some countries in Europe said they would accept refugees who wanted to start a new life here.

Millions of people both inside and outside Syria are in desperate need of help, but aid agencies say that getting help to people inside the country is very difficult and dangerous.

What else do we need to know about this war?

One other topic that has been talked about a lot is the use of chemical weapons.

There is an international law which bans countries from using chemical weapons in wars, as they are deemed too cruel to use on other people.

However, in August 2013, it was reported that they were used in the war in Syria, which caused anger around the world. Both the rebels and the Syrian government denied that they were responsible.

MPs in Westminster voted against responding to this with military action in Syria. But the US and French governments discussed limited missile strikes against military targets.

In September 2013, Russia and the US reached an agreement which said the Syrian government should give up its chemical weapons and destroy them so they can never again be used. This was important as Russia and the US support different sides in the Syrian war.

The process of destroying the weapons began in October 2013 and the people working on this project were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize later that month.

In April 2017, there was reportedly another chemical weapons attack on a town in north-west Syria, which killed and injured many people.

At the time, many weapons experts, the UK and other countries, and US President Donald Trump said President Assad's government was to blame for the attack.

But the Syrian President said he didn't do it and Russia, which supports him, said it was the result of aircraft hitting chemical weapons on the ground, which belonged to the rebels.

The US responded with military action by carrying out missile attacks on Syria, which the UK said it supported.

Another suspected chemical weapons attack took place in Douma in April 2018. Again experts blamed the Syrian government for what happened but both they and Russia said they didn't do it.

That led to most recent air strikes by the UK, the USA and France against what they said are Syrian government chemical weapons factories.

So what next for Syria?

It doesn't look like the fighting is likely to end any time soon, as there is still a big power struggle going on in the region.

There is a stalemate between the two sides. This means that the government forces and the rebel groups are unable to defeat each other or agree on the future.

And now Turkey has begun military action in the north of the country, causing more people to flee their homes.

Turkey's president Tayyip Erdogan has said he will "never declare a ceasefire" which would end the military action against Kurdish forces in northern Syria.

Turkey wants to push these forces away from Syria's border area.

The country is being destroyed by the conflict, including a lot of its rich cultural heritage. All six of the country's six Unesco World Heritage sites have been significantly damaged.

Lots of countries are trying to continue to supply aid, such as food and emergency supplies. But it is difficult when almost 3 million Syrians live in areas which are very difficult for aid workers to get to.

The rest of the world will continue to try to work out if there is a way to help Syria achieve peace. But for the time being, the conflict continues.
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What's happening in Syria? - CBBC Newsround

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There's been a civil war in Syria for the last eight years, with different groups trying to seize control of the country.

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Imagine living in a country in which men from one family have ruled harshly for more than 40 years. Many people who live there are sad and angry because of the treatment they receive from the government. Even children your age are affected. What if the children were arrested for writing anti-government messages on the wall? Sounds like a scary place to live, doesn't it?

This is the current situation in Syria, an ancient country in western Asia. Syria is bordered by Lebanon, Israel, Turkey, Iraq and Jordan. It was first invaded by the Egyptians in 1500 B.C., followed by the Hebrews, Assyrians, Chaldeans and Persians. Later, it became part of the Roman Empire, followed by the Ottoman Empire. After World War I, France was given control of Syria, which caused more fighting.

In 1961, Syria claimed independence from France. In 1970, Hafez al-Assad took power. His family has controlled Syria ever since. The country has continued to have conflicts internally, as well as with other countries, such as Israel and Lebanon. No wonder people living there are tired of fighting! The country is currently at civil war and more than 100,000 people have been killed.

Fun Facts about Syria for Kids

More than 18,389,000 people live in Syria, although many people have fled the country in recent years.

Syria has 71,498 square miles of land. Most of the land is either coastal lowlands, low hills or desert.

Damascus, the capital of Syria, is the oldest continuously lived-in city in the world.

Most people in Syria are Muslim. A few are Jewish or Christian.

People in Syria speak Arabic, Armenian, Kurdish, Circassian, Kurdish, French and English.

People in Syria can expect to live to be 70 years old.

77 percent of adults can read.

Syria Vocabulary

1. Harsh: fierce, rough, unkind

2. Arrest: taken by the police

3. Internal: inside, within

4. Civil war: war within a country where members of one country fight against each other

All About Syria Video for Kids

Check out this cool video about Syria for kids:

This is a video showcasing the culture and wonderful heritage sites in Syria.

Syria Q&A

Question: What is life in Syria like for children?

Answer: As of September 2013, over 1 million children have become refuges. They have fled the country and live in tents or makeshift shelters with other people. Conditions are crowded. They don't go to school and they often don't have enough to eat. Many children have died in the war.

Map of Syria

Here's a map of the country of Syria and all its cities and villages. Zoom in to get into street level or zoom out to see other countries around Syria! You can see the terrain, but also see the roads, images of the buildings and even take a 3D tour through the streets of the cities of Syria, as though you are actually there!

Enjoyed the Geography for Kids all about Syria info? Take the FREE & fun all about Syria quiz and download FREE Syria worksheet for kids. For lengthy info click here.

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Imagine living in a country in which men from one family have ruled harshly for more than 40 years. Many people who live there are sad and angry because of the treatment they receive from the government. Even children your age are affected. What if the children were arrested for writing anti-government messages on the wall?

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Thinking about how to discuss Syria with your students? Here are 4 key ideas that can help kids go beyond the latest headlines:

1. Syria's cultural significance. For thousands of years, Syria has been a place where human beings lived, loved - and created art. Bordering the Mediterranean Sea, located between Lebanon and Turkey, and a bit bigger than the American state of Pennsylvania, the independent country of Syria was established in late 1945 (after a few decades of French rule, which ended 400 years of Ottoman rule). Syria contains ancient artifacts of global significance, including 6 UNESCO World Heritage Sites that used to attract tourists from all over the world. In 2011, a series of factors ignited a sprawling civil war in Syria. Watch this video to find out more about Syria and how the war began:

2. What is a refugee? About 60 million people around the globe have been forced to leave their homes and seek refuge in other countries to escape war, violence, and persecution. Here's what it means to be a refugee. In the past 6 years, almost 500,000 Syrians have died - and millions more men, women, and children have fled into the unknown because of the ongoing conflict in Syria. In this short film, a young Syrian named Mohammed Alsaleh describes what happened after he fled violence and imprisonment by the Assad regime. Mohammed now lives in Canada, where he counsels newly arrived refugee families. Watch this video to hear his story:

3. How leaders are responding. Countries respond to international crises in different ways, and future history books will record how world leaders responded to this ongoing crisis and other matters of global significance in 2017. Watch this video to see how countries are responding to Syria now:

4. What do you think? As a student, do you feel moved to take action about the news regarding Syria and the global refugee crisis? Why or why not? Here's one way that an individual responded. As a young leader, do you agree with how your country has responded to the conflict in Syria, and to the needs of refugees? Why or why not? What would you do if you were in charge of your country's response?

To learn more about the news in Syria from a variety of media perspectives, check out The Week's ongoing coverage. To learn something new every week, sign up for the free TED-Ed Newsletter here >>

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Thinking about how to discuss Syria with your students? Here are 4 key ideas that can help kids go beyond the latest headlines: 1. Syria's cultural significance. For thousands of years, Syria has been a place where human beings lived, loved - and created art.

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Interesting piece from a Syrian child. There are other stories like this on the Save the Children website

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11-year-old Ghofran hasn't been to school for a year - even though she's living in one. She enjoyed going to school in Syria, but conflict erupted and forced Ghofran and her family to leave their home and country, and flee to Lebanon. Now a refugee, Ghofran sleeps on the floor of an abandoned classroom, and hasn't been to school in over a year. Ghofran spends her days indoors and doesn't go out. She says that
what she misses most about Syria are her school friends and the lessons. Ghofran would love to go to school in Lebanon and she has made one friend, a girl from Lebanon, who goes to school every day. But the school is far away and her mother thinks it is too risky for Ghofran to travel there.

"When I went to school, it was great because I'd learn and have fun. I used to go to school with my friends, and we'd come home afterwards to study together. I got good grades and our teacher was
very nice to us - we really liked her.

"We went until they started bombing schools. I wouldn't dare to go because of the bombings and I was scared of being kidnapped... that's why I stopped going. We all stopped going: me, my teacher,
and the other pupils, and then the school closed. The armed men would shoot at us - one of my friends was hit and she died.

"Here we just sit around - I don't have anything to do and I don't have any fun. We want schools so we can learn... I really love learning. I'd love to go back to Syria, back to my friends and our home.

"Now I don't even have school books or a bag, and I want to learn so I'm sad about that."

"I hope I'll be able to go to school in Lebanon because I love learning... I love Arabic class and I love learning English, reading and maths. I want to go to a school near here, where I can learn.

"It's important for children to go to school because it's very important to learn. I like school and I think everyone else likes to go, too.

"I'd like to go back to Syria, back to our home and to my school."

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Syria Crisis: "I'd like to go back to Syria, back to my school." | Save the Children International

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11-year-old Ghofran hasn't been to school for a year - even though she's living in one. She enjoyed going to school in Syria, but conflict erupted and forced Ghofran and her family to leave their home and country, and flee to Lebanon.

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The Interpreter

Musa, a 25-year-old Kurdish sniper, on top of a building in the destroyed town of Kobani, also known as Ain al-Arab, in Syria in January 2015. Credit... Bulent Kilic/Agence France-Presse - Getty Images

You could be forgiven, after five years of Syria's war dominating front pages, for feeling lost.

It is easy to track the war's toll: It has killed 400,000 people, displaced millions, opened space for the Islamic State, and sucked in foreign powers, including the United States. It is harder to keep track of the how and why. The basics can seem even more confusing than the day-to-day details.

But those basics are crucial to understanding Syria's war - and they are far more complex than they might initially seem. As last week's truce appears shaky after American planes bombed Syrian troops, here are straightforward answers to some of the fundamental questions about the conflict: an attempt to explain its origins, the broader context and how it relates to the refugee crisis and the rise of the Islamic State.

The war makes more sense if you think of it as four overlapping conflicts.

The core conflict is between forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad and the rebels who oppose him. Over time, both sides fractured into multiple militias, including local and foreign fighters, but their fundamental disagreement is over whether Mr. Assad's government should stay in power.

This opened a second conflict: Syria's ethnic Kurdish minority took up arms amid the chaos. The Kurds carved out a de facto ministate and have gradually taken territory they see as Kurdish - sometimes with backing from the United States, which sees the Kurds as an ally against jihadist groups. While Mr. Assad has not focused on fighting the Kurdish groups, they are opposed by neighboring Turkey, which is in conflict with its own Kurdish minority.

The third conflict involves the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL, which emerged out of infighting among jihadist groups. In 2014, the Islamic State seized large parts of Syria and Iraq, and it declared that territory its caliphate. The group has no allies and is at war with all other actors in the conflict.

The fourth, and most complex, dynamic may be the crisscrossing foreign interventions, which have grown steadily. Mr. Assad receives vital support from Iran and Russia, as well as the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah. The rebels are backed by the United States and oil-rich Arab states like Saudi Arabia. These foreign powers have different agendas, but all pursue them by ramping up Syria's violence, helping to perpetuate the war.

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Fighters from the Free Syrian Army in Sakba, on the outskirts of Damascus, the Syrian capital, in January 2012. Credit... Tomas Munita for The New York Times

On the surface, the conflict began in 2011 with the Arab Spring. Syrians, like other peoples across the region, rose up peacefully against their authoritarian government. Mr. Assad cracked down violently. Communities took up arms to defend themselves, then fought back in what became a civil war. Some soldiers joined the rebels, but not enough to win.

But that alone does not explain Syria's disintegration. It is now clear that the state was weak in ways that made it inherently unstable and prone to violence.

The government was dominated by a minority group. Over decades, Syria's religious and ethnic divides had taken on greater political importance, making the ruling minority fearful and reactive. Mr. Assad had strong support among the military and security services, but not the broader population, making violence more tempting. The instability was deepened by the fact that rural Syrians had moved to cities in large numbers in recent years, driven in part by droughts linked to climate change.

Fighting, once it began, was worsened by several external factors. A decade of war in neighboring Iraq had produced battle-hardened extremist groups that now flowed into Syria. Iraq's political troubles in 2011 and 2012 helped open space for the Islamic State. During this time, Syria was sucked into the regional power struggle between Iran and Saudi Arabia.

Five countries are playing a major role in Syria, each with different agendas. Their interventions have locked the war into an ever-worsening stalemate.

Iran was first, sending supplies and soldiers to prop up Mr. Assad. Iran sees Syria as crucial to its regional strategy: It provides access to Lebanon and therefore Hezbollah, a group Tehran uses for regional influence and as a counterweight to Israel, whose nuclear weapons it fears.

Saudi Arabia supported Syria's rebels in the hopes of replacing Mr. Assad with a friendlier government and of countering Iran's influence. Saudi Arabia and Iran have been rivals for decades, fighting something like a cold war for regional dominance. (Other Arab states like Jordan, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates have also backed the rebels.)

Their struggle has escalated for several reasons: Iran's growing power; the regional power vacuum that opened with the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003 in Iraq; more political vacuums opened by the Arab Spring; a hawkish new king in Saudi Arabia; and Saudi fears that the United States is becoming less hostile toward Iran.

The United States funnels weapons to Syria's rebels. It did so initially out of opposition to Mr. Assad, a longtime enemy, and later to encourage those groups to fight the Islamic State. The United States has also armed Kurdish groups against the Islamic State.

Turkey sheltered Syrian rebels and ushered in foreign recruits, seeking to undermine and perhaps topple Mr. Assad. Later, the country also acted to counter Syrian Kurdish groups, fearing that they could strengthen Kurdish insurgents in Turkey.

Russia has backed Mr. Assad from the beginning, selling him arms and providing diplomatic cover at the United Nations. Syria is one of Russia's last remaining allies, and it is where Moscow maintains its only military bases outside the former Soviet Union. Russian forces intervened in 2015, at a time when Mr. Assad appeared to be losing ground.

There have been atrocities on all sides, but forces loyal to Mr. Assad have committed by far the most. Because his government is so weak - its support base is small and its military has suffered heavy defections - Mr. Assad seems to believe he can regain control only by violently coercing Syrians into submission. That has included using chemical weapons, barrel bombs and starvation.

Because neither Mr. Assad nor the rebels are strong enough to win, the battle lines push back and forth, rolling across communities in waves of destruction that kill thousands but accomplish little else.

Foreign interventions have made those shifting front lines even bloodier and have deepened the stalemate. As a result, the overall violence kills more Syrians without altering the conflict's underlying dynamics.

A man pointed a flashlight at the body of a Syrian man killed by shelling by the Syrian Army at a graveyard in Aleppo, Syria, in 2012. Credit... Manu Brabo/Associated Press

The years of chaos have destroyed basic order in Syria. As often happens in lengthy civil wars, militias have filled the vacuum. Their leaders often behave more as warlords, forcibly extracting resources from local communities. This practice has been carried out by rebel militias and some that support the government.

The rise of the Islamic State has worsened all of these trends. The jihadist group has provided another set of shifting battle lines, introduced more warlords, compelled more foreign interventions and, most of all, put communities under its tyrannical, fanatical rule.

There is nothing innately religious about Syria's war, but its broader political forces have played out along religious lines. To understand why, it helps to start about 100 years ago.

After World War I, France took control of the territory of the defeated Ottoman Empire that is now Syria. France ruled through minority groups that would be too small to hold power without outside support. That included Alawites, followers of a branch of Shiite Islam, who joined the military in large numbers. The last French troops left in 1946, and a long period of turmoil followed. Syria's military consolidated power in a 1970 coup led by Hafez al-Assad, an Alawite general and the father of Bashar al-Assad.

Syria's authoritarian government favored Alawites and other minorities, widening social and political divides along sectarian lines. A sectarian civil war next door in Lebanon and the rise of Sunni religious politics widened them further, and Alawites continued to cluster in positions of power. The country's Sunni Arab majority came to feel, at times, that they were underserved.

Minority governments like Syria's tend to be unstable. They sometimes fear discrimination or worse should they lose power, and can see the majority group as a potential threat rather than a base of support. This can make them more willing to use violence to hold on to power - as Mr. Assad did when his forces opened fire on peaceful protesters in 2011.

As the war has worsened, many Syrians have based their allegiance on sectarian identity. But this is not because they are motived primarily by religious or ethnic concerns. Rather, it is defensive. They fear that the other side will target them for their background, so they feel safe only with their own people. This contributes to atrocities: If Alawites are seen as innately pro-Assad, then Sunni militias could conclude that all Alawite civilians are a threat and treat them accordingly, which prompts more defensive sorting.

Kurdish militia fighters at a forward position on the eastern banks of the Euphrates River in October 2015. Credit... Tyler Hicks/The New York Times

At the same time, the Iran-Saudi Arabia proxy war is also playing out along sectarian lines, with the Saudis backing Sunnis and Iran backing Shiites across the region. For both countries, sectarianism is a tool by which they can cultivate proxy forces and stir up fear of the other side.

The group has its roots in two earlier wars and the foreign occupations that followed: the 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and the American-led invasion of Iraq in 2003. In the first, Sunni Arab volunteers fought alongside Afghan rebels, later forming the global jihadist movement, including Al Qaeda. In the second, Al Qaeda and other Sunni groups flooded to Iraq to fight both the Americans and Iraq's Shiite majority.

A key name is Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a Jordanian extremist who fought in Afghanistan in the 1990s and Iraq in the 2000s. Mr. Zarqawi's views and methods were even more extreme and theatrical than Al Qaeda's. He flourished in Iraq's war, using tactics now associated with the Islamic State: videotaped beheadings, mass killings of fellow Muslims deemed nonbelievers and attacks meant to incite a Sunni-Shiite war.

Al Qaeda invited Mr. Zarqawi to rebrand his group as Al Qaeda in Iraq, but the two factions argued over strategy and ideology, setting them up for conflict a decade later in Syria.

Mr. Zarqawi was killed in 2006, and his group declined as Sunni Iraqis turned against it. Later, Iraq's Shiite-dominated government grew increasingly authoritarian and sectarian, alienating the minority Sunni. It also purged many experienced military and security officers, replacing them with political loyalists.

The successor to Mr. Zarqawi's group, then calling itself the Islamic State in Iraq, exploited these conditions in 2011 and 2012 to reconstitute itself, for example by breaking extremists out of Iraqi prisons. Its leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, combined Mr. Zarqawi's views with an apocalypticism taking hold amid the region's upheaval.

Mr. Baghdadi sent a top officer into Syria's war to set up a new Al Qaeda franchise: the Nusra Front, now known as the Levant Conquest Front. In 2013, Mr. Baghdadi declared himself commander of all Al Qaeda forces in Iraq and Syria. After years of tense partnership with Al Qaeda, the groups finally split. Mr. Baghdadi - his force now rebranded as the Islamic State - invaded Syria to fight his former Qaeda allies.

Kurdish refugees on their way to shelters in Turkey as the Islamic State attacked the city of Kobani, Syria, in September 2014. Credit... Bryan Denton for The New York Times

The Islamic State carved out a ministate in Syria's chaos, then used it as a base to invade Iraq in 2014. It repeated Mr. Zarqawi's worst tactics on a far larger scale, committing acts of genocide and mass murder in the Middle East and abroad, and attracting foreign recruits from rich and poor countries alike.

The war in Syria has produced nearly five million refugees. The exodus has created three sets of problems, all dire: a humanitarian crisis for the refugees themselves, a potential crisis for the countries that host them and a political crisis in Europe over what to do.

Syrian refugees face disease and malnutrition. Host countries often bar them from working, meaning that families cannot provide for themselves. Many Syrian children are deprived of education, a problem that could hinder them for life.

Most Syrian refugees are in Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey, neighboring countries that lack the necessary resources to help them. The influx could be destabilizing, particularly in Jordan and Lebanon where Syrian refugees now make up a large share of the population.

Many refugees, unable to tolerate life in the camps, have braved the dangerous journey to Europe. But European voters have largely rejected them, supporting extreme measures to keep out Syrians and other migrants.

European leaders at one point suspended search-and-rescue missions in the Mediterranean, partly in response to complaints that saving refugees' lives might encourage more to make the journey. Leaders of the campaign to get Britain to leave the European Union based their argument partly on opposition to accepting Syrian refugees.

Europe's attitude appears driven by a combination of economic downturn; hostility toward the European Union, which allows unlimited migration among member states; and demographic anxiety rooted in longer-term trends that have made populations more diverse.

As a result, many refugees are stuck in camps in Italy and Greece. Many others die trying to reach Europe. European countries, along with the United States and Canada, have absorbed thousands of refugees, but not nearly enough to alter the underlying crisis.

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Straightforward Answers to Basic Questions About Syria's War

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The Interpreter You could be forgiven, after five years of Syria's war dominating front pages, for feeling lost. It is easy to track the war's toll: It has killed 400,000 people, displaced millions, opened space for the Islamic State, and sucked in foreign powers, including the United States.

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A potential military strike by Western powers on Syria now appears to be a fait accompli and is being touted as long overdue. Given the spiralling humanitarian disaster that has overtaken the country during the last two years of conflict, continued inaction appears to be an untenable reality. The death toll is now well over 100,000 (although the proportion of civilians to combatants is unclear). There are 2 million refugees, half of whom are children, and over 4 million more internally displaced persons (IDPs), amounting to a quarter of the country's overall population. Yet, it was the apparent chemical weapons attack in the suburbs around Damascus known as Ghouta last week that has served as the impetus for international military intervention into the conflict. Amidst the rhetoric and war rehearsals, clarity on what is really happening seems to be cast aside in the media, in favor of faux-spontaneous leaks, retired generals, and trumpeters of past wars. Here are 10 questions to try to set the record straight.

1. Were chemical weapons used in Syria?

When the initial attack unfolded last Wednesday, August 21 in the suburbs in Damascus known as Ghouta (near the town/suburb of Jobar), news quickly spread to local, regional and international media. Claims were made of hundreds of deaths, with some activists claiming the death toll was 1,300. Moreover, the Government of Syria immediately denied responsibility and has continued to do so. However, the attack did unfold amidst a series of army strikes on Jobar, which is a rebel-held area, and has been for quite some time. The Government conversely claimed to find chemical weapons supplies in tunnels in the same area, and it is alleged that some Hezbollah fighters were also exposed to chemical toxins.

A week on, it appears incontrovertible that chemical weapons were used, not just from YouTube videos but also from visits by independent journalists, and of course by a report by Médecins Sans Frontières that has documented at least 355 deaths from local hospitals. It is likely that the chemical agent used was a neurotoxin or nerve gas, most likely sarin gas. What is still not clear, is how they were delivered (i.e. in what form and carried on what type of weapon) and from where.

It should also be kept in mind that this was not the first attack that has been alleged. There have been numerous claims by rebels, and counter-claims by the government on the use of chemical weapons in the conflict. Here's a map of those events. In fact, this is precisely why the team of UN inspectors had arrived in the country, the day before this latest incident (and massacre) took place. In fact, what is interesting is that their investigation of other sites has now been put on the back-burner due to the latest developments.

2. Do we know who actually used the chemical weapons?

The United States, United Kingdom, and France have all stated they are certain that the Government of Syria has undertaken the attack last week. On the U.S. side, at the forefront of the rhetoric has been Vice President Biden - who has said there is 'no doubt' -- and Secretary of State John Kerry, who made an evocative plea for action several days ago. Of course, the next speech is the most important, and it would be one made by President Barack Obama. In light of this certainty, it would be difficult to question the attribution of blame. A leak from the U.S. government also claims to have intercepted a murky call between commanders in the Syrian army that supposedly is evidence of culpability on the Syrian side.

There is tremendous reason to doubt U.S. claims. Firstly, it should not be forgotten that then Secretary of State Colin Powell presented ironclad evidence to the United Nations Security Council of weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) that Saddam Hussein possessed, a finding that was later proven to be utterly false, but which was the basis of a war that continues until today. Secondly, the U.S. claimed that there was incontrovertible proof that the Government of Syria was responsible for earlier chemical attacks this year, but that finding has been contested, and some experts apportioned blame to the rebels fighting the government. And finally, in this case, no evidence has been presented, as of yet to make such a determination, at least not conclusively.

Does that mean the Assad and his regime are not responsible? No. It is very likely given the ongoing military operations in the same area that the Syrian government launched such an attack. Yet, more evidence needs to be presented to make a definitive conclusion. The other scenarios that could be possible are:

- Extremists groups like Jubhat al-Nusra, who have previously seized advanced weaponry and possibly chemical weapons from Syrian army bases and positions, were attempting to use them on Syrian soldiers (or conversely to cast blame on the Syrian army);

- The government of Syria inadvertently hit a stockpile of sarin gas releasing the toxins (although unclear if this would lead to the effects that we've seen); or

- Rogue elements within the chain of command used chemical weapons intentionally or inadvertently.

Russia, Iran and China have of course cast doubt on western claims but that is to be expected.

3. What would be the basis or justification for U.S. intervention?

The U.S. intervention would likely be on the basis of Obama's previously stated red line on Syria, which would be the mass use/movement of chemical weapons. It is not in fact about humanitarian intervention and the Responsibility to Protect framework, developed in the 1990s to prevent genocide and mass civilian deaths. If it was, then the humanitarian case for intervention has been present for some time, and other massacres by the Syrian regime, such as in Houla in 2012, would have provided sufficient pretext. Obviously, the U.S. and other Western powers, and regional countries, have their own interests at play that are much more geopolitical in nature, but the justification or casus belli being offered is around the issue of chemical weapons, and chemical weapons alone.

4. Will anybody else be involved in the military strikes besides the US and will this affect whether they are 'legal'?

Given Russian and Chinese opposition, and a likely veto of any resolution by the United Nations Security Council supporting such a military strike on Syria - especially in light of the intervention in Libya, which Russia regretted supporting - a 'coalition of the willing' will need to be developed. This coalition would be broader than the Iraq War in 2003, and would be similar to the coalition carrying out the strikes against Serb positions vis-a-vis Kosovo in 1999. While the U.S., UK and France will likely lead an effort, Turkey would also be critical as a staging ground (as it borders Syria from the North), and thus there will be an attempt to launch such an attack under the auspices of NATO. Despite its reluctance, Jordan, given its reliance on the U.S. and Saudi Arabia politically and economically, will have no choice but to support . The two other neighbours of Syria, Iraq and Lebanon are squarely against any military strike. And of course, the other neighbor - Israel - would sit this one out but would provide intelligence to the U.S. and other parties on Syrian positions, given that it has already undertaken a number of air strikes on Syria in the past two years.

Further afield, it is likely the GCC (Gulf Cooperation Council) will support military intervention, with Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates possibly sending fighter jets to participate in a strike to give it regional cover and credibility. Finally, while many groups within the Arab and Muslim world, and the 'left' of the West, will oppose military intervention, many others will support it, because of the spiraling humanitarian situation in Syria.

Technically speaking if the military intervention is not sanctioned by the United Nations Security Council, and there is no imminent threat that the U.S. and other parties can point to towards its own territory or its assets, it would be illegal under international law. However, that has not stopped NATO or other countries (i.e. Russia in Georgia) form undertaking military action in the past. And before the Iraq War, some scholars claimed that while such an attack would be illegal it would be legitimate, and demonstrated retroactively to be legal. Given the state of world affairs, 'legality' is likely not a determining factor for a strike on Syria.

5. Are we seeing a repeat of Iraq in 2003?

No. The situation today with Syria is different than it was in 2003 in Iraq, for many reasons, despite some passing similarities. In Iraq, the U.S. claimed that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction while in Syria, we already know Bashar al-Assad possesses chemical weapons, and the question is whether he used them ( small aside, it was released this week that thirty years ago, the U.S. obstructed a UN investigation when it knew Saddam Hussein had used chemical weapons). In Iraq, the U.S. alleged that Saddam Hussein had links with Al Qaeda (and related groups), while in Syria, Bashar al Assad is widely acknowledged to be fighting al Qaeda (and related groups) in addition to the 'Free Syrian Army' (and in addition to crushing peaceful demonstrators). In Iraq, there was no active state of conflict that was leading to a spiraling humanitarian catastrophe (and the potential use of WMDs), while in Syria there is not just a violent conflict, but also WMDs have been used by somebody (even if the culprit is not yet clear).

What should be noted, however, is that both Iraq in 2003 and Syria in 2013, are in complex environments, and any removal of government or sustained military intervention would have dramatic unforeseen consequences. It seems like the media debate in the U.S. is also similarly anemic (but slightly better) this time around.

6. What is the real motivation for the United States and other powers?

As with all things in this world when it comes to international relations, the primary interest is not humanitarian but geopolitical. This is not absolute, however, and it could be argued that Turkey has been insisting on humanitarian intervention from an early stage. However, the regimes (not peoples) in the Gulf, most notably Saudi Arabia, are exclusively concerned with dislodging Syria from the Iranian orbit, and severing connections between Syria and Hezbollah. Humanitarian concerns are a by-product. And for the United States, something similar is at play. As noted above, if this was about humanitarian concerns, action would have been taken long before 100,000 deaths had occurred.

For the U.S. it has been looking for regime change in Syria for a while. However, these strikes if they occur, will be about sending a message and asserting America's position in the Middle East, given the red line that Obama drew. Ultimately, it may tip the scales in the rebels favor or improve the United States' negotiating position vis-a-vis Iran. The chemical weapons attack in a morbid way, opened a door of opportunity for Western powers (with GCC support) to do something limited without a full-scale intervention.

7. Will military intervention solve the Syrian conflict?

No. Military intervention no matter how small or how big will not solve the Syrian conflict. In fact, it could very much exacerbate the situation on the ground even further (if that can be imagined). What is being reported currently is that the U.S. and allies will undertake a series of"surgical strikes', a euphemism for a large-scale assault on key military and strategic installations, such as army positions, air bases, radar installations, communications infrastructure, supply routes, and, where appropriate, power stations (among other targets). More than anything this will be intended to send a message to the regime and weaken its capabilities. Yet, it would not be a fatal blow. And it would not necessarily tip the scales in favor of the rebels. It may in fact mobilize certain parties to support the regime, if there are civilian casualties from the intervention.

The solution to the Syrian situation has to be political, if it is going to lead to stability or peace. Yet, if the military intervention escalated and led to the removal of the Syrian regime, that would still not be the end of the conflict. After the Soviets were booted out of Afghanistan, the country devolved into a civil war for five years until the rise of the Taliban in 1996. Somalia has only recently stabilized (somewhat), more than 20 years after the assassination of its leader, President Siad Barre. And neighboring Lebanon, took 15 years of conflict (1975-1990) to reach an end, which was brought about by ironically Syrian military intervention (which committed its own crimes), that produced a -- audible gasp -- political settlement.

8. What could potentially go wrong?

Everything. The potential for disaster following military intervention in any country is great (see Black Hawk Down, Iraq, Afghanistan and the list goes on). Yet, in Syria it could be apocalyptic. Here is a list of what that could entail:

- Chemical weapons are used by Syria against its neighbors such as Jordan and Turkey, or U.S. military positions in those countries;
- U.S. planes/helicopters are shot down leading to an escalation of U.S. involvement requiring boots on the ground;
- Syria sends a volley of missiles into Tel Aviv and other places in Israel, leading to a regional war;
- Proxy forces of Iran, Hamas and Hezbollah, launch a sustained campaign against Israel/U.S. interests, including attacks embassies within Lebanon/Palestine/Israel but also in other countries, in the short and medium-term;
- Al Qaeda forces in the region, while opposing the Assad regime, oppose U.S. intervention especially if there are masses of civilian casualties, and use it as a pretext for attacks in places such as Yemen;
- Russia objects to the U.S. strike, and mobilizes warships to the Mediterranean, leading to a standoff with Europe and the U.S.;
- Negotiations with Iran, still in embryonic stages are suspended irrevocably;
- Six party talks with North Korea are suspended by Russia, China, and North Korea irrevocably;
- The Syrian regime goes all out in its conflict and begins to bomb with even more abandon civilian areas controlled by rebels, leading to thousands of casualties, and counter-massacres by enraged rebel fighters;
- The Syrian regime is removed by force from power by the intervention, leading to a power vacuum sinking the country further into civil war for over a decade of even more violent strife and a possible Al Qaeda style government;
- Tensions rise in the Middle East, especially in places of sectarian division (i.e. Lebanon, Yemen, Bahrain, Eastern Province in Saudi Arabia, and Iraq) leading to civil strife and attacks on governments, and counter-attacks on populations; and
- World War 3.

9. What could potentially go right?

It may seem that what is written above is slightly alarmist and that's true. Many things can go wrong (most of which, to be honest, are hard to predict as they will be unforeseen consequences or as Donald Rumsfeld, ironically calls them, unknown unknowns). However, the U.S.-led strikes could be quite effective. Firstly, if they are limited in scope, they can be completed in one day, reducing the risk for a military entanglement and civilian casualties. Secondly, if they are from the air, there is limited risk for casualties on the side of the intervening forces. Thirdly, an attack that is forceful and hits Syrian military positions, will send a message to Assad that there is a limit to what he can do, which thus far has not been the case, and may entice him to reach a political settlement. Fourthly, it is unlikely that the Syrian regime would retaliate, for a short strike on positions, against Israel, knowing that they cannot afford to fight a war on so many fronts (and thus far they have yet to retaliate to any Israel air strike). Finally, the systematic destruction of Assad's air capabilities could be instrumental in limiting civilian casualties by the regime in the future.

All of this is one possibility of what could occur.

10. Let's cut to the chase -- should I support or not support military intervention?

There is no clearcut answer. Ultimately, military intervention should not be supported as a solution to the Syrian conflict. It is not, and whether we like it or not, a political solution/settlement is the only way the current situation moves towards peace and stability. The U.S. is negotiating with the Taliban. The Vietnamese negotiated with the U.S. The Lebanese negotiated with each other. The Dayton Accords to end the Bosnian War were signed with Slobodan Milosevic. It may not be easy, it may be unlikely, and it will not work perfectly, but political discussions involving all parties is the only way to find a real solution.

That being said, if a case is made with overwhelming evidence by independent parties (not U.S. conjecture) that chemical weapons were used by the Syrian regime, then military intervention on a limited scale, and for a period of 1-2 days only, should be undertaken, ideally with UN support -- and if not with broad support of half of the members, i.e., 90, of the UN General Assembly to demonstrate legitimacy -- against military targets only, which will both send a message about the use of these weapons and damage the capabilities of Assad.

What is clear is that whatever happens, there are no clear answers with regards to the conflict in Syria.
Taufiq Rahim is a Dubai-based political analyst. He blogs regularly at TheGeopolitico.com

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A potential military strike by Western powers on Syria now appears to be a fait accompli and is being touted as long overdue. Given the spiralling humanitarian disaster that has overtaken the country during the last two years of conflict, continued inaction appears to be an untenable reality.

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Religion played a minor but important role in the conflict in Syria. A United Nations report in late 2012 said that the conflict was becoming "overtly sectarian" in some parts of the country, with Syria's various religious communities finding themselves on the opposite sides of the fight between the government of President Bashar al-Assad and Syria's fractured opposition.

Growing Religious Divide

At its core, the civil war in Syria is not a religious conflict.

The dividing line is one's loyalty to Assad's government. However, some religious communities tend to be more supportive of the regime than others, fueling mutual suspicion and religious intolerance in many parts of the country.

Syria is an Arab country with a Kurdish and Armenian minority. In term of religious identity, most of the Arab majority belong to the Sunni branch of Islam, with several Muslim minority groups associated with Shiite Islam. Christians from different denominations represent a smaller percentage of the population.

The emergence among anti-government rebels of hard-line Sunni Islamist militias fighting for an Islamic state has alienated the minorities. Outside interference from Shiite Iran, Islamic State militants who seek to include Syria as part of their widespread caliphate, and Sunni Saudi Arabia makes matters worse, feeding into the wider Sunni-Shiite tension in the Middle East.

Alawites

President Assad belongs to the Alawite minority, an offshoot of Shiite Islam that is specific to Syria (with small population pockets in Lebanon). The Assad family has been in power since 1970 (Bashar al-Assad's father, Hafez al-Assad, served as president from 1971 until his death in 2000), and although it presided over a secular regime, many Syrians think Alawites have enjoyed privileged access to top government jobs and business opportunities.

After the outbreak of the anti-government uprising in 2011, the vast majority of Alawites rallied behind the Assad regime, fearful of discrimination if the Sunni majority came to power. Most of the top rank in Assad's army and intelligence services are Alawites, making the Alawite community as a whole closely identified with the government camp in the civil war. However, a group of religious Alawite leaders claimed independence from Assad recently, begging the question of whether the Alawite community is itself splintering in its support of Assad.

Sunni Muslim Arabs

A majority of Syrians are Sunni Arabs, but they are politically divided. True, most of the fighters in rebel opposition groups under the Free Syrian Army umbrella come from the Sunni provincial heartlands, and many Sunni Islamists don't consider Alawites to be real Muslims. The armed confrontation between largely Sunni rebels and the Alawite-led government troops at one point led some observers to see Syria's civil war as a conflict between Sunnis and Alawites.

But it's not that simple. Most of the regular government soldiers fighting the rebels are Sunni recruits (though thousands have defected to various opposition groups), and Sunnis hold leading positions in the government, the bureaucracy, the ruling Baath Party and the business community.

Some businessmen and middle-class Sunnis support the regime because they want to protect their material interests. Many others are simply scared by Islamist groups within the rebel movements and don't trust the opposition. In any case, the bedrock of support from sections of the Sunni community has been key to Assad's survival.

Christians

The Arab Christian minority in Syria at one time enjoyed relative security under Assad, integrated by the regime's secular nationalist ideology. Many Christians fear that this politically repressive but religiously tolerant dictatorship will be replaced by a Sunni Islamist regime that will discriminate against minorities, pointing to the prosecution of Iraqi Christians by Islamist extremists after the fall of Saddam Hussein.

This led the Christian establishment -- the merchants, top bureaucrats and religious leaders -- to support the government or at least distance themselves from what they saw as a Sunni uprising in 2011.

And although there are many Christians in the ranks of the political opposition, such as the Syrian National Coalition, and among the pro-democracy youth activists, some rebel groups now consider all Christians to be collaborators with the regime. Christian leaders, meanwhile, are now faced with the moral obligation to speak out against Assad's extreme violence and atrocities against all Syrian citizens regardless of their faith.

The Druze & Ismailis

The Druze and the Ismailis are two distinct Muslim minorities believed to have developed out of the Shiite branch of Islam. Much as other minorities, they fear that the regime's potential downfall will give way to chaos and religious persecution. The reluctance of their leaders to join the opposition has often been interpreted as tacit support for Assad, but that isn't the case. These minorities are caught between extremist groups like the Islamic State, Assad's military and opposition forces in what one Middle East analyst, Karim Bitar, from the think tank IRIS calls the "tragic dilemma" of religious minorities.

Twelver Shiites

While most Shiites in Iraq, Iran and Lebanon belong to the mainstream Twelver branch, this principal form of Shiite Islam is only a tiny minority in Syria, concentrated in parts of the capital city of Damascus. However, their numbers swelled after 2003 with the arrival of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi refugees during the Sunni-Shiite civil war in that country. Twelver Shiites fear a radical Islamist takeover of Syria and largely support the Assad regime.

With Syria's ongoing descent into conflict, some Shiites moved back to Iraq. Others organized militias to defend their neighborhoods from Sunni rebels, adding yet another layer to the fragmentation of Syria's religious society.

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Is the Conflict in Syria a Religious War?

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Religion played a minor but important role in the conflict in Syria. A United Nations report in late 2012 said that the conflict was becoming "overtly sectarian" in some parts of the country, with Syria's various religious communities finding themselves on the opposite sides of the fight between the government of President Bashar al-Assad and Syria's fractured opposition.

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Thousands of children are serving as soldiers in armed conflicts around the world. These boys and girls, some as young as 8 years old, serve in government forces and armed opposition groups. They may fight on the front lines, participate in suicide missions, and act as spies, messengers, or lookouts.

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Paul Owen

Last month, the UN revised upwards its requests for funding for the Syrian crisis, announcing the largest emergency appeal in its history. Despite this, aid officials warn "money is going out as fast as it is coming in", and that the UN's multibillion-dollar requests still may not be enough in a crisis where demands frequently outstrip resources. Who are the main donors? How much has been given? Where is aid being spent, and on what? Datablog has pulled out the key data here.

And finally, here is a round-up of the main appeals - click here to find out how to donate.

That's it from us for today. Thanks for all the comments.

So what can be done? The UN high commissioner for refugees warned in his interview with the Guardian that if the conflict is not stopped then western countries may be asked to take in tens of thousands of refugees to ease the pressure on the region.
Elizabeth Ferris, an expert on internal displacement at the Brookings Institution:

There are huge long-term problems. Most of the Syrian refugee children are not in school (and most missed considerable school back in Syria before leaving). The available evidence suggests that much of the refugee population is traumatised - kids who have seen relatives killed or experienced bombing - and there is little psycho-social care available in the host countries. If the UN is not able to continue present levels of assistance and if Syrian refugees are not legally able to work, survival becomes more difficult and we're likely to see more hardship and more crime which, in turn, creates hostility among the local population.

Claire Spencer, head of Middle East and north Africa programme at Chatham House:

With all the talk has been about what you do within Syria itself, whether arming the opposition or creating safe havens, surely more could have been done to focus on the humanitarian side of this and link it up to political objectives. Civil wars can go on for 10 years. I don't think there's a strategy on this.

Antonio Guterres, the UN high commissioner for refugees, wants the international community to do more to meet his call for $5bn of funding for Syrian refugees and the countries they are stuck in. In his interview with Mark Rice-Oxley, his message was broadly pay now and broker peace soon, or face the prospect of having to take in thousands of refugees yourself:

It is very important that the outside world shows a commitment not only to humanitarian support not only to economic support but also in assuming a burden sharing attitude. Germany has offered 5,000 places [for refugees]. A number of other countries have offered limited resettlement quotas. But this is still relatively small compared with the numbers in the (current) host countries.

This is the moment for solidarity to be more meaningful.

Jim Yong Kim, is president of the World Bank (read more here):

First, there must be continued - and greater - support for the UN's work for Syrian refugees in camps in Jordan, Turkey and Iraq. Strong support should also go to the Lebanese government and international partners for harbouring and assisting refugees. It is absolutely crucial that these efforts continue, and that donors maintain support for life-saving operations.

Second, it is critical that we assist the neighbours who are helping the victims of Syria's war. Let us ensure that conflict finds no further foothold than it already has. Our support to Jordan will shore up its health budget and provide basic foods and commodities for the country's poorest communities. But pressure on services to citizens and refugees will continue to grow, and education, water, sanitation and waste disposal will all need urgent attention soon, calling on donor support.

Finally, we need to work even more closely with local authorities in Jordan's border towns to help them put in place a more resilient capacity to deliver basic public services. We are also working closer than ever with the UN to strike the right balance between providing immediate humanitarian assistance and the healing, mending and rebuilding that countries need to recover from conflict over the longer term.

Refugees continue to pour over the Syrian border into neighbouring countries, but despite losing homes and relatives in the conflict, many would prefer to return to a perilous future in Syria rather than stay at Jordan's Zaatari refugee camp, where infectious diseases, a lack of security and soaring temperatures make life unbearable. In this final video, Simon Rawles and Angela Robson talk to them.

All day Hasan Hariri will be sending us diary entries to take us through a day in the life of Zaatari refugee camp. Here is his final update:

Since we have to wake up early for Sohour, my wife and I take turns staying up to get the food ready. One day I almost fell asleep. But we have a neighbour who makes sure that all of us are up on time; knocking each door and calling us by name. When I stay up at night I spend my time on my mobile phone, reading things online or talking with brothers; I keep myself busy. I also like to read and increase my knowledge, I look for new things to learn and to also teach them to people.

Back in Syria, we had a cotton candy making machine, we would set it up outside the house at night and people would come and buy some. I wish I had it with me now - not for the money but to bring some joy for the children here.

Of coarse, we wish that we can be with our families.

Thanks to Hasan for all his contributions today.

Lizzy Berryman looks at family planning for refugees.

Before Syria descended into civil war, it had a working health system. Family planning was free and used relatively widely by 58% of women (pdf). Yet the last time an extensive survey was carried out among Syrian refugees in Lebanon, only 37% of non-pregnant married women were using contraception (pdf). According to the UN Population Fund, 250,000 women in Syria and refugee settings will become pregnant by the end of this year. Syrian refugees frequently tell aid workers they are terrified of becoming pregnant, so why is family planning such a rarity?

Part of the answer is rooted in the same reasons that women lack healthcare in general. Lebanon, whose population has grown by nearly 25% since the war in Syria began, is struggling to meet demand for basic healthcare. Many refugees live in unofficial settlements far from cities, and simply do not know where to get healthcare. Cost is also an issue. Most clinics are privately run and prohibitively expensive: a prescription for the pill and a consultation fee may be only a few dollars, but most Syrian refugees are entirely reliant on savings, which dwindle quickly.

Fundamentally, however, there are simply more immediate needs. In refugee communities, people will, understandably, be concerned first and foremost about medical care for those who are already ill, or finding food and shelter. Colleagues from other NGOs have told stories about setting up focus groups to determine family planning needs, where refugees have interjected and asked to discuss food and jobs instead.

This is one of the most powerful of the films we are publishing today: interviews with children in the Zataari refugee camp. They speak about their experiences during the civil war, leaving their homeland and life in the camp. They explain their current difficulties in adjusting to life as displaced people and express their hopes for the future, with one pondering on the meaning of the word 'refugee' itself.

Mirren Gidda has been speaking to Samah Zaitoun, the author of children's book Far From Home, which presents an allegory of refugee life and has become popular with parents and children in Syrian refugee camps. Mirren explains the plot:

The baby goose and his mother are driven from their home by drought. While seeking water, they end up at a pond with lots of other geese. There, the young geese decide they will stop misbehaving if it means they can go home. The rains return, the drought ends and it all finishes up with a happy homecoming.

Zaitoun said she wanted to give refugees "something of their own and provide optimism, an escape from reality and an explanation of their situation, as well as giving their parents some relief."

She realised that many refugees couldn't rationalise to their children why they couldn't go home. "Far From Home was intended to bridge that gap between parent and child," she said. Read the full interview here.

I have just been speaking to Jane MacPhail, a Unicef child protection expert from Brisbane, Australia, who has been working at the Zaatari camp for the last year. I asked her to explain how the camp had changed during that time.

Dramatically. It started off as a small safe space for a couple of hundred tents, and now it houses 130,000 to 160,000 people. So if you can imagine that, and that rapid amount of growth, it has dramatically changed.

We have a whole social economy happening now, we have schools ... I don't know how to describe it to you because it's been such an organic process, because a lot of Zaatari was truly created by the Syrians. They're people who have a drive and a sense to develop business ... and for survival. So they've actually done their own growth here, and all we've been doing as far as the UN goes is helping to support that, and to bring some level of harmony between the peoples, and to bring some education, and all of the other basic human rights to the forefront.

I asked her to talk about her job as a child protection specialist. After coughing from the dust in the camp, MacPhail said:

Unicef have developed child-friendly spaces ... safe places for children who can come and work with specialists in doing things that kids really like to do in order to help them develop their emotional intelligence, to reconnect their little heads back to their hearts. Because a lot of these children that have been coming across the border have witnessed terrible things, so for these children they're still incredibly unsafe, even if they are with their families, primarily because of what they've been with.

She talked about a specific example:

Recently I've seen this wonderful change happen in this young boy who never spoke for three months. When he came across the border with his family he stopped talking, and after being in the child-friendly spaces and feeling like he had a sense of safety, and was doing special activities that help the brain reconnect back to the limbic system, has in actual fact helped him to develop language again. So he has begun to talk. And everyone is very impressed, especially his mum and dad, because they thought they would never hear his voice again.

Read more on children in Zaatari in this piece by Martin Chulov.

In this video by Laurence Topham, two Syrian women living in Zaatari refugee camp in northern Jordan talk about family life at the camp and the significance water plays ahead of Ramadan, describing how they tell stories to their children to educate them and remind them of what home life was like back in Syria.

Children have witnessed massacres, mothers seen their sons killed, families watched their homes looted and burned. But there is one act of violence that refugees from the Syrian crisis will not discuss, writes Phoebe Greenwood.

The conflict has been distinguished by a brutal targeting of women. The United Nations has gathered evidence of systematic sexual assault of women and girls by combatants in Syria, and describes rape as "a weapon of war". Outside the conflict, in sprawling camps and overloaded host communities, aid workers report a soaring number of incidents of domestic violence and rampant sexual exploitation.

But this is a deeply conservative society. The endemic violence suffered by Syrian women and girls is hidden under a cultural blanket of fear, shame and silence that even international aid workers are loth to lift.

Dr Manal Tahtamouni is the director of the Institute for Family Health, a local NGO funded by the European commission that was among the first to open a women's clinic in Zaatari refugee camp. When asked, she says, most women will not admit to being raped. They will say they have seen others being raped.

Read the full story here.

The next section of the blog will concentrate on the lives of displaced women and children.

Sent via Guardian Witness

By GregBeals

The crisis in Syria has displaced 4.25 million people internally and forced almost 2 million to leave the country to seek refuge in Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey as well as further afield. In this interactive map Syrian refugees tell their stories of how the crisis has affected them.

All day Hasan Hariri will be sending us diary entries to take us through a day in the life of Zaatari refugee camp. Here's his latest update:

In Ramadan, we have Iftar [the Ramadan evening meal] alone sometimes, but recently one of our neighbours invited the entire street and it became a habit for each person to take a turn inviting the rest every day. While we are having Sohour we begin to think about what we will have for Iftar today; some people don't care and they eat the same food all the time, but we like to have some variety. Every day I go to the shop and buy things for my wife, she will prepare the food and help her setting up. Right before Iftar you see all the smokers outside waiting until they can light their cigarettes! During Iftar the streets are very quiet, but at night people go out to the market. They buy popcorn, juices, and sweets. You can smell them all around at night. Last week I went to visit my family outside the camp and have Iftar with them, it's nice for all of us to get together.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has just announced that more than 100,000 people have been killed as a result of the conflict in Syria, writes Mirren Gidda.

The announcement was given at the UN headquarters in New York alongside Senator John Kerry, the US Secretary of State.

Both men have reiterated the importance of finding a resolution to the civil war, which has resulted in the displacement of more than 1.6 million registered refugees.

Unicef and its partners have, this week, "delivered life-saving supplies" to the devastated city of Aleppo in north-western Syria, which has the highest concentration of displaced people at 1.25 million, writes Mirren Gidda.

Aleppo, the largest city in Syria, has been fiercely contested by the regime and the rebels and to date.

According to Unicef, "2.4 million people are affected in Aleppo, half of which are children" making Aleppo the worst affected city in Syria. Residents face tripling or quadrupling goods prices, lack of shelter and safe drinking water.

Unicef's 15-truck convoy which travelled from Damascus to Aleppo brought with it "diarrhoeal disease kits to treat 30,000 people, medical kits for 20,000 people, 2,000 family hygiene kits, cooking stoves, high energy biscuits and school supplies." Unicef also delivered "five generators and eight water tanks that will provide safe drinking water to more than 1 million people in Aleppo."

Yoka Brandt of Unicef said that "the humanitarian situation in Aleppo is desperate".

"Our goal is to reach children who most need our assistance, no matter where they are."

Back at Zataari, Mark Rice-Oxley has been speaking to Moussa, a young refugee who fled Deraa to escape military conscription. His family are still in Syria. He works by day and worries about them by night.

I am from Deraa. I came to Jordan six months ago. I came because after we graduate from university we must go to the military and in the military you will kill our Syrian people and if you don't kill them the military will kill you

We came with cars and then we go with the walking. It is too hard. We listen to the bombs. (It took) maybe two nights to enter Jordan.

It is so difficult in the camp. Many people now are going back without ID to Syria. I've been here six months and I'm still living in a tent. The food, they don't give us vegetables.

I'm here with my brother. My family is still in Syria. My two sisters are still in Syria. I am so scared about them.

I'm here working with my friend, all the day we go to work and then go back to the tent. It is so boring life here.

Abu Anass is from Deraa, in southern Syria, and is now living in London. He has been in exile since February 2008 - before the civil war began. After being tortured by Syrian intelligence he fled to London, and when the protests began he demonstrated in front of the Syrian embassy.

It seems the embassy intelligence had taken pictures of the protesters and they began to threaten my family in Damascus. Security men went to my family and told them: if your father does not stop protesting in London, we will detain you all.

So, fearing for my family and my old parents' safety, I stopped taking part in the protests: but the situation in Syria was getting so bad, and I was worried my family would be killed in random shootings. My eldest son was taking part in the protests too, without the knowledge of the family: we discovered only when he was detained by the regime. After his release, he went to China with my parents to join my older brother there.

I decided to apply for asylum in the UK and bring my family to London. I applied in June 2012 and within a month I was granted asylum.

Mirren Gidda has been speaking to Jaya Murphy of Unicef Iraq about the situation facing the 150,000 Syrian refugees in Iraq and how Unicef are trying to help.

About 95% of all refugees are in Iraq's northern Kurdistan region. Out of those about 50,000 are living in one refugee camp called the Domiz refugee camp and the remainder of the refugees are living in urban settings, in host communities ...

The first refugees started arriving in January 2012. There was a slow and steady trickle until about May 2012 and the numbers started to increase until about November. In November there were about 50,000 refugees in Iraq and that's when we had a major increase ... to about 100 a day until about May. So the number actually tripled from November to May from 50,000 to 100,000.

The burden this has placed on Iraq is immense, despite the government's best efforts to cope with the situation. As with so many of the Syrian refugee areas, greater humanitarian effort is required to meet "critical needs of the huge number of refugees".

Mirren notes that even a few years ago to see Iraq as a safe haven would have seemed unbelievable. But as Murphy says, "the majority of refugees that have fled to Iraq are of Kurdish origin and they have fled to the Kurdish part of Iraq so they have those linguistic commonalities ... There are also friendships, family times that exist there. We know of many families who are living with their friends, living with their families in host communities."

UNICEF are playing a leading role in Iraq and the work they are performing seems never-ending. As well as supplying clean water and sanitation, the so-called "central services" which make up two-thirds of their $43m (£28m) Iraq funding appeal, Unicef are determined to provide the refugee children with a childhood again.

In addition to water and sanitation we have programmes for education. With UNHCR we have constructed one school; there are three project schools within the Domiz refugee camp ... We're providing support to all the schools, providing recreational activities, ensuring the schools are friendly environments for the children. In addition to that we also have child protection activities; many Syrian children have seen acts that no children should see ... In some really tragic cases they have seen family members and friends die...

To help them recover we have... "the child-friendly space", which is basically a safe area... where a child can just be a child. Those friendly spaces really help children to regain a sense of normalcy in their lives and to recover as much as possible from the stress that they've encountered.

Here Katie Seaborne of Save the Children describes the conditions at the refugee camp at Domiz.

In Berlin, Louise Osborne has been speaking to some of the more far-flung Syrian refugees. The multicultural lifestyle and inclusive nature of the German capital has won Rana over, but of course she still thinks of the people she left behind: her mother, father, sister and brother-in-law and their two children.

I'm always worried about them and always thinking about them. This might be a reason I can't focus on language and being part of this society and my life here because I just think about them and want to talk to them to feel they are safe. I always wonder how I can help them to get out of Syria.

Sometimes, however, it is a relief to forget about the troubles in her home country.

Sometimes it helps to feel more at home [by speaking to Syrian friends in Berlin], but not always. You want to speak your own language and because you have the same feelings you can share your worries about family in Syria. But sometimes you want to be free from this and I feel like I don't want to meet Syrian people and want to forget about the problems.

Rana is one of more than 10,000 Syrians who have been accepted into Germany since the conflict in Syria began in 2011. Read Louise's full story here.

Throughout the day we will be hearing refugees tell their stories in their own words. Dima Jamal, a teacher, left Aleppo and ended up in Egypt. She recalled life in the city as the war approached:

Aleppo stayed calm for months though other cities in Syria were boiling. We were happy with our life and even worked late at night without any problems. Security was perfect and most people had a good standard of living.

I worked as a teacher and would give private lessons in the evening.

I know there is corruption within the Syrian regime but these who claim they are rebels and are launching a revolution to liberate Syria are no better. Most of them are mercenaries and Syria's future with them would be grim.

For many months, I watched and tried to decide who was right and who was wrong till the Free Syrian Army (FSA) entered Aleppo to destroy the city. I remember I had a chat with a member of the FSA in the city and he told me: "Men of Aleppo are in fact women, they do not have any manhood. All other cities in Syria are uprising against the regime except them, only when we got in the city, we encouraged them to rise up, they are cursed."

I chose to wear a hijab a long time ago, but never thought that one day a man would stop me to recommend I should wear a veil. I was heading home after work and one of the fighters with a long beard, stopped me to say: "Your hijab is not OK, you have to wear a veil."

I could tell he was from [jihadi rebel group] Jabhat al-Nusra, that was too much. It was really terrifying to watch fighters of the al-Nusra front touring Aleppo with their swords.

Israel won't accept Syrian refugees for obvious reasons - it's still technically at war with Syria, reports Harriet Sherwood in Jerusalem.

But more than 100 Syrians - mostly civilians but some fighters - have been treated in Israel for gunshot and shrapnel injuries.

On Tuesday of this week, four wounded Syrians were transferred to the Ziv hospital in the northern Israeli town of Safed. A 15-year-old girl lost a foot or lower leg; an eight-year-old girl and her mother, 48, were treated for fractures and shrapnel wounds; and a 20-year-old man had sustained serious head injuries.

Last month, one man was brought from Syria with medical notes in Arabic, signed by a Syrian doctor and detailing his condition and treatment so far, pinned to his clothing. "Please do what is necessary and thanks in advance," the doctor wrote.

Moshe Ya'alon, Israel's defence minister, recently confirmed the existence of an Israeli field hospital in the Golan Heights, an area of Syria that was occupied by Israel in 1967 and later annexed. Ya'alon told a parliamentary committee that said the Israeli military was transferring severely wounded Syrian nationals to Israeli hospitals for treatment.

"Our policy is to help in humanitarian cases, and to that end we are operating a field hospital along the Syrian border. In cases where there are badly wounded, we transfer them to Israeli hospitals. We have no intention of opening refugee camps."

Since the start of the Syrian uprising, Israel has reinforced a fence along its side of the Golan Heights boundary in order to deter an influx of refugees.

However there is little sign of a mass of refugees trying to gain entry into Israel, as opposed to other neighbouring countries.

Patrick Kingsley reports from "Little Damascus" - 6 October City near Cairo, where 30,000 of the 300,000 Syrians thought to be in Egypt have settled.

With the Syrians came their food. Two years ago, there was just one Syrian restaurant. Now there are 40 - with 20 new Syrian bakeries, and up to 100 Syrian grocers. There are half a dozen Syrian sweet shops and a Syrian cheese factory, while several Syrian families now run homemade delivery services from their kitchens. At the Damascene Lady, the city's original Syrian restaurant, where customers can wipe their feet on a picture of President Bashar al-Assad, staff numbers have doubled to cope with increased number of customers.

Syrian refugees in Egypt are bearing the brunt of a sudden wave of xenophobia, in one of the more unexpected side effects of the removal of Mohamed Morsi from the Egyptian presidency, reports Patrick.

Since Morsi's fall, Egypt's new government has turned away hundreds of Syrians from its borders, at times sending whole plane loads of refugees back to their airport of origin. Widely watched Egyptian television hosts have threatened Syrians with hate speech - all because Syrians have become unfairly associated with Morsi's hated Muslim Brotherhood.

And Syrians in Egypt now fear deportation after the recent arbitrary arrest and detainment without charge of dozens of Syrian asylum seekers and legal residents - including seven minors, Patrick adds.

On July 19 and 20, soldiers arrested at least 82 Syrian refugees at army checkpoints in east Cairo - seemingly at random. Nearly a week on, dozens are still detained without charge, despite some holding valid visas and being registered with the United Nations. A lawyer for the seven detained children said officials had warned they are at risk of deportation - potentially isolating them from their families.

"There has been a decision by the ministry of interior to deport them to one of the three countries: Turkey, Jordan or Lebanon," said Ahmed Mosehly, a lawyer from the Egyptian Foundation for Advancement of the Childhood Condition (EFACC). "Some of the children's families are here in Egypt, and families might be separated if people are being deported."

Human Rights Watch has issued a report on the arbitrary arrests, and termed the incarceration of minors as "unconscionable".

"Syrian children in particular have already faced enormous trauma at home, so separating them from their families and throwing them in jail in Egypt is unconscionable," said a spokesman. "The Egyptian authorities need to treat all Syrians in accordance with the law and to inform their families of their whereabouts and status."

Under Mohamed Morsi, Syrian refugees were welcomed in Egypt. But since Morsi's overthrow, his blessing has become a curse, as Egyptians turned on a group associated with Morsi's now-hated Islamist regime - as this piece elsewhere in today's coverage explains in more detail.

Since Morsi's fall, Egypt's new government has turned away hundreds of Syrians from its borders, at times sending whole plane loads of refugees back to their airport of origin. Widely watched Egyptian television hosts have threatened Syrians with hate speech - all because Syrians have become unfairly associated with Morsi's hated Muslim Brotherhood.

Some Syrians report an increase in xenophobic street harassment, others greater job insecurity. One man claimed his children were not allowed to register at a state-run school because of their Syrian nationality.

When Mohamad Alkhalil crossed the Evros river from Turkey into Greece, he says, ""I thought I was coming to Europe, but Greece isn't Europe. The police immediately detained me because I had no papers and then I was put on trial. The first thing the judge asked is: 'Why did you defect and join rebel forces? Why did you make such a mistake?' I was just so shocked."

Since the onset of their country's war in March 2011, writes Helena Smith in Athens, some 20,000 Syrians have entered Greece, mostly from neighbouring Turkey, according to the Community of Free Syrians Abroad.

After a fence was erected on the Greek-Turkish land border last year, growing numbers have made sea crossings instead, attempting to reach the eastern Aegean islands of Lesvos, Samos and Chios in dinghies and rickety boats ...

With its chronically disorganised state apparatus and debt-stricken economy, Greece is not only ill-equipped to deal with the influx but has been widely accused of acting out of blatant disregard for international conventions ...

In the chaos, it has fallen to Syria's exiled community to provide support. "Almost every Syrian sees Greece as a transit route to Germany or Sweden or some other place in Europe," said Hasno. "They soon find out how difficult it is and want to leave."

Helena has the full story here.

For the next hour we will focus on refugees who have made their way far from Syria - to Greece, Egypt, Germany and the UK.

Back at the Zaatari refugee camp in Jordan, Martin Chulov has been speaking to camp manager Kilian Kleinschmidt, who said that in recent weeks, the camp's population had started to fall, with arrivals not matching those leaving.

Within four months, the number of Syrians living here is expected to stabilise at between 80,000-90,000. Refugees suggest that it is now harder to make the journey to Jordan than ever before.

They, and some aid workers, suggest that Jordanian authorities have grown increasingly uncomfortable at the steady stream of people into Jordan, and fear that the international community has not given enough assurances that they will cover the costs of the continued influx.

Another camp, known as Azraq, around 40 kilometres south of Zaatari has all but been completed and could receive refugees within a month.

I have just been speaking to Jamalat, who runs a school in Zaatari staffed by 45 Jordanian and 19 Syrian teachers with 400 pupils. The students are aged seven to 15.

She said it was difficult to teach pupils suffering the problems of living in the camp. Some parents preferred their children to work rather than come to school.

She arrived in Zaatari with her husband and seven children in January this year, coming from Daraa, after the army took some of her daughter's fellow university students hostage.

She said she hoped she and her family would be able to return to Daraa "sooner or later ... We trust in God."

As the situation in Syria escalates, aid agencies and NGOs are struggling to raise enough money to keep up with demand. Here is a round-up of the main appeals - click here to find out how to donate.

Cathy Janssens is a midwife for Medecins sans Frontieres who recently returned from a stint in a makeshift maternity ward in northern Syria. She tells Mark Rice-Oxley of the perils and pitfalls for those giving birth in Syria:

We started this project five months ago. It was set up for the women because there is no hospital in the area where women can go to for a delivery or a C-section or just for a check-up with a female doctor. They haven't seen any doctor for the last two years. So we get a huge number of women coming to our hospital.

We work with volunteers who have been incredible, who are motivated, who want to learn and are willing to help their own people.

We can save lives with the equipment we have but there is still a lot missing. We deal with what we have.

The people are grateful for what we do. We are really welcome. It's fantastic the feeling that you can make a difference for them.

Throughout the day we will be hearing refugees tell their stories in their own words. Mahmoud Saber has been internally displaced from Der Ba'alba to Al-Taqba.

The Syrian army stormed our district with tanks and soldiers, raiding houses looking for men. They were killing everything in their way. I and my family, which is made up of 12 people, had to flee our district to escape the killing, along with many other families in our district ...

We decided to head to Tabqa, which has been entirely liberated by the Free Syrian Army. We could not move to the city by ourselves, but only with the help of the FSA. We were about 20 families. The FSA provided us with big buses and took us through routes where there were no checkpoints. We were worried the Syrian army might find us and arrest us ...

The only job I could find in Tabqa was joining the FSA, and I did. Now, I get $400 a month to help my family. My father died a long time ago and I'm the only one earning a living in the family.

I hope Der Ba'alba in Homs will be liberated soon and we can go back to our house. The situation here is peaceful but life is very difficult and you need lots of money to survive.

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Syria refugee crisis - a day in the life

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Paul Owen Last month, the UN revised upwards its requests for funding for the Syrian crisis, announcing the largest emergency appeal in its history. Despite this, aid officials warn "money is going out as fast as it is coming in", and that the UN's multibillion-dollar requests still may not be enough in a crisis where demands frequently outstrip resources.

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Stuck between war and a state that doesn't want them, Syrian refugees are learning a new normal.

In the darkness of a tent less than 30km from the Syrian border, Daghrit (15) is reading an essay she wrote about her time as a child labourer: "We're tired, from morning until evening. In this very hard world we do not have time to rest."

Daghrit spent four months working in potato fields after her family escaped the war in their homeland and arrived in Lebanon's Bekaa Valley. She recalls nine-hour-long days in the burning sun, a continuous ache in her back from bending low to carry crops - and the equally burdensome weight of having to support her family.

The tent is a makeshift classroom filled with "young reporters", children who have come together with the support of Lebanese charity Beyond to write a community newspaper. One by one, they stand up to expatiate on the problems associated with their new lives: early marriage, traumatised family members, or simply how desperately they miss their homes.

"I am a child. They bombed my house and killed my father, left me without rights and hope," reads Ali Habar, a tiny 10-year-old who dreams of becoming a doctor.

Behind him, Waed (15) has written a poem about Omran Daqneesh, the bloody, shell-shocked five-year-old boy from Aleppo whose picture provoked sympathy all over the world. "What if Omran was from a country that was in the West?" she asks. "Would you do something or just deny the issue?"

Still recovering

Since war broke out in 2011, 1.5 million Syrians have fled into Lebanon, a country seven times smaller than Ireland that is still recovering from its own civil war.

Lebanon now has the highest per capita number of refugees of any state in the world. Services are overburdened but the world's attention is turning elsewhere. The charities and international organisations still operating there struggle over how to even define a humanitarian situation with no end in sight.

"With protracted 'emergencies', language fails us a little," says Salam Abdulmunem of the UN children's agency Unicef. "After five years this isn't anymore an emergency as it would be defined in the dictionary, and with the impact [it is having] on Lebanese families and children, it hasn't been an 'emergency' for only Syrian families."

Abdulmunem says the UN's work in Lebanon has reorientated towards "stabilisation", assisting local government institutions and systems to respond to the needs of vulnerable children and families. The aim is to "strengthen local capacities and ensure that we leave something meaningful behind for Lebanon once this 'emergency' has been resolved."

Meanwhile, the Lebanese government is growing increasingly hostile towards Syrians. New arrivals require Lebanese sponsors, and refugees who manage to enter face numerous restrictions, including a ban on employment. Since 2014, Syrians older than 15 also have to pay $200 (€186) a year to renew their residency permits - a crippling fee for many.

A 2016 study by UN refugee agency UNHCR found that 71 per cent of Syrians in Lebanon live below the poverty line. The majority stay in settlements - camps that can be shut by authorities at little notice, often for "security" reasons.

Living conditions

Mona al-Shamali, a 52-year-old with a wizened face and gold tooth, wouldn't let her picture be taken because she's embarrassed about her living conditions. Walking to the hardened mud field in front of her tent, she sits down on a brown, fleece-lined cushion that used to lie beside her stove in Homs.

"It was a journey filled with sadness and tiredness," she says, remembering leaving her home in winter, 2013. "Hearing the bombs now and then and hearing the children crying. All I could do was just get the children and get out."

Shamali has seven children and six grandchildren, some of whom share her tent with her. One newborn is asleep in a corner, hand curled in a fist. Another baby crawls on the ground outside, digging up dirt with both hands.

"There is no integration but also no fear,"she says of the situation for Syrians in Lebanon. Her most pressing concern is the cost of living. She pays €95 a month for a basic shelter and €50 for electricity - payments that have now been missed numerous times. She worries that the family will soon be evicted.

Health problems exacerbate the issue. Shamali's husband is disabled; he lost fingers in a factory accident before the war. Shamali has a sewing machine, but eye problems mean prevent her from using it.

The family is in the same situation as many Syrians, plummeting from a comfortable middle-class existence to a life of destitution, and there is no rulebook for dealing with it. "All my children in Syria were literate and in high grades but they didn't finish their studies," Shamali says.

Her daughters had to flee the conflict before sitting their final exams. Unable to attend university, they instead got married. Both now do irregular farm work in Lebanon but feel their options closing.

The next Aleppo

In the nearby El Marj settlement, former builder Abdullah Faiz Aljasim (29) breeds pigeons to earn money to pay tent rent. He comes from east Ghouta, a Damascus suburb commentators have suggested could be the "next Aleppo" because of a major Syrian army offensive there.

Aljasim's mother Finti serves grainy coffee in small china cups before hunkering down on pieces of wood beside their shelter. Later she takes out an X-ray to show where shrapnel lodged inside her foot when her house was shelled. "Every time I go to the hospital they charge me more," she says.

Speaking at a nearby hospital, Laran Matta, a co-ordinator with Lebanon-based aid agency Salem LADC, is not surprised to hear this: Syrians are often overcharged by hospitals under pressure from all the extra patients, she says.

Residents in the Bekaa Valley complain of an increase in garbage and petty crime, and blame the refugee influx. They're also resentful of Syrians for taking low-skilled jobs. "There are too many people in too small a space," one local comments.

Moving around Lebanon is difficult for undocumented refugees. Tensions erupt in a minibus back to Beirut from Chtaura, a town in the Bekaa Valley. Pulling into a petrol station, the driver - a jovial man who was singing moments before - starts shouting at a Syrian man who is unable to provide valid papers.

It isn't only the relationship between Syrians and the Lebanese that is increasingly strained.

Shatila, a labyrinthine refugee slum in Beirut, the capital, houses two generations of refugees. The camp was initially set up in 1949 for several thousand Palestinians. Syrian refugees began flocking there shortly after the war began in 2011, doubling the camp's population by 2014, according to aid workers.

As many as 42,000 people now live in Shatila, in an area of less than one square kilometre.

Restrictions on space mean buildings have been growing upwards instead of outwards. Electrical wires stretch across the streets, bringing intermittent power to the cramped, damp flats. Nicknamed "spaghetti" by local aid workers, the overhanging wires can be deadly: at least three people were electrocuted in the last three months of 2016.

Little interaction

The narrow pathways are busy with vendors selling fruit, vegetables and homewares. But residents say they are worried about the power of local gangs and a lack of opportunities. And surprisingly, given the close living situations, many Syrians say there is little interaction between residents. Each family looks out for themselves, one says.

In Shatila's community centre, dozens of women with babies are crammed into a corridor awaiting vaccinations. Prue Coakley, project co-ordinator with Médecins Sans Frontières, says it is harder and harder for Syrians in Shatila to access healthcare.

Irish Aid, the Department of Foreign Affairs's overseas development programme, works in conjunction with the Trócaire to help mothers find sewing work and provide food baskets for families in need.

"'The Syrian people are undergoing unimaginable suffering on a daily basis," says Joe McHugh, Ireland's Minister of State for International Development. "In many cases they, have been forced to leave their homes and travel to neighbouring countries where they face an uncertain future.

"Countries like Lebanon are bearing a huge burden because of this crisis," he adds, "with many millions of additional refugees placing massive strain on already stretched resources."

In 2016, Ireland provided more than €25 million in humanitarian assistance for people affected by the crisis in Syria. McHugh says the focus was on supporting host countries to provide opportunities for refugees within their borders.

Not like home

While aid from Ireland and other sources may offer short-term relief, hostility will continue to exacerbate refugees' feelings that Lebanon could never be home.

Outside Shatila, a Lebanese taxi driver shouts after a trio of Syrian women who failed to pay him the full fee he asked for. "Stupid Syrians," he loudly concludes. Across town, in the Beirut shopping district Hamra, a Lebanese shopkeeper advises some lost tourists not to trust another man's directions: "He's Syrian; he wouldn't know."

Back in Bekaa Valley, mere miles from her homeland but eons from her old life, Mona al-Shamali chooses not to comment on whether she hopes to ever return to Syria. Instead, she ruminates on the country's scenic landscapes, the happy times she spent in the home where her children were born, and Homs, the city where she dreamed she would grow old.

"I had a good life there," she says. "It was so beautiful. So many good things."

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Syrian refugees in Lebanon find relative safety but little security

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Stuck between war and a state that doesn't want them, Syrian refugees are learning a new normal. In the darkness of a tent less than 30km from the Syrian border, Daghrit (15) is reading an essay she wrote about her time as a child labourer: "We're tired, from morning until evening.

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Listen to the Story.

The fate of refugees in Europe has gripped the world's attention following the publication of the image of the body of one victim: a 3-year-old Syrian boy washed up on a Turkish beach.

When confronted with this latest "viral" image to come out of the Syrian conflict, many people have expressed shock, horror, grief and anger. And many have also tried to help.
See also: If you've been moved by images of Omran Daqneesh, the young boy pulled from rubble, here are some organizations working to save people in Aleppo.
Migrant Offshore Aid Station, a charity that runs a fleet of rescue boats to save refugees at sea, told the Guardian that their donations had increased 15-fold in the 24 hours since the photo was published. Dozens of independent online fundraising efforts sprang up overnight, and calls to give or sign petitions began to trend on Twitter and Facebook.

But who to give to?

There are many well-established charity organizations helping the thousands of migrants flooding into Europe, most of whom are fleeing violence in Syria and Afghanistan or the brutal oppression of Eritrea's dictatorship. The big charity groups are well-known: UNHCR, Unicef, Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without Borders, Oxfam, the International Red Cross and Save the Children.

But there are other, smaller groups doing incredible work on the ground, every day. Here are six, smaller groups we've vetted that you can help right away. Suggest other groups in the comments or in our Facebook chat.

This charity exists to save children like Alan Kurdi, with a fleet of rescue boats patrolling the Mediterranean to save migrants lost at sea.

Dubbed as a kind of " Airbnb for refugees" this German nonprofit matches people with spare rooms with refugees in need of housing. If you don't have a spare bed in Germany, you can still donate here.

A group of social activists documenting stories in the Calais migrant camp, they also raise relief funds.

Provides classes and cultural enrichment and scholarships to Syrian children in Turkey.

A US-based charity that works in Turkey and is also focused on educational opportunities for Syrian children, currently raising funds to rebuild schools in Syria.

One of the few organizations that directly provides aid on the ground in Syria, including food, clothing, water, sanitation and crucial medical assistance to "help people to stay in Syria instead of fleeing to another country." They accept donations via their page on JustGiving.com.

Some suggestions from our reporter on the ground

- The White Helmets: Also known as the Syrian Civil Defence, these rescue workers are some of the first to rush in after the bombs land each day. They're credited with saving more than 22,000 lives so far.

- Watanili: This group is working to rebuild Syria through a series of small grassroots initiatves. A recent project of theirs, called 'Cinema on the Go,' included using film to combat the effects of trauma on the children there.

See more of Dalia Mortada's recommendations here.

As for the bigger organizations, a useful tool to consider when evaluating them is their ranking on independent charity watchdog sites like GuideStar or Charity Navigator which evaluate what percentage of donations go directly toward aid versus overhead, among other factors.

Charity Navigator has a list of highly ranked charities currently helping Syrian refugees. We reached out to them to find out more about they are doing and will update this as we get responses.

International Medical Corps has had teams on the ground providing direct medical assistance to Syrian refugees in Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey. One example of their work: In the Turkish city of Gaziantep, not from the war torn Syrian city of Aleppo, IMC helps run a service center for Syrian refugees that provides medical care, classes and job training.

IMC spokesperson Rebecca Gustafson says the group hasn't seen any increase in donations to their Syria response efforts, but their "work to help those affected by the conflict continues and is more critical than ever."

Medical Teams International focuses on health and dental care for Syrian refugees in Lebanon. Their volunteers "monitor chronic disease patients in their homes and provide families and communities with vital information on chronic disease recognition, management and disease prevention."

Mercy Corps provides direct aid to Syrian refugees in the form of food and supplies, and by increasing access to clean water and sanitation, shelters, and safe spaces and activities for children

The charity provides emergency food for Syrian children, and supports education in Syrian refugee camps among other things.

While not directly related to their relief efforts, this poignant, and viral Save the Children PSA imagines a British child enduring an experience very similar to a Syrian refugee.

ShelterBox has been providing emergency shelter and supplies to families affected by the Syrian crisis in Iraq Kurdistan, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria, including clothing, stoves and, water filters.

The UN agency focuses on assisting Syrian children by providing healthcare, nutrition, immunization, water and sanitation, and classes.

Oxfam is provides aid to Syrian refugees in Lebanon and Jordan. In Jordan's Zaatari Camp, home to 83,000 refugees, the nonprofit provides clean water, sanitation services, and hygiene education to help ward of cholera and other intestinal diseases.
RELATED STORIES: US: 'Do we need to do more? Yes.'How come Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the UAE haven't accepted one refugee? Icelanders want their government to accept more refugees Jillian E. York: A few recommendations to help Syria's refugees What do refugees carry on their journey? CBC: Canada's top 'refugee' search - 'How can I sponsor a Syrian?'Canada prime minister promises travel ban to areas controlled by terrorists if re-elected

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How to help Syrian refugees? These groups you may not know are doing important work

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Listen to the Story. The fate of refugees in Europe has gripped the world's attention following the publication of the image of the body of one victim: a 3-year-old Syrian boy washed up on a Turkish beach. When confronted with this latest "viral" image to come out of the Syrian conflict, many people have expressed shock, horror, grief and anger.

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Syrian civilian deaths: 'As awful now as it's ever been'

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A surge in fighting and bombing has seen Syria's prospects of peace disintegrate

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Regarding the Sept. 3 WorldViews blog excerpt, " Wrenching photos drive home tragedy of Syrian refugee crisis ":

The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crimes estimates that the amount of money paid by refugees to smugglers to get to a different country is in the billions of dollars worldwide. Yet, as we are now seeing in Europe, many of these desperate people come to terrible ends on their journeys. Couldn't countries and organizations provide transportation much more cheaply and safely?

It may seem strange for sovereign nations to help citizens leave other countries, but if the United States, along with the European Union or the United Nations, were to set up safe areas along the Syrian border to which refugees could flee and then file for asylum, it would make a chaotic situation more manageable and orderly. Refugees could make shorter journeys under duress, and the burden of accepting refugees could be spread among sponsoring countries with predetermined protocols. This would ease the burden and amount of resources that would need to be spent on border guards and coastal patrols, as well as minimize the shock to local economies that happens when a large group of refugees arrives.

This approach would not totally eliminate smuggling operations, as there will always be desperate people for whom the official process will be too slow or people who will be taken advantage of by smugglers who make unrealistic promises. People in truly awful situations will come no matter what, and not even the threat of horrible death and loss of money will stop them. Perhaps working with them instead of against them is the answer.
Chris Varughese, Tulsa
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More than 15 years ago, my parents, along with other members of the Hampton Roads community, became mentors and friends to some Sudanese "lost boys." Hampton Roads is home to the largest naval base in the world. The community is diverse and generally open-minded. The Sudanese came to the United States under asylum because of the civil war in Sudan.

Despite horrific childhood experiences, the Sudanese are resilient people. They came to this country with their focus on going to school and working multiple jobs to live and to send money back home. The community supported their educations and helped set up scholarship funds. Now in their 30s, the Sudanese immigrants are Navy corpsmen, nurses, fishermen, community activists and contributing U.S. citizens.

Like the Sudanese, the Syrian refugees, especially the children and women, deserve safe haven in the United States. Americans have the resources, the land and the empathy to do our part. Given its past and its recent tragedies, the Southeastern part of the United States would do well to have an infusion of new perspectives and energy to contribute to society and to the economy. If Germany, with a population of 80 million, can accommodate 800,000 Syrian refugees, then the United States can surely accommodate 50,000 or so.
Hannah Wood, Norfolk
●

Shame on the United States and other developed nations for not accepting more refugees from the Syrian crisis, leaving the problem instead to surrounding countries that do not have our resources. As the world's leading power, we should immediately commit to accepting a large percentage of the refugee population and urge other countries to do the same.

What has happened in Syria is a tragedy on a scale that is hard to comprehend. As the parent of a toddler, my heart breaks for the father of the young boy who was found washed up on shore in Turkey. It's hard not to think that his death, and many others, could have been prevented had there been a coordinated, international effort to safely transport and accept refugees rather than forcing them to take risks to find a safe place to live.

The United States can't solve the world's problems, but we do have an obligation to show moral leadership and to do our part to ameliorate a horrible situation.
James A. Hunter, Washington

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Helping Syria's refugees find a safe place to land

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Regarding the Sept. 3 WorldViews blog excerpt, " Wrenching photos drive home tragedy of Syrian refu­gee crisis ": The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crimes estimates that the amount of money paid by refugees to smugglers to get to a different country is in the billions of dollars worldwide.

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BEKAA VALLEY, Lebanon, September 25 (UNHCR) - After an overnight trek through the mountains, Om Ali arrived exhausted earlier this month in a small town near Lebanon's border with Syria. The mother of four from the city of Homs thought that her family, and those travelling with her, had finally found a place to rest: a half-built house with no water, but a decent roof, and no shellfire to keep the children awake at night.

When the landlord arrived the next morning, however, he told the group to move on. "We arrived yesterday and we found a place, but now we have to leave," Om Ali told UNHCR hours later. "I am tired. We are all tired." A small boy slept in the corner as she spoke. "We don't know where we are going."

Om Ali is not alone. In Lebanon, finding adequate shelter for Syrian families fleeing the conflict is the biggest challenge now facing international aid agencies like UNHCR. More than 70,000 Syrians have sought refuge in Lebanon over the past 18 months. That number could double in coming months if fighting continues and current planning projections are borne out.

Each day, new families arrive. UNHCR and its partners are working closely with local authorities to find places for them to live and to ensure they are safe and secure. With winter on the horizon, it is a race against time.

"The biggest problem facing refugees in Lebanon now and in coming months is shelter," said Anna Leer, a senior protection officer with UNHCR in Tripoli. She and others note that while efforts are being made to address the problem, the shelter needs of individual families often must be handled case by case. Adding to the complexity, Syria's refugees are scattered across wide areas in northern Lebanon and the Bekaa Valley as well as in urban locations.

Until now, many new arrivals have found accommodation with host families (especially in northern Lebanon, where family ties between Lebanese and Syrians across the border are strong), in apartments and rooms to rent, or in collective shelters such as schools. A minority are staying in tents or shelters of their own making.

As the Syrian crisis drags into a second year, many families who had been willing to host new refugees have run out of room or are no longer able to take people in. The rental market in some municipalities is becoming saturated, and apartments are almost impossible to find. Rents are rising - up to fourfold in some areas of the Bekaa - while Syrians with no work are going into debt or risking eviction.

Some schools in the Bekaa Valley that had been available for refugees during the summer holidays are being cleared out to make room for students as the new school year begins. About 100 families are losing their temporary homes and most have had to be relocated as a result.

"This is a serious problem in Lebanon that we are facing," said Sheikh Deeb Abed el Khalid, head of Keras al Kir, a local NGO that has been organizing shelter in schools. He worried that families would not be able to find adequate shelter as the seasons change. "It's going to be a tough winter here in the mountains."

A grandfather living with his extended family in a single apartment in Tripoli said he had no way to pay the rent. A farmer from a region near the Syria-Lebanon border, he is expecting more relatives to arrive. "We have to find help with the rent or we will die," he said. Other refugees who had been able to afford a place to stay, hoping that the war would end soon, are facing a new reality.

"I'm worried about what will happen if the situation continues and we have to stay away from our country," said Yusra, a refugee from Homs who is living in Lebanon with her five children. "How will we survive and continue here, I don't know! Every day I hope that we're going back, that tomorrow the guys will finish this war and we'll go back home."

UNHCR and its international partners, together with local authorities and NGOs, have been working hard to find new places for refugees to stay. They are identifying and refurbishing collective shelters, usually abandoned government buildings.

Twenty seven collective shelters have been renovated so far. The Norwegian Refugee Council is providing materials and labour to help winterize private homes in the Bekaa Valley. And about 60 locally sourced, pre-fabricated "box" houses, each costing US$2,500, are being set up by UNHCR and the Danish Refugee Council (DRC) in northern Lebanon for families who had been living in tents or unfinished homes.

To help ease the pressure on families paying rent, UNHCR and the DRC are also launching a cash-for-rent programme to help families afford the rising prices. UNHCR is discussing options with individual families seeking shelter and the agency is also exploring alternatives with local and national authorities.

For refugees like Sahar,* aged 25, who arrived on foot from the town of Al Qusayr, and is now living in a tent pitched in the shadow of a mosque, the solutions cannot come too soon. Her small children run around the dirt compound with bare feet, and she is afraid of scorpions. "I'm scared for the coming winter," she said, a cool wind already blowing down the mountainside. "It is much colder here than where I come from. I'm scared for my children."

* Name changed for protection reasons.
By Andrew Purvis in the Bekaa Valley, Lebanon

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United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees

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Syrian refugees find safety in Lebanon, but shelter proves scarce

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BEKAA VALLEY, Lebanon, September 25 (UNHCR) - After an overnight trek through the mountains, Om Ali arrived exhausted earlier this month in a small town near Lebanon's border with Syria.

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Image Credit: Courtesy: SmallWorld UAE

Abu Dhabi: One of the devastating impacts of the Syrian civil war is the sheer scale of displacement of young Syrian children. Many of them are traumatised by the effects of violence and the loss of their comfort zone and, many a time, their family and loved ones.

Providing these children succour and ensuring they are brought back from the brink of despair is an urgent task for the world and organisations like SmallWorld UAE are playing a big role in helping rehabilitate these children back into society.

Founded more than five years ago by its president Salam Hamzeh Gaith, the group has helped more than 5,000 Syrian refugee children based in Lebanon with its programmes, and is currently active in 59 countries assisting several local NGOs.

"We believe the biggest asset for humanity is the human being, and the only way to create a stable and peaceful world is through educated young minds," said Gaith.

"Over the past five years, we have helped more than 5,000 Syrian refugee children, and our motto throughout the entire process has been to liberate and educate, because we firmly believe that if a child is educated and nurtured, that child will become free and independent to face the world," she added.

One of the main programmes the group has helped fund are rehabilitation centres in Lebanon which concentrate on children who are not yet ready to be integrated into wider society because of their deep emotional and psychological scars.

"Many of the Syrian children who have come to these [rehabilitation] centres have lost their families and friends. They have seen people die in front of them; they have lost their homes and country. These children have been deeply affected so we cannot simply take them and enroll them into public schools; they need months and years of help and nurturing [to be able to get back to normality]," she said.

SmallWorld provides these children with psychotherapy to help them cope with what they have been through and "more importantly, they are taught how to integrate back into society so they can move on with their lives," said Gaith.

SmallWorld has currently embarked on a new project which helps provide Syrian refugee children with evening schools as many schools in Lebabnon are unable to accommodate the large numbers of refugee students in their regular day classes.

"We are helping a charity group that provides education to these children but [due to the large numbers] cannot handle it on its own. So we are assisting it. We have created a new programme, an evening programme, so after the day batch finishes school, other children can come in at a later time to avail of classes," Gaith explained.

Around 400 children are currently enrolled in the evening programme according to Gaith, with the programme reaping several benefits.

"They get education in Arabic, English, science, and maths. The classes last around four to five hours. They are getting the foundational education they need, something nobody will be able to take away from them," she said.

The students have also been encouraged to showcase their talents through art, with their works going on sale at art exhibitions.

"Many of these young children have immense potential. We hold exhibitions that display their artwork and they are being received with a lot of support with many people often buying their art," Gaith said.

Raising awareness about the plight of Syrian refugee children among the youth in the UAE is also high on the agenda for SmallWorld.

"We see our contributions as coming from our children to the children of the world, so we want our young people in the UAE to feel and understand what other children with much less are going through," she said.

"These children need not only financial help, but social and emotional help as well. We want to create a legacy with what we are doing, so that one day we can reconnect with the children we have helped, and they can go on to become ambassadors helping other children who find themselves in the same situation," she added.

Helping hand

Individuals who wish to contribute or volunteer with SmallWorld UAE, can do so by visiting their main website: http://smallworlduae.net

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UAE-based humanitarian group reaches out to Syrian refugee children

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Abu Dhabi: One of the devastating impacts of the Syrian civil war is the sheer scale of displacement of young Syrian children. Many of them are traumatised by the effects of violence and the loss of their comfort zone and, many a time, their family and loved ones.

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Luke Harding

Two million children in Syria have become the victims of bloody conflict, with many swept up in violence, and suffering from trauma, malnutrition and disease, a report says.

The catastrophic war in Syria has caused a "collapse in childhood", Save the Children warned on Wednesday. It cited research revealing that one in three children reported having been hit, kicked or shot at, as fighting between rebels and soldiers loyal to President Bashar al-Assad engulfed the entire country.

The report, Childhood Under Fire (pdf), was launched to coincide with the second anniversary of Syria's anti-Assad uprising. It paints a grim picture of how children have been targeted in the war and shows that many are struggling to find enough to eat. Others are living in barns, parks or caves. Few are able to go to school. Teachers have fled and school buildings are under fire. Sanitation systems have been damaged, forcing some youngsters to defecate in the street.

The research, by Bahcesehir University in Turkey, includes harrowing testimony from refugee children, some of whom have seen their parents arrested, beaten and killed by regime forces.

One, Nidal, said: "They shot at us near my foot so I jumped. I was scared, very scared, and my friend too. We were surrounded by walls. So we jumped over walls and ran away." Nidal recalled how his father was sleeping, and his mother doing chores, when government soldiers burst in.

"They entered and beat my father. They started to beat him with sticks. All of them were beating him. One of them was kicking him. I was hiding in the room so they wouldn't take me."

A mother, Um Ali, who escaped across the border to Turkey, added: "We couldn't leave our house at all. The snipers would shoot us straight away. They were on the roofs. We could see children falling dead. This is why we fled, because of the heavy shelling." She added: "The children were terrified."

The report suggests the conflict has had a disastrous effect on youngsters. It says armed militias are using boys as porters, runners and human shields, and bringing them to the frontline. Girls are being married off by their parents early to "protect" them from the widely perceived threat of sexual violence. "I know that men are hunting women. We could not protect her, so we had to marry her. We needed her to have a protector," Um Ali explained.

A universal problem faced by children and their parents in Syria has been hunger, with malnutrition growing. The military has targeted bakeries in many opposition-controlled areas. The price of basic foodstuffs, fuel and cooking oil has rocketed by up to 500%. Asked why he fled his home Rami, a father of three, replied: "Hunger. Food. There was none. No bread. If I stayed my children would have died from hunger."

"For millions of Syrian children, the innocence of childhood has been replaced by the cruel realities of trying to survive this vicious war," said Justin Forsyth, Save the Children's chief executive.

"Many are now living rough, struggling to find enough to eat, without the right medicine if they become sick or injured. As society has broken down, in the worst cases, hunger, homelessness and terror have replaced school for some of these young people. We cannot allow this to continue unchecked. The lives of too many children are at stake."

The fighting has also had profound emotional consequences for many youngsters. Three-quarters had experienced the death of a relative or close friend. Others have been separated from fathers and other members of their families.

The findings follow a report on Tuesday by Unicef, which said that the future of a whole generation of Syrian children was "disappearing under the rubble". It said 70,000 Syrians had been killed and one in five schools destroyed. In the divided northern city Aleppo - a battleground since last July - only 6% of children went to school.

Syrian troops shelled outlying rebel-controlled areas of Damascus using multiple rocket launchers on Tuesday, activists said. There were further clashes near Aleppo's airport and military bases in Syria's north, they added.
Topics

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Syrian war has caused 'collapse in childhood', Save the Children warns

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Luke Harding Two million children in Syria have become the victims of bloody conflict, with many swept up in violence, and suffering from trauma, malnutrition and disease, a report says. The catastrophic war in Syria has caused a "collapse in childhood", Save the Children warned on Wednesday.

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Violence flares in Daraa after a group of teens and children are arrested for writing political graffiti. Dozens of people are killed when security forces crack down on demonstrations.

March 24, 2011 - In response to continuing protests, the Syrian government announces several plans to appease citizens. State employees will receive an immediate salary increase. The government also plans to study lifting Syria's long standing emergency law and the licensing of new political parties.

March 30, 2011 - Al-Assad addresses the nation in a 45-minute televised speech. He acknowledges that the government has not met the people's needs but he does not offer any concrete changes. The state of emergency remains in effect.

April 21, 2011 - Al-Assad lifts the country's 48-year-old state of emergency. He also abolishes the Higher State Security Court and issues a decree "regulating the right to peaceful protest, as one of the basic human rights guaranteed by the Syrian Constitution."

May 18, 2011 - The US imposes sanctions against al-Assad and six other senior Syrian officials. The Treasury Department details the sanctions by saying, "As a result of this action, any property in the United States or in the possession or control of US persons in which the individuals listed in the Annex have an interest is blocked, and US persons are generally prohibited from engaging in transactions with them."

August 18, 2011 - The US imposes new economic sanctions on Syria, freezing Syrian government assets in the US, barring Americans from making new investments in the country and prohibiting any US transactions relating to Syrian petroleum products, among other things.

September 2, 2011 - The European Union bans the import of Syrian oil.

September 23, 2011 - The European Union imposes additional sanctions against Syria, due to "the continuing brutal campaign" by the government against its own people.

October 2, 2011 - A new alignment of Syrian opposition groups establishes the Syrian National Council, a framework through which to end al-Assad's government and establish a democratic system.

October 4, 2011 - Russia and China veto a UN Security Council resolution that would call for an immediate halt to the crackdown in Syria against opponents of al-Assad. Nine of the 15-member council countries, including the United States, voted in favor of adopting the resolution.

November 12, 2011 - The Arab League suspends Syria's membership, effective November 16, 2011.

November 27, 2011 - Foreign ministers from 19 Arab League countries vote to impose economic sanctions against the Syrian regime for its part in a bloody crackdown on civilian demonstrators.

November 30, 2011 - Turkey announces a series of measures, including financial sanctions, against Syria.

December 19, 2011 - Syria signs an Arab League proposal aimed at ending violence between government forces and protesters.

January 28, 2012 - The Arab League suspends its mission in Syria as violence there continues.

February 2, 2012 - A UN Security Council meeting ends with no agreement on a draft resolution intended to pressure Syria to end its months-long crackdown on anti-government demonstrators.

February 4, 2012 - A UN Security Council resolution condemning action against Syria is not adopted after Russia and China vote against it.

February 6, 2012 - The US closes its embassy in Damascus and recalls its diplomats.

February 7, 2012 - The Gulf Cooperation Council announces its member states are pulling their ambassadors from Damascus and expelling the Syrian ambassadors in their countries.

February 16, 2012 - The United Nations General Assembly passes a nonbinding resolution endorsing the Arab League plan for al-Assad to step down. The vote was 137 in favor and 12 against, with 17 abstentions.

February 26, 2012 - Syrians vote on a constitutional referendum in polling centers across the country. Almost 90% of voters approve the changes to the constitution, which include the possibility of a multi-party system.

March 13, 2012 - Kofi Annan, the UN special envoy to Syria, meets in Turkey with government officials and Syrian opposition members. In a vist to Syria over the weekend, he calls for a ceasefire, the release of detainees and allowing unfettered access to relief agencies to deliver much-needed aid.

March 15, 2012 - The Gulf Cooperation Council announces that the six member countries will close their Syrian embassies and calls on the international community "to stop what is going on in Syria."

March 27, 2012 - The Syrian government accepts Annan's plan to end violence. The proposal seeks to stop the violence, give access to humanitarian agencies, release detainees and start a political dialogue to address the concerns of the Syrian people.

April 1, 2012 - At a conference in Istanbul, the international group Friends of the Syrian People formally recognizes the Syrian National Council as a legitimate representative of the Syrian people.

June 10, 2012 - Abdul Basit Sieda, a Syrian native living in Sweden, is now Syria's National Council leader.

July 23, 2012 - The Syrian Foreign Ministry spokesman, Jihad Makdissi, threatens to use chemical and biological weapons against outside forces: "No chemical or biological weapons will ever be used...unless Syria is exposed to external aggression."

July 30, 2012 - The Syrian Charge d'Affaires in London, Khaled al-Ayoubi, resigns, stating he is "no longer willing to represent a regime that has committed such violent and oppressive acts against its own people."

August 2, 2012 - UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon announces that Annan will not renew his mandate when it expires at the end of August.

August 6, 2012 - Syrian Prime Minister Riyad Hijab's resignation from office and defection from Assad's regime is read on Al Jazeera by his spokesman Muhammad el-Etri. Hijab and his family are said to have left Syria overnight, arriving in Jordan. Hijab is the highest-profile official to defect.

August 9, 2012 - Syrian television reports that al-Assad has appointed Health Minister Wael al-Halki as the new prime minister.

October 3, 2012 - Five people are killed by Syrian shelling in the Turkish border town of Akcakale. In response, Turkey fires on Syrian targets and its parliament authorizes a resolution giving the government permission to deploy its soldiers to foreign countries.

November 11, 2012 - Israel fires warning shots toward Syria after a mortar shell hits an Israeli military post. It is the first time Israel has fired on Syria across the Golan Heights since the 1973 Yom Kippur War.

November 11, 2012 - Syrian opposition factions formally agree to unite as the National Coalition for Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces.

November 13, 2012 - Sheikh Ahmed Moaz al-Khatib is elected leader of the Syrian opposition collective, the National Coalition for Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces.

January 6, 2013 - Assad announces he will not step down and that his vision of Syria's future includes a new constitution and an end to support for the opposition, which he calls terrorists. The opposition refuses to work with Assad's government.

February 12, 2013 - The UN Security Council estimates that the number of civilians killed in the two-year civil war in Syria is approaching 70,000.

March 19, 2013 - The National Coalition for Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces elects American-educated Ghassan Hitto as its prime minister. Though born in Damascus, Hitto has spent much of his life in the United States, and holds dual US and Syrian citizenship.

April 25, 2013 - Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel announces the United States has evidence that the chemical weapon sarin has been used in Syria on a small scale.

May 27, 2013 - European Union nations end the arms embargo against the Syrian rebels.

May 27, 2013 - US Senator John McCain visits rebels in Syria. It is reported that he is the highest ranking US official to visit since the beginning of the war.

June 13, 2013 - US President Barack Obama says that Syria has crossed a "red line" with its use of chemical weapons, including the nerve agent sarin gas, against rebels. His administration indicates that it will be stepping up its support of the rebels, who have been calling for the United States and others to provide arms needed to battle Assad's forces.

July 6, 2013 - Ahmad Assi Jarba is elected the new leader of the Syrian National Coalition.

August 2, 2013 - The UN calls for an investigation into an incident in July in Khan al-Assal in northern Syria. Videos on the Internet purport to show Syrian rebels executing as many as 30 people, most of them government soldiers.

August 18, 2013 - A team of UN weapons inspectors arrives in Syria to begin an investigation into whether chemical weapons have been used during the civil war.

August 22, 2013 - The UN and the United States call for an immediate investigation of Syrian activists' claims that the al-Assad government used chemical weapons in an attack on civilians on August 21. Anti-regime activist groups in Syria say more than 1,300 people were killed in the attack outside Damascus, many of them women and children. Video footage and witness reports appear to bolster claims that chemical weapons were used.

August 24, 2013 - Medical charity Doctors Without Borders announces that three hospitals near Damascus treated more than 3,000 patients suffering "neurotoxic symptoms" on August 21. Reportedly, 355 of the patients died.

August 26, 2013 - UN inspectors reach the site of a reported chemical attack in Moadamiyet al-Sham, near Damascus. En route to the site, the team's convoy is hit by sniper fire. No one is injured.

August 29, 2013 - The UK's Parliament votes against any military action in Syria.

August 30, 2013 - US Secretary of State John Kerry says that US intelligence information has found that 1,429 people were killed in last week's chemical weapons attack in Syria, including at least 426 children.

August 31, 2013 - President Obama gives a speech asking Congress to authorize military action against Syria.

September 9, 2013 - Syria agrees to a Russian proposal to give up control of its chemical weapons.

September 14, 2013 - The US and Russia agree to a plan to eliminate chemical weapons in Syria.

September 16, 2013 - TheUN releases a report from chemical weapons inspectors who investigated the August 21 incident. Inspectors say there is "clear and convincing evidence" that sarin was used.

September 20, 2013 - Syria releases an initial report on its chemical weapons program.

September 27, 2013 - The UN Security Council passes a resolution requiring Syria to eliminate its arsenal of chemical weapons. Al-Assad says he will abide by the resolution.

September 30, 2013 - At the UN General Assembly in New York, Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moualem says that Syria is not engaged in a civil war, but a war on terror.

October 6, 2013 - Syria begins dismantling its chemical weapons program, including the destruction of missile warheads and aerial bombs.

October 31, 2013 - The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons announces that Syria has destroyed all its declared chemical weapons production facilities.

November 25, 2013 - The UN announces that starting January 22 in Geneva, Switzerland, the Syrian government and an unknown number of opposition groups will meet at a "Geneva II" conference meant to broker an end to the Syrian civil war.

December 2, 2013 - UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay says that a UN fact-finding team has found "massive evidence" that the highest levels of the Syrian government are responsible for war crimes.

January 20, 2014 - The Syria National Coalition announces it won't participate in the Geneva II talks unless the United Nations rescinds its surprise invitation to Iran or Iran agrees to certain conditions. The UN later rescinds Iran's invitation.

February 23, 2014 - The UN Security Council unanimously passes a resolution boosting access to humanitarian aid in Syria.

June 3, 2014 - Al-Assad is re-elected, reportedly receiving 88.7% of the vote in the country's first election since civil war broke out in 2011.

September 22-23, 2014 - The US and allies launch airstrikes against ISIS targets in Syria, focusing on the city of Raqqa.

September 14-15, 2015 - A Pentagon spokesperson says the Russian military appears to be attempting to set up a forward operating base in western Syria, in the area around the port city of Latakia. Russian President Vladimir Putin says that Russia is supporting the Syrian government in its fight against ISIS.

October 30, 2015 - White House spokesman Josh Earnest says that the US will be deploying "less than 50" Special Operations forces, who will be sent to Kurdish-controlled territory in northern Syria. The American troops will help local Kurdish and Arab forces fighting ISIS with logistics and are planning to bolster their efforts.

February 26, 2016 - A temporary cessation of hostilities goes into effect. The truce calls for the Syrian regime and rebels to give relief organizations access to disputed territories so they can assist civilians.

March 15, 2016 - Russia starts withdrawing its forces from Syria. A spokeswoman for al-Assad tells CNN that the Russian campaign is winding down after achieving its goals of helping Syrian troops take back territory claimed by terrorists.

September 15, 2016 - At least 23 people, including nine children, are killed during airstrikes in Syria, with the United States and Russia accusing each other of violating the ceasefire in effect since September 12.

September 17, 2016 - US-led coalition airstrikes near Deir Ezzor Airport intended to target ISIS instead kill 62 Syrian soldiers.

September 20, 2016 - An aid convoy and warehouse of the Syrian Arab Red Crescent are bombed; no one claims responsibility. The strike prompts the UN to halt aid operations in Syria.

September 23-25, 2016 - About 200 airstrikes hit Aleppo during the weekend, with one activist telling CNN it is a level of bombing they have not seen before.

December 13, 2016 - As government forces take control of most of Aleppo from rebel groups, Turkey and Russia broker a ceasefire for eastern Aleppo so that civilians can be evacuated. The UN Security Council holds an emergency session amid reports of mounting civilian deaths and extrajudicial killings. The ceasefire collapses less than a day after it is implemented.

December 22, 2016 - Syria's state-run media announces government forces have taken full control of Aleppo, ending more than four years of rebel rule there.

April 4, 2017 - Dozens of civilians are reportedly killed in a suspected chemical attack in the rebel-held town of Khan Sheikhoun. The Russian Defense Ministry claims that gas was released when Syrian forces bombed a chemical munitions depot operated by terrorists. Activists, however, say that Syrians carried out a targeted chemical attack.

April 6, 2017 - The US launches a military strike on a Syrian government airbase in response to the chemical weapon attack on civilians. On President Trump's orders, US warships launch 59 Tomahawk cruise missiles at the airbase which, US officials say, was home to the warplanes that carried out the chemical attacks.

July 7, 2017 - President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin reach an agreement on curbing violence in southwest Syria during their meeting at the G20 in Hamburg, Germany. The ceasefire will take effect in the de-escalation zone beginning at noon Damascus time on July 9.

October 17, 2017 - ISIS loses control of its self-declared capital, the Syrian city of Raqqa. US-backed forces fighting in Raqqa say "major military operations" have ended, though there are still pockets of resistance in the city.

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Violence flares in Daraa after a group of teens and children are arrested for writing political graffiti. Dozens of people are killed when security forces crack down on demonstrations. March 24, 2011 - In response to continuing protests, the Syrian government announces several plans to appease citizens.

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Latest news

"The children of Eastern Ghouta have already suffered through five years of siege and violence. They have been denied education, food, healthcare and forced to live in basements for months on end to shelter from attacks. Now, as thousands of people flee their homes, those who have survived the bombardment face an uncertain future." Save the Children's Syria Response Director, Sonia Khush.

READ THE LATEST PRESS RELEASE, READ THE LATEST FACT SHEET

"It feels like the end of the world"

Syria: By the numbers. It's one thing to see the statistics. After 7 years of war, Syria is now the #1 most dangerous country to be a child. Not only that, but grave child rights violations continue. That means killing, maiming, sexual violence, abduction, recruitment into combat, attacks on schools and hospitals, and denial of humanitarian access. In fact, some 5.3 million Syrian children need our help right now.

Syria: In their words. It's quite another to hear Syria's children express the realities of war in their own words. "There is no food and we can't go outside. the planes are bombing," says a terrified child. "One of my friends died in front of me - and I saw the blood," cries another. According to a young boy in besieged Eastern Ghouta, "It feels like the end of the world."
By any account, Syria's 7-year war is re-defining childhood.

IS ANYONE THERE?

Watch a horrific bombing caught on video during a recent humanitarian aid mission. #7WordsForSyria

SYRIA: BY THE NUMBERS

Learn the latest statistics - and what they mean for Syria's children.

Syria is the most dangerous place to be a child - of all conflicted-affected countries in the world

Children suffer all 6 "grave violations" - against children in conflict, as defined by the UN

5.3 million children need humanitarian aid now - even in Syria's so-called "de-escalation zones"

SYRIA: IN THEIR WORDS

See how Syria's 7-year war is re-defining what it means to be a child.

OUR SYRIA CRISIS RESPONSE

Thanks to generous supporters like you, Save the Children has worked in Syria and throughout the Middle East for decades. Since 2012, we've led a large, complex response to the war in Syria, reaching children and families in besieged areas, as well as in refugee camps and host communities.

Inside Syria, we're on the ground, ensuring children are safe, cared for and learning. We're providing lifesaving services and supplies. We're tending to children's physical and psychological needs. And we're setting up safe places for children in crisis to learn and play, critical for child development. Despite extreme humanitarian challenges, we've helped 2.5 million people in Syria, including 1.7 million children.

We're also working to draw the world's attention to this crisis, ensuring children's voices are heard and their issues given urgent priority, as we continue to call for immediate humanitarian access and a peaceful resolution to this conflict.
Save the Children is doing whatever it takes to end this war on childhood - so Syria's children have a future.

BE A HERO IN THE LIFE OF A Refugee Child

Children make up more than half of the world's 22.5 million refugees*. Many have known nothing but war, deprivation and fear. They aren't in school and often struggle to find the basic essentials - their lives and futures at risk.

You can help. By sponsoring a refugee child in Egypt, like Karim**, you can be a hero in his life and in the lives of other children in his community. With your steady support, they'll finally have the chance to grow up healthy, learning and safe.

Because every child, everywhere, deserves a future.
*Source: UNHCR
**Name changed for protection

How to Help Children in Syria

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Support Save the Children's mission. Donate to help children in Syria, and around the world, survive and thrive.

Sponsor a Refugee Child
Be the hero in the life of a child in need. Sponsor a child and help them grow up healthy, educated and safe.

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Give a unique and meaningful gift that will bring joy - and change lives. Find something for everyone on your list.

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"The children of Eastern Ghouta have already suffered through five years of siege and violence. They have been denied education, food, healthcare and forced to live in basements for months on end to shelter from attacks. Now, as thousands of people flee their homes, those who have survived the bombardment face an uncertain future."

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Over six gruesome years, Syria's raging conflict has become the " worst man-made disaster the world has seen since World War II," United Nations human rights chief Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein said this week. "The entire country has become a torture-chamber: A place of savage horror and absolute injustice."

Helping the millions of crisis-afflicted men, women and children in the devastated nation may seem like an impossible task if you're thousands of miles away, but charities around the world are doing incredible work on this front ― and they need your support.

As Syria enters its seventh year of war on Wednesday with no end to the carnage in sight, The Huffington Post has compiled a list of seven pertinent nonprofit humanitarian organizations.

United States Fund For UNICEF

UNICEF is a branch of the United Nations that focuses on helping children around the world. It has established an emergency relief response for Syria, where a sobering 80 percent of children have been affected by the civil war.

"I am imploring the American people to not only watch, listen and grieve, but to join us in taking action on behalf of the most vulnerable ― the children of Aleppo," said Caryl M. Stern, UNICEF's president and CEO. "They need us now more than ever."

Donations to UNICEF USA's Syria mission go toward supporting children's basic needs, including proper medical care, clean water and nutritional food.

Save The Children works on the ground across Syria to distribute thousands of food baskets and medical kits to children and their families. The group is issuing a global appeal for $27 million to support its efforts in the city of Aleppo, where thousands of children are still in dire need of aid. Donations will help STC provide immediate and long-term care and protection to Syria's children.

Syrian American Medical Society

The Syrian American Medical Society is a health care relief agency that works inside Syria and its neighboring countries to treat the sick and injured. SAMS treated more than 2.6 million Syrians in 2016.

"The humanitarian organizations that work in Syria need to be protected and supported," SAMS President Ahmad Tarakji told The WorldPost. "This isn't a political conflict, it's a humanitarian crisis ― the response should be built upon that principle."

Donations to SAMS support doctors and health care workers at the organization's 106 medical facilities.

Doctors Without Borders

Doctors Without Borders, or Médecins Sans Frontières, is an organization that provides medical care where it is needed most. Some MSF-supported hospitals in Aleppo and beyond have been destroyed in attacks, leaving communities with limited access to health care for extended periods of time. Donations to the Nobel Peace Prize laureate allow MSF-supported medical facilities to treat even more victims of war.

Also known as the Syria Civil Defense, the White Helmets are a group of volunteers based in Syria who rush to victims' aid when disaster strikes. So far, the group has saved more than 78,529 lives. The rescue workers' bravery earned them a Nobel Peace Prize nomination in 2016, and their short documentary film won an Oscar this year. Donations to the White Helmets' Hero Fund support wounded rescuers and families of victims, and go toward purchasing rescue equipment.

International Rescue Committee

The International Rescue Committee focuses its relief efforts not only several schools and health facilities within Syria, but also in surrounding countries like Jordan, Turkey, Lebanon and Iraq, where millions of Syrians have fled throughout the conflict. The IRC also works in the United States to help resettle refugees from Syria. It is supporting vulnerable families who fled Aleppo by giving them money to buy food and other necessities.

Islamic Relief USA is a U.S.-based humanitarian organization that seeks to alleviate poverty and suffering in countries including Syria. The organization says its donors have helped more than 9.5 million people through Syria projects to date. IRUSA has been supporting people in Aleppo for years, including providing food to 72,000 people who were under siege, but stresses the urgency for increased support.

"We are very concerned that what happened in Aleppo may happen in other areas such as Idlib, where we are also working," said CEO Anwar Khan. "We are asking the international community to do more to provide safe spaces for civilians inside Syria."
To further support those affected by the Syrian crisis, see The Huffington Post's list of ways you can help. This article was initially published in December 2016. It has been updated with additional information about the progress of the war and the organizations.

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7 Charities Helping Syrians That Need Your Support

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Over six gruesome years, Syria's raging conflict has become the " worst man-made disaster the world has seen since World War II," United Nations human rights chief Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein said this week. "The entire country has become a torture-chamber: A place of savage horror and absolute injustice."

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Bekaa Valley, Lebanon (CNN) -- The rocky, plowed hillside is scattered with clues of what happened that January night. A woman's scarf. A diaper. Empty cans of tuna fish. A plastic bag of sugar. An empty box of Turkish chocolate biscuits. A single cheap Syrian-made woman's shoe. Several white, mud-spattered rubber gloves.

It was here, last month, that 17 Syrians froze to death in a night-time snowstorm while trying to cross the mountains into Lebanon.

Three-year-old Sarah is one of the few who survived. She now lies in a bed in the Bekaa Hospital in nearby Zahleh, two intravenous tubes taped to her small right arm. Frostbite left a large dark scab on her forehead. A thick bandage covers her right cheek. Another bandage is wound around her head to cover her frostbitten right ear.

Sarah doesn't speak. She doesn't make a sound. Her brown eyes dart around the room -- curious, perhaps confused. Her father, Mishaan al Abed, sits by her bed, trying to distract her with his cell phone.

No one has told Sarah that her mother Manal, her five-year-old sister Hiba, her grandmother, her aunt and two cousins died on the mountain.

"Sometimes she says, 'I want to eat.' That's all," Abed says. Sarah hasn't mentioned anything about her ordeal, and he is hesitant to ask her.

An unfortunate reunion

Until now, Sarah hadn't seen her father for two and a half years. He left Syria for Lebanon and found work as a house painter, leaving his family behind.

Mishaan al Abed sent money back to his wife and kids, who stayed outside the town of Abu Kamal, on the Syrian-Iraqi border.

ISIS controlled Abu Kamal from the summer of 2014 until last November, when it was retaken by Syrian government forces. Fighting still rages in the countryside around it, where Al Abed's family lived.

After their house was damaged, Abed's brother and his family, along with Abed's wife and two children, fled to Damascus. There they paid $4,000 -- a fortune for a poor family -- to a Syrian lawyer who they were told had the right connections with the army, intelligence and smugglers.

The plan was for them to be driven to the border in private cars on military-only roads. From there, says Abed, they were to walk with the smugglers for half an hour into Lebanon, where they would be met by other cars.

The plan started to fall apart when snow began to fall. The smugglers abandoned the group. The family lost their way and became separated. In the dark and the cold, most of them died. It's not clear how Sarah and a few others survived.

The only thing that is clear, says hospital director Dr. Antoine Cortas, is that "it is a miracle Sarah is still alive."

Hidden by the darkness and the snow was a house just a few hundred steps down the mountain.

Abed was expecting his family to cross over, but became concerned when he didn't hear from them. "I was told the army had arrested people trying to cross into Lebanon. I thought it must be them. Then the intelligence services sent me a picture. I identified her as my wife."

He opens the picture on his cell phone. It shows a lifeless woman curled up on the snow amidst thorn bushes, a red woolen cap on her head.

A struggle to cross over, a struggle to remain

More than a million Syrians have taken refuge in Lebanon, straining the resources of a country with a population of around six million. The Lebanese authorities have, to some extent, turned a blind eye to those entering the country illegally. But they have refused to allow relief groups to establish proper refugee camps, unlike Jordan and Turkey, for fear they will become permanent.

What pass for camps -- officially called "informal tented settlements" -- are ramshackle affairs. Syrians typically pay $100 to a landowner to build drafty, uninsulated breezeblock shelters with flimsy plastic tarpaulins as roofs.

Abu Farhan, a man in his sixties from Hama, in central Syria, lives in one of those shelters in a muddy camp outside the town of Rait, just a few kilometers from the Syrian border. His wife Fatima is ill. She is huddled next to a kerosene stove under a pile of blankets. Between coughing fits, she moans loudly. Farhan has had to borrow more than two million Lebanese pounds -- around $1,300 -- for her medical treatment.

Illness is just one of the perils here. Vermin, he says, is another. "There's everything here," he chuckles bitterly, "even things I've never seen before. Rats. Mice. Everything!"

The dilemma that Syrians in Lebanon face is glaringly clear. They're not welcome here, and it's difficult to scrape by. According to a recent report by the Norwegian Refugee Council, 71% of Syrian refugees in Lebanon live in poverty.

Point of no return

Some Syrians have returned home, but many, like Abu Musa, a man in his forties who lives in the same settlement as Farhan, insist that returning would be nothing short of suicidal. He comes from Maarat al-Numan, in Idlib province, where Syrian forces, backed by Russian warplanes, are waging an offensive against government opponents.

"Of course, I'd like to go back to Syria!" Musa exclaims, gesturing around his damp, cold hut as if that were reason enough to return home. "But Syria isn't safe. They're fighting in my town. My house has been destroyed."

And thus, Syrians continue to try to make their way to Lebanon, despite the very real risks.

"The people who are walking across the mountains, and taking days to cross the mountains in the middle of winter, are a testament to the fact that Syria is not safe," said Mike Bruce of the Norwegian Refugee Council.

"Until Syria is safe, until there is a lasting peace, people should not be going back to Syria."

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Ben Wedeman, CNN Senior International Correspondent

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Syrian refugees escape the war, but die from the cold

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Bekaa Valley, Lebanon (CNN) -- The rocky, plowed hillside is scattered with clues of what happened that January night. A woman's scarf. A diaper. Empty cans of tuna fish. A plastic bag of sugar. An empty box of Turkish chocolate biscuits. A single cheap Syrian-made woman's shoe. Several white, mud-spattered rubber gloves.

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The UN Refugee Agency has been on the ground since the start of the crisis providing shelter, lifesaving supplies, clean water, hot meals and medical care to families who have been forced to flee their homes. During winter, UNHCR also supports vulnerable families with vital winter relief items - such as warm clothes, sleeping bags, thermal blankets, stoves, fuel for heating and insulation for tents - as well as cash assistance to help Syrian refugees pay rent and purchase food and medicine.

As part of the COVID-19 response, UNHCR has provided protective equipment to hospitals and health clinics, distributed medicines and supported the construction of quarantine areas and hygiene facilities. UNHCR has also distributed cash assistance to nearly 800,000 additional Syrian refugees and is working closely with host countries to ensure that refugees, internally displaced and stateless people are included in national responses to the pandemic as well as COVID-19 vaccination programs. In Jordan, for example, the government has included refugees in every aspect of their public health response and some refugees have already started to receive the vaccine.

Learn more about What We Do.

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Syrian Refugee Crisis: Aid, Statistics and News | USA for UNHCR

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The UN Refugee Agency has been on the ground since the start of the crisis providing shelter, lifesaving supplies, clean water, hot meals and medical care to families who have been forced to flee their homes.

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"I think it is very important for us to bring the simulation to Davos, for participants to spend even 45 minutes in our shoes, because people like us often feel the world forgets us. They make policy and other decisions at their level, not ours. They don't know what life is like on the ground.'

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War, violence and persecution have uprooted more men, women and children around the world than at any time in the seven-decade history of UNHCR according to a report published today.

The UN Refugee Agency's annual Global Trends study found that 65.6 million people were forcibly displaced worldwide at the end of 2016 - a total bigger than the population of the United Kingdom and about 300,000 more than last year.

It noted that the pace at which people are becoming displaced remains very high. On average, 20 people were driven from their homes every minute last year, or one every three seconds - less than the time it takes to read this sentence.

"By any measure this is an unacceptable number."

UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi

"It speaks louder than ever to the need for solidarity and common purpose in preventing and resolving crises, and ensuring together that the world's refugees, internally displaced and asylum-seekers are properly protected and cared for while solutions are pursued."

In each of the past five years, annual increases to the global displacement total have been in the millions. While the 2016 total is high - representing an enormous number of people needing protection worldwide - it also shows that growth in displacement slowed last year.

The total figure includes 40.3 million people uprooted within the borders of their own countries, about 500,000 fewer than in 2015. Meanwhile, the total number seeking asylum globally was 2.8 million, about 400,000 fewer than in the previous year.

However, the total seeking safety across international borders as refugees topped 22.5 million, the highest number seen since UNHCR was founded in 1950 in the aftermath of the Second World War.

"My husband was killed in the war ... which made me decide to leave my home, everything, behind."

The conflict in Syria, now in its seventh year, was the world's biggest producer of refugees (5.5 million). However in 2016 the biggest new factor was South Sudan, where the disastrous break-off of peace efforts in July of that year contributed to an outflow of 737,400 people by the end of the year. That number has continued to rise during the first half of 2017.

Nyawet Tut, a South Sudanese mother of five in her 30s, described how soldiers set fire to her village and she had to run for her life with her own five children and five others of relatives killed in the conflict.

"My husband was killed in the war which, in addition to the shortage of food, made me decide to leave my home, everything, behind," she told UNHCR staff during an interview at a temporary way station in Ethiopia.

In terms of overall displacement, Syria still accounts for the biggest numbers, with 12 million people (65 per cent of the population) displaced internally or living outside the country as refugees.

Leaving aside the long-standing Palestinian refugee situation, Colombians (7.7 million) and Afghans (4.7 million) remained the second- and third-largest displaced populations, followed by Iraqis (4.2 million). In total, about 3.3 million South Sudanese had fled their homes by the end of the year, in what has become the fastest-growing displacement of people in the world.

Particularly heartbreaking is the plight of children, who make up half the world's refugees, and continue to bear a disproportionate burden of the suffering, mainly because of their heightened vulnerability.

Tragically, 75,000 asylum claims were received from children travelling alone or separated from their parents, among them youngsters like Tareq, 16, who dodged armed combatants to walk out of Syria into neighbouring Turkey.

"There was no future where we lived," he told UNHCR. "There was no university and no work. There were troops grabbing young children like me, and they send them to war, and they get killed. I wanted to study."

Last year, much of the news coverage focused on refugee resettlement to developed countries, including efforts by some states to restrict access and even erect border barriers.

However, figures in the report showed that, worldwide, most refugees - 84 per cent - were in developing or middle-income countries at the end of 2016, with one in every three (4.9 million people) being hosted by the world's least developed countries.

"There were troops grabbing young children like me ... I wanted to study."

This huge imbalance reflects several things including the lack of consensus internationally when it comes to hosting refugees, and the proximity of many poor countries to regions of conflict.

It also illustrates the need for countries and communities supporting refugees and other displaced people to be properly resourced and supported, the absence of which can cause instability, have consequences for life-saving humanitarian work or lead to secondary displacement.

UNHCR estimates that at least 10 million people were without a nationality or at risk of statelessness at the end of 2016. However, data recorded by governments and communicated to UNHCR were limited to 3.2 million stateless people in 75 countries.

Faced with another year of a record displacement, devastating the lives of millions of men, women and children, one thing is clear: "We have to do better for these people," Grandi said. "For a world in conflict, what is needed is determination and courage, not fear."

(Additional reporting by Diana Diaz in Ethiopia)

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Forced displacement worldwide at its highest in decades - UNHCR Hong Kong 聯合難民署

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The UN Refugee Agency's annual Global Trends study found that 65.6 million people were forcibly displaced worldwide at the end of 2016 - a total bigger than the population of the United Kingdom and about 300,000 more than last year. It noted that the pace at which people are becoming displaced remains very high.

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Syrian Civil War Map - Live Middle East Map/ Map of the Syrian Civil War

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Welcome to Syrian Civil War Map! This website contains a live and interactive map of the Syrian Civil War and Iraqi War. We are dedicated to delivering the latest news as well as the most accurate and unbiased information about the Syrian and Iraqi conflict. Unlike other websites we are not using online and public sources. We are in contact with many people living in Syria and Iraq. These people provide information about the current circumstances in the conflict areas.

More than 500000 people already died in the civil war in Syria which is ongoing for more than seven years. More than 12 million people were expelled from their homes because of the battles between various factions. Part of the reason why the conflict in Syria is so complicated is because of the huge diversity of ethnic and religious groups living there. The rivalries and tensions between these groups play an important role in the war. The protests in Syria, which started as a part of the big wave of "Arab Spring" protests, turned into a armed conflict with the government after protestors demanded the removal of President Bashar al-Assad. The armed conflict then turned into a proxy war between various countries seeking for power in the middle east. The current fighting faction are: The Syrian Government with its allies (including Russia, Hezbollah and Iran), Sunni Arab rebel groups, Jihadist rebel groups, the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS).

Syrian Civil War:

Syrian Democratic Forces: Usually shortened as SDF or QSD, are an alliance of Kurdish, Arab, Turkmen, Assyrian and Armenian militias mainly fighting against ISIS, Al-Nusra Front and other Jihadist groups in the Syrian Civil War. The goal of the group is to establish and protect the federal region "Rojava - Northern Syria".

Anti-Government Forces: Hundreds of groups fighting the government of Bashar al-Assad. The main groups are the moderate FSA and jihadist groups like Al-Nusra ( Hayat Tahrir al- Sham) and Ahrar al-Sham.

Government Forces: Forces fighting for the government of Bashar al-Assad. These forces contain the regular Syrian Arab Army, National Defense Forces and Iran-backed Shia militias like the Hezbollah.

Islamic State of Iraq and Syria: The "Islamic State of Iraq and Syria" is a jihadist group which controls huge swathes of land in western Iraq and the Syrian Arab Republic. They consider themselves as the "Islamic Caliphate".

Syria Map

To learn more about the background of the Syrian Civil War and the major factions of the war you can click here: Background Information

Also visit our new project: Libyan Civil War Map

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Syrian Civil War Map - Live Map of the Syrian Civil War

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Welcome to Syrian Civil War Map! This website contains a live and interactive map of the Syrian Civil War and Iraqi War. We are dedicated to delivering the latest news as well as the most accurate and unbiased information about the Syrian and Iraqi conflict.

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At first glance, there is little indication of the vicious fighting that took place here.

Gone are the barriers at the exit of the market, Souk al Zarb. The citadel's courtyard, once a no man's land of dueling snipers, now is full of people taking selfies before a large #Believe_In_Aleppo sign. Instead of a haunting silence, there is the quotidian hum of traffic.

Only when you look beyond the square, at the mountain of rubble that was the Carlton Hotel, or the hollowed-out remains of the historic municipal headquarters, the Grand Serail, do you begin to see the cost of that victory.

People here are struggling to rebuild shattered lives - facing crippling power cuts, material shortages and a reconstruction process that seems to be held hostage to political maneuverings between the government and the international community.

A third of the Old City quarter, a 1.4-square-mile labyrinth of elegant souks, was obliterated in the fighting; the rest was severely damaged. The area is now the focus of the government's most vigorous efforts to rebuild.

"We have to gather the ancient rocks from the dirt. We can't lose any of them," said Mughrabi. In some cases, confined spaces must be cleared with hands and shovels when a bulldozer won't fit, or might inflict further damage.

Within the mosque, a craftsman hunches over a worktable, delicately placing alternating pieces of light and dark wood to form octagonal shapes; they will eventually make up a large wooden hemisphere for the mosque's arches. ("Each covering takes a month to make. I'll need 12 of them," says the craftsman with a smile. "I come out of here feeling dizzy.")

Over in the Old City's Khan Kheirbek, Mahmoud Meimeh, a 60-year-old rug merchant, watches a workman strike an interior wall with a tooth-edged hammer, stamping the characteristic perforations in the stone's face.

The rebels burned down Meimeh's shop within days of taking over. He left, but soon returned to open a shop for army soldiers fighting nearby.

"There were only 200 yards between us and the militants," he said, pointing to the other end of a walkway.

"I was a man of means, I used to have four shops, and now I have to remove dirt?"

The uprisings that swept through Syria in 2011 as part of the so-called Arab Spring were slow to come to Aleppo. The tribal tensions in the country's south and the explosive sectarian mix that had turned Homs into a bloodbath were largely absent here.

Instead the fight here became a battle of haves vs. have-nots: Antebellum Aleppo was Syria's economic engine, with a moneyed merchant class fiercely proud of its entrepreneurial spirit and its rivalry with Damascus.

But the opposition attracted those in the countryside who had been left out of the economic prosperity and political power. Rebel factions - many of them Islamist -marched on sprawling industrial complexes outside the city, and finally entered it in July 2012.

Meanwhile, both sides pummeled each other, the rebels with rockets, mortars and explosive gas canisters. The government added airstrikes to that mix. Whole neighborhoods became wastelands. More than 33,000 were estimated to have been killed; hundreds of thousands fled.

And Aleppo now is a city of contrasts.

Hardware stores do brisk business as customers flock in to repair busted equipment. The city's best-known food and sweets are omnipresent, a reminder that the city's syncretic cuisine is a result of successive invasions and migrations.

Only a few checkpoints mark where the demarcation line between the government and rebel-held areas of the city used to be. A more potent reminder of the division is the devastation that lies on the side of the city once held by rebels.

In some neighborhoods, returning families catch their children toying with bullet casings as big as their hands. They play among buildings pocked like blocks of Swiss cheese.

But even here there is progress. More than 200,000 people have returned to eastern Aleppo, according to the United Nations, and in 2017 the governorate that includes Aleppo witnessed the largest number of returnees in the country.

A full engineering assessment of east Aleppo's structures will be released soon, but for now aid groups have focused on the least damaged neighborhoods, providing light assistance for rehabilitation.

With the rebels militarily weak, Assad's Western and regional foes see offers of help in reconstruction, and the enormous funds it requires, as the only leverage they have to wring concessions from Damascus.

Sanctions have snarled rebuilding efforts too, with Syrian businesses unable to import many items or even pay for them in the first place.

And although all is calm in Aleppo, the war isn't far away.

A few dozen miles to the northwest and southwest there is still fighting - and the legacy of that fighting is never far from people's minds.

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Beyond Aleppo's bustling market, the cost of Syria's brutal civil war becomes clear

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At first glance, there is little indication of the vicious fighting that took place here. Gone are the barriers at the exit of the market, Souk al Zarb. The citadel's courtyard, once a no man's land of dueling snipers, now is full of people taking selfies before a large #Believe_In_Aleppo sign.

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More than 250,000 Syrians have lost their lives in four-and-a-half years of armed conflict, which began with anti-government protests before escalating into a full-scale civil war. More than 11 million others have been forced from their homes as forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad and those opposed to his rule battle each other - as well as jihadist militants from so-called Islamic State. This is the story of the civil war so far, in eight short chapters.

1. Uprising turns violent

Pro-democracy protests erupted in March 2011 in the southern city of Deraa after the arrest and torture of some teenagers who painted revolutionary slogans on a school wall. After security forces opened fire on demonstrators, killing several, more took to the streets.

The unrest triggered nationwide protests demanding President Assad's resignation. The government's use of force to crush the dissent merely hardened the protesters' resolve. By July 2011, hundreds of thousands were taking to the streets across the country.

Opposition supporters eventually began to take up arms, first to defend themselves and later to expel security forces from their local areas.

2. Descent into civil war

Violence escalated and the country descended into civil war as rebel brigades were formed to battle government forces for control of cities, towns and the countryside. Fighting reached the capital Damascus and second city of Aleppo in 2012.

By June 2013, the UN said 90,000 people had been killed in the conflict. By August 2015, that figure had climbed to 250,000, according to activists and the UN.

The conflict is now more than just a battle between those for or against Mr Assad. It has acquired sectarian overtones, pitching the country's Sunni majority against the president's Shia Alawite sect, and drawn in regional and world powers. The rise of the jihadist group Islamic State (IS) has added a further dimension.

3. War crimes

A UN commission of inquiry has evidence that all parties to the conflict have committed war crimes - including murder, torture, rape and enforced disappearances. They have also been accused of using civilian suffering - such as blocking access to food, water and health services through sieges - as a method of war.

The UN Security Council has demanded all parties end the indiscriminate use of weapons in populated areas, but civilians continue to die in their thousands. Many have been killed by barrel bombs dropped by government aircraft on gatherings in rebel-held areas - attacks which the UN says may constitute massacres.

IS has also been accused by the UN of waging a campaign of terror. It has inflicted severe punishments on those who transgress or refuse to accept its rules, including hundreds of public executions and amputations. Its fighters have also carried out mass killings of rival armed groups, members of the security forces and religious minorities, and beheaded hostages, including several Westerners.

4. Chemical weapons

Hundreds of people were killed in August 2013 after rockets filled with the nerve agent sarin were fired at several suburbs of Damascus. Western powers said it could only have been carried out by Syria's government, but the government blamed rebel forces.

Facing the prospect of US military intervention, President Assad agreed to the complete removal and destruction of Syria's chemical weapons arsenal.

The operation was completed the following year, but the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) has continued to document the use of toxic chemicals in the conflict. Investigators found chlorine was used "systematically and repeatedly" in deadly attacks on rebel-held areas between April and July 2014.

IS has also been accused of using homemade chemical weapons, including sulphur mustard. The OPCW said the blister agent was used in an attack on the northern town of Marea in August 2015 that killed a baby.

5. Humanitarian crisis

More than 4.5 million people have fled Syria since the start of the conflict, most of them women and children. Neighbouring Lebanon, Jordan and Turkey have struggled to cope with one of the largest refugee exoduses in recent history. About 10% of Syrian refugees have sought safety in Europe, sowing political divisions as countries argue over sharing the burden.

A further 6.5 million people are internally displaced inside Syria, 1.2 million were driven from their homes in 2015 alone.

The UN says it will need $3.2bn to help the 13.5 million people, including 6 million children, who will require some form of humanitarian assistance inside Syria in 2016. About 70% of the population is without access to adequate drinking water, one in three people are unable to meet their basic food needs, and more than 2 million children are out of school, and four out of five people live in poverty.

The warring parties have compounded the problems by refusing humanitarian agencies access to civilians in need. Up to 4.5 million people in Syria live in hard-to-reach areas, including nearly 400,000 people in 15 besieged locations who do not have access to life-saving aid.

6. Rebels and the rise of the jihadists

The armed rebellion has evolved significantly since its inception. Secular moderates are now outnumbered by Islamists and jihadists, whose brutal tactics have caused global outrage.

So-called Islamic State has capitalised on the chaos and taken control of large swathes of Syria and Iraq, where it proclaimed the creation of a "caliphate" in June 2014. Its many foreign fighters are involved in a "war within a war" in Syria, battling rebels and rival jihadists from the al-Qaeda-affiliated Nusra Front, as well as government and Kurdish forces.

In September 2014, a US-led coalition launched air strikes inside Syria in an effort to "degrade and ultimately destroy" IS. But the coalition has avoided attacks that might benefit Mr Assad's forces. Russia began an air campaign targeting "terrorists" in Syria a year later, but opposition activists say its strikes have mostly killed Western-backed rebels and civilians.

In the political arena, opposition groups are also deeply divided, with rival alliances battling for supremacy. The most prominent is the National Coalition for Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces, backed by several Western and Gulf Arab states. However, the exile group has little influence on the ground in Syria and its primacy is rejected by many opponents of Mr Assad.

7. Peace efforts

With neither side able to inflict a decisive defeat on the other, the international community long ago concluded that only a political solution could end the conflict in Syria. The UN Security Council has called for the implementation of the 2012 Geneva Communique, which envisages a transitional governing body with full executive powers "formed on the basis of mutual consent".

Talks in early 2014, known as Geneva II, broke down after only two rounds, with then-UN special envoy Lakhdar Brahimi blaming the Syrian government's refusal to discuss opposition demands.

Mr Brahimi's successor, Staffan de Mistura, focused on establishing a series of local ceasefires. His plan for a "freeze zone" in Aleppo was rejected, but a three-year siege of the Homs suburb of al-Wair was successfully brought to an end in December 2015.

At the same time, the conflict with IS lent fresh impetus to the search for a political solution in Syria. The US and Russia led efforts to get representatives of the government and the opposition to attend "proximity talks" in Geneva in January 2016 to discuss a Security Council-endorsed road map for peace, including a ceasefire and a transitional period ending with elections.

8. Proxy war

What began as another Arab Spring uprising against an autocratic ruler has mushroomed into a brutal proxy war that has drawn in regional and world powers.

Iran and Russia have propped up the Alawite-led government of President Assad and gradually increased their support. Tehran is believed to be spending billions of dollars a year to bolster Mr Assad, providing military advisers and subsidised weapons, as well as lines of credit and oil transfers. Russia has meanwhile launched an air campaign against Mr Assad's opponents.

The Syrian government has also enjoyed the support of Lebanon's Shia Islamist Hezbollah movement, whose fighters have provided important battlefield support since 2013.

The Sunni-dominated opposition has, meanwhile, attracted varying degrees of support from its international backers - Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Jordan, along with the US, UK and France.

Until late 2015, rebel appeals for anti-aircraft weapons to stop devastating government air strikes were rejected by the US and its allies, amid concern that they might end up in the hands of jihadist militants. A US programme to train and arm 5,000 rebels to take the fight to IS on the ground also suffered a series of setbacks before being abandoned.
Produced by Lucy Rodgers, David Gritten, James Offer and Patrick Asare

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More than 250,000 Syrians have lost their lives in four-and-a-half years of armed conflict, which began with anti-government protests before escalating into a full-scale civil war. More than 11 million others have been forced from their homes as forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad and those opposed to his rule battle each other - as well as jihadist militants from so-called Islamic State.

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A peaceful uprising against the president of Syria 12 years ago turned into a full-scale civil war. The conflict has left half a million people dead, devastated cities and drawn in other countries.

Even before the conflict began, many Syrians were complaining about high unemployment, corruption and a lack of political freedom under President Bashar al-Assad, who succeeded his father, Hafez, after he died in 2000.

In March 2011, pro-democracy demonstrations erupted in the southern city of Deraa, inspired by uprisings in neighbouring countries against repressive rulers.

When the Syrian government used deadly force to crush the dissent, protests demanding the president's resignation erupted nationwide.

The unrest spread and the crackdown intensified. Opposition supporters took up arms, first to defend themselves and later to rid their areas of security forces. Mr Assad vowed to crush what he called "foreign-backed terrorism".

The violence rapidly escalated and the country descended into civil war. Hundreds of rebel groups sprung up and it did not take long for the conflict to become more than a battle between Syrians for or against Mr Assad. Foreign powers began to take sides, sending money, weaponry and fighters, and as the chaos worsened extremist jihadist organisations with their own aims, such as the Islamic State (IS) group and al-Qaeda, became involved. That deepened concern among the international community who saw them as a major threat.

Syria's Kurds, who want the right of self-government but have not fought Mr Assad's forces, have added another dimension to the conflict.

The United Nations Human Rights Office estimated last year that 306,887 civilians - 1.5% of the total pre-war population - were killed between March 2011 and March 2021 due to the conflict.

It said 143,350 civilian deaths were individually documented by various sources with detailed information, and that a further 163,537 deaths were estimated to have occurred using statistical techniques. At least 27,126 of those estimated to have been killed were children.

The then-UN Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet, stressed that the fatalities were the "direct result of war operations", adding: "This does not include the many, many more civilians who died due to the loss of access to healthcare, to food, to clean water and other essential human rights."

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), a UK-based monitoring group with a network of sources on the ground, had documented the deaths of 503,064 people by March 2023. It said at least 162,390 civilians had been killed, with the Syrian government and its allies responsible for 139,609 of those deaths.

The group estimated that the actual toll from the war was more than 613,400, with an additional 55,000 civilians believed to have died of torture in government-run prisons.

Another monitoring group, the Violations Documentation Center, which relies on information from activists across the country, had documented 240,215 battle-related deaths, including 145,765 civilians, as of March 2023.

The government's key supporters have been Russia and Iran, while Turkey, Western powers and several Gulf Arab states have backed the opposition to varying degrees during the conflict.

Russia - which had military bases in Syria before the war - launched an air campaign in support of Mr Assad in 2015 that has been crucial in turning the tide of the war in the government's favour.

The Russian military says its strikes only target "terrorists" but activists say they regularly kill mainstream rebels and civilians.

Iran is believed to have deployed hundreds of troops and spent billions of dollars to help Mr Assad.

Thousands of Shia Muslim militiamen armed, trained and financed by Iran - mostly from Lebanon's Hezbollah movement, but also Iraq, Afghanistan and Yemen - have also fought alongside the Syrian army.

The US, UK and France initially armed what they considered "moderate" rebel groups. But they have prioritised non-lethal assistance since jihadists became the dominant force in the armed opposition.

A US-led global coalition has also carried out air strikes and deployed special forces in Syria since 2014 to help an alliance of Kurdish and Arab militias called the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) capture territory once held by IS militants in the north-east and stop the jihadist group rebuilding.

Turkey is a major supporter of the opposition, but its focus has been on using rebel factions to contain the Kurdish YPG militia that dominates the SDF, accusing it of being an extension of a banned Kurdish rebel group in Turkey.

Turkish troops and allied rebels have seized stretches of territory along Syria's northern border and intervened to stop an all-out assault by government forces on the last opposition stronghold of Idlib.

Saudi Arabia, which is keen to counter Iranian influence, armed and financed the rebels at the start of the war. Having refused to engage with President Assad for more than a decade, it is now discussing how to facilitate Syria's "return to the Arab fold".

Israel, meanwhile, has been so concerned by what it calls Iran's "military entrenchment" in Syria and shipments of Iranian weapons to Hezbollah and other Shia militias that it has conducted air strikes with increasing frequency in an attempt to thwart them.

Twelve years of war have inflicted immense suffering on the Syrian people.

In addition to the bloodshed, more than half of Syria's pre-war population of 22 million have had to flee their homes. Some 6.8 million are internally displaced, with more than two million living in tented camps with limited access to basic services.

Another 6 million are refugees or asylum-seekers abroad. Neighbouring Lebanon, Jordan and Turkey, which are hosting 5.3 million of them, have struggled to cope with one of the largest refugee exoduses in recent history.

At the start of 2023, the UN said 15.3 million people inside Syria were in need of some form of humanitarian assistance - an all-time high since the war began - and 12 million did not know where their next meal was coming from.

The already dire humanitarian situation in north-western Syria - the location of the last opposition stronghold - was made significantly worse by the huge earthquake that struck near the Turkish city of Gaziantep, about 80km (50 miles) from the Syrian border, on 6 February 2023.

More than 5,900 people were killed across Syria and another 8.8 million were affected, according to the UN. Thousands of homes and critical infrastructure were destroyed, leaving many families without food, water and shelter. Deliveries of life-saving aid to opposition-held areas were also delayed for days because of what a UN panel described as "shocking" failures by the warring parties as well as the international community.

The disaster happened at a time when the prices of food and fuel in Syria were already skyrocketing because of runaway inflation and the collapse of its currency, as well as the global crisis exacerbated by the war in Ukraine.

Syria has also been one of the countries in the Middle East worst affected by the Covid-19 pandemic - although the true extent is not known because of limited testing - and is now also having to deal with a deadly cholera outbreak that was made worse by the earthquake.

Access to medical care is severely restricted for the sick and injured because only half of the country's hospitals are fully functional.

Despite their protected status, 601 attacks on at least 400 separate medical facilities had been documented by Physicians for Human Rights as of February 2022, resulting in the deaths of 942 medical personnel. The vast majority of the attacks were blamed on government and Russian forces.

Entire neighbourhoods and vital infrastructure across the country also remain in ruins. UN satellite analysis suggested that more than 35,000 structures were damaged or destroyed in Aleppo city alone before it was recaptured by the government in late 2016.

Much of Syria's rich cultural heritage has likewise been destroyed. All six of the country's Unesco World Heritage sites have been damaged significantly, with IS militants deliberately blowing up parts of the ancient city of Palmyra.

A UN commission of inquiry has concluded that the warring parties "have cumulatively committed almost every crime against humanity... and nearly every war crime applicable in a non-international armed conflict".

"Syrians," a February 2021 report says, "have suffered vast aerial bombardments of densely populated areas; they have endured chemical weapons attacks and modern day sieges in which perpetrators deliberately starved the population along medieval scripts and indefensible and shameful restrictions on humanitarian aid".

The government has regained control of Syria's biggest cities, but large parts of the country are still held by rebels, jihadists and the Kurdish-led SDF. There have been no shifts in the front lines for three years.

The last remaining opposition stronghold is in the north-western province of Idlib and adjoining parts of northern Hama and western Aleppo provinces.

The region is dominated by a jihadist alliance called Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), but is also home to mainstream rebel factions backed by Turkey. An estimated 2.9 million displaced people, including a million children, are living there, many of them in dire conditions in camps.

In March 2020, Russia and Turkey brokered a ceasefire to halt a push by the government to retake Idlib. That led to an extended lull in violence, but there continues to be sporadic clashes, air strikes and shelling.

In the country's north-east, Turkish forces and allied Syrian rebels launched an offensive against the SDF in October 2019 to create a "safe zone" clear of Kurdish YPG militia along the Syrian side of the border, and have occupied a 120km (75 miles) long stretch since.

To halt the assault the SDF struck a deal with the Syrian government that saw the Syrian army return to the Kurdish-administered region for the first time in seven years. Despite the presence of Syrian troops, there are still regular clashes between the SDF and Turkish-led forces along the front line.

IS sleeper cells also continue to carry out frequent and deadly attacks.

It does not look like it will anytime soon, but everyone agrees a political solution is required.

The UN Security Council has called for the implementation of the 2012 Geneva Communiqué, which envisages a transitional governing body "formed on the basis of mutual consent".

Nine rounds of UN-mediated peace talks - known as the Geneva II process - failed to make progress, with President Assad apparently unwilling to negotiate with political opposition groups that insist he must step down as part of any settlement.

Russia, Iran and Turkey set up parallel political talks known as the Astana process in 2017.

An agreement was reached the following year to form a 150-member committee to write a new constitution, leading to free and fair elections supervised by the UN. But little progress has been achieved after eight rounds of talks.

As the conflict entered its 13th year, UN special envoy Geir Pedersen said the situation in Syria was "untenable" and that "to carry on in the same manner, defies humanity and logic".

But he also expressed hope that the devastating earthquake could be a "turning point", noting the "humanitarian steps from all sides that have moved beyond previous positions, even if temporarily".
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While the world's attention is focused on Ukraine, Syria is still suffering in its long war.

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More than 465,000 Syrians have been killed in the fighting, over a million injured, and over 12 million - half the country's prewar population - have been displaced.

Here is how and why the conflict started:

What caused the uprising?

While lack of freedoms and economic woes drove resentment of the Syrian government, the harsh crackdown on protesters inflamed public anger.

Arab Spring: In 2011, successful uprisings - that became known as the Arab Spring - toppled Tunisia's and Egypt 's presidents. This gave hope to Syrian pro-democracy activists.

That March, peaceful protests erupted in Syria as well, after 15 boys were detained and tortured for writing graffiti in support of the Arab Spring. One of the boys, a 13-year-old, was killed after having been brutally tortured.

The Syrian government, led by President Bashar al-Assad, responded to the protests by killing hundreds of demonstrators and imprisoning many more.

In July 2011, defectors from the military announced the formation of the Free Syrian Army, a rebel group aiming to overthrow the government, and Syria began to slide into war.

While the protests in 2011 were mostly non-sectarian, the armed conflict surfaced starker sectarian divisions. Most Syrians are Sunni Muslims, but Syria's security establishment has long been dominated by members of the Alawi sect, of which Assad is a member.

In 1982, Bashar's father ordered a military crackdown on the Muslim Brotherhood in Hama, killing tens of thousands of people and flattening much of the city.

Even global warming is said to have played a role in sparking the 2011 uprising. Severe drought plagued Syria from 2007-10, causing as many as 1.5 million people to migrate from the countryside into cities, exacerbating poverty and social unrest.

International involvement

Foreign backing and open intervention have played a large role in Syria's war. Russia entered the conflict in 2015 and has been the Assad government's main ally since then.

Regional actors: The governments of majority-Shia Iran and Iraq, and Lebanon-based Hezbollah, have supported Assad, while Sunni-majority countries, including Turkey, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia supported anti-Assad rebels.

Since 2016, Turkish troops have launched several operations against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) near its borders, as well as against Kurdish groups armed by the United States.

Anti-ISIL coalition: The US has armed anti-Assad rebel groups and led an international coalition bombing ISIL targets since 2014.

Israel carried out air raids inside Syria, reportedly targeting Hezbollah and pro-government fighters and facilities.

The first time Syrian air defences shot down an Israeli warplane was in February 2018.

US and Russia

The US has repeatedly stated its opposition to the Assad government backed by Russia but has not involved itself as deeply.

Chemical red line: Former US President Barack Obama had warned that the use of chemical weapons in Syria was a "red line" that would prompt military intervention.

In April 2017, the US carried its first direct military action against Assad's forces, launching 59 Tomahawk cruise missiles at a Syrian air force base from which US officials believe a chemical attack on Khan Sheikhoun had been launched.

One year later, on April 14, despite Russian warnings, the US launched an attack together with France and the UK, at "chemical weapon sites".

CIA training: In 2013, the CIA began a covert programme to arm, fund and train rebel groups opposing Assad, but the programme was later shut down after it was revealed that the CIA had spent $500m but only trained 60 fighters.

Russia's campaign: In September 2015, Russia launched a bombing campaign against what it referred to as "terrorist groups" in Syria, which included ISIL as well as anti-Assad rebel groups backed by the USA. Russia has also deployed military advisers to shore up Assad's defences.

At the UN Security Council, Russia and China have repeatedly vetoed Western-backed resolutions on Syria.

Peace talks

Peace negotiations have been ongoing between the Syrian government and the opposition in order to achieve a military ceasefire and political transition in Syria, but the main sticking point has been the fate of Assad.

Geneva: The first round of UN-facilitated talks between the Syrian government and opposition delegates took place in Geneva, Switzerland in June 2012.

The latest round of talks in December 2017 failed amid a tit-for-tat between the Syrian government and opposition delegates over statements about the future role of Assad in a transitional government.

In 2014 Staffan de Mistura replaced Kofi Annan as the UN special envoy for Syria.

Astana: In May 2017, Russia, Iran and Turkey called for the setup of four de-escalation zones in Syria, over which Syrian and Russian fighter jets were not expected to fly.

After denouncing plans to partition Syria in March 2018, a follow-up trilateral summit was held in Turkey to discuss the way forward.

Sochi: In January 2018, Russia sponsored talks over the future of Syria in the Black Sea city of Sochi, but the opposition bloc boycotted the conference, claiming it was an attempt to undercut the UN effort to broker a deal.

Since the conflict began, as a Syrian rebellion against the Assad government, many new rebel groups have joined the fighting in Syria and have frequently fought one another.

In December 2016, the Syrian army scored its biggest victory against the rebels when it recaptured the strategic city of Aleppo. Since then, the FSA has controlled limited areas in northwestern Syria.

In 2018, Syrian opposition fighters evacuated from the last rebel stronghold near Damascus. However, backed by Turkey, the FSA took control Afrin, near the Turkey-Syria border, from Kurdish rebel fighters seeking self-rule.

emerged in northern and eastern Syria in 2013 after overrunning large portions of Iraq. The group quickly gained international notoriety for its brutal executions and its energetic use of social media to recruit fighters from around the world.

Other groups fighting in Syria include Jabhat Fateh al-Sham, Iran-backed Hezbollah, and the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) dominated by the Kurdish People's Protection Units ( YPG).

Fighting in Syria continues on several fronts:

Idlib: In February 2018, shelling by Russian and Syrian forces have intensified on Idlib, especially since fighters from the Hay'et Tahrir al-Sham group shot down a Russian warplane.

In April, Russia brokered a deal to evacuate opposition fighters from Eastern Ghouta in the south to Idlib in the north, Idlib being one of the few strongholds controlled by opposition fighters.

The province is strategically important for the Syrian government and Russia for its proximity to the Russian-operated Syrian Khmeimim airbase.

Homs: In April, an airbase and other Syrian government facilities in Homs became again the target of Israeli and US-led air strikes in which UK and French forces also participated.

The Syrian army recaptured the city of Homs in 2014, but fighting continues with rebels in the suburbs between Homs and Hama.

Turkey and the Free Syrian Army (FSA) began in January 2018 a military operation against US-backed fightersin northwestern Syria, and announced the capture of Afrin's city centre in March.

US troops are stationed in nearby Manbij, prompting fears of a US-Turkey confrontation.

Who is controling what in Syria? https://t.co/MlPM1aJf4Q pic.twitter.com/qz2dY2qvT0

- Al Jazeera English (@AJEnglish) March 3, 2018

Now having gone on longer than World War II, the war in Syria is causing profound effects beyond the country's borders, with many Syrians having left their homes to seek safety elsewhere in Syria or beyond.

Registered: As of February 2018, the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) had registered over 5.5 million refugees from Syria and estimated that there are over 6.5 million internally displaced persons (IDP) within Syria's borders.

Lebanon, Turkey, and Jordan are hosting most of the Syrian refugees, many of whom attempt to journey onwards to Europe in search of better conditions.

The 1951 Geneva Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees describes a refugee as any person who, "owing to well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion, is outside the country of his nationality and is unable or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country".

Returns: In 2017, about 66,000 refugees returned to Syria, according to reports.

According to a Turkish official, 140,000 Syrian refugees in Turkey returned home after Turkish military operations in 2017. More refugees may return to Afrin.

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Syria's war explained from the beginning

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On March 15, the war entered its eighth year.