The Syrian civil war, which entered its fourth year this week, has devastated the lives of millions of Syrians by killing more than 120,000 people and forcing 2.5 million others to seek shelter away from their home country.
According to the information and data the Anadolu Agency compiled, the civilian death toll stands at 105,721 in alleged regime attacks on opposition controlled areas. The fatalities in the civil war, which started on March 18, 2011, include 14,144 children and 12,935 women.
During the three years of atrocities, the London-based Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR) reports say that six Syrians per hour, one child every two hours and one woman every three hours are killed by the Assad regime forces.
Meanwhile, at least 128 individuals have starved to death at the Yarmouk camp, on the outskirts of Damascus since the siege tightened in July 2013 when access to food and medical supplies was cut off.
The regime has dropped around 2,500 barrel bombs so far on the opposition controlled areas mostly in Aleppo, Dara’a and the Yabroud regions of the capital city of Damascus, Homs, Latakia and Idlib cities.
In addition, the war left cities ruined, demolishing and damaging 2.9 million buildings, including houses, hospitals, mosques, schools and churches. Repairing those buildings will cost US$165 billion, says the human rights watchdog.
The United Nations (UN) announced that 3.5 million people were internally displaced and 2.5 million have sought refuge in neighboring countries since the conflict erupted. The vast majority of these refugees have fled to Lebanon, Turkey, Jordan, Egypt and Iraq. In Lebanon, there are more than 960,000 refugees, Turkey has around 634,000, Iraq with 584,500 and Egypt has 300,000 refugees.
International child rights group Save the Children says 1.2 million children fled to neighboring countries with their families while 4.3 million subjected to violence, still need humanitarian aid in Syria.
By Tutku Senen / Ali Demir
