This Is Syria After Nearly 5 Years Of Civil War

Published August 31, 2015
Updated August 26, 2022

Claiming over 300,000 lives and turning half of the population into refugees, these photos of the Syrian Civil War reveal the cost of 5 years of conflict.

In 2011, nationwide protests calling for expanded political freedoms and the subsequent military response to these protests sparked the Syrian Civil War, which has dragged on for four and a half years. The conflict, which initially pitted anti-government forces against those loyal to President Bashar al-Assad, has since escalated into a region-wide battlefield ensnaring combatants from across the globe.

The war has taken a cataclysmic toll on the country. In 2014, the World Bank estimated that four in five Syrians were living in poverty, and unemployment has skyrocketed from 15 percent in 2011 to 58 percent at the end of 2014.

Furthermore, the United Nations estimates that nearly 4 million refugees have fled the country with another 7.5 million people internally displaced. Worst of all, the U.N. reported this year that at least 220,000 people have perished since the war started. Explore the all-encompassing devastation that the war has wrought in the images below (warning: some images are graphic):

Protests In Homs November 2011
Protests
Idlib Protests
Throwing Back Tear Gas
This Is Syria After Nearly 5 Years Of Civil War
View Gallery

We also recommend that you watch this interview with a female Kurdish soldier on the front lines against ISIS as well as the following VICE News videos on the Syrian Civil War:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0NygMD3jKRc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Cb3OURdl3g

Be sure to also see our gallery on the Kurdish women fighting ISIS and Afghanistan in the 1960s before the Taliban. And before you go, like All That Is Interesting on Facebook.

Alec
Alexander is a Brooklyn-based cofounder of All That's Interesting with an undergraduate degree from the University of Virginia in History and Economics and an MSc from the School of Oriental and African Studies in Economics. He specializes in American history, the Cold War, and true crime.