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Syria is slowly dying out

February 2015
February 2015

(BRUSSELS2) Since the beginning of the conflict, 4 years ago, 83% of the lights visible in the Syrian sky have gone out. This is the conclusion reached by a researcher from the University of Wuhan in China who has analyzed satellite images of the Syrian sky since 2011, at the request of 130 NGOs, including Crisis Group. Lights that went out because civilians have taken the road to exile, because the infrastructure has been gradually devastated by the violence of the fighting, but also because Syrian civilians on the ground are hiding from night air attacks on residential neighborhoods denounce the NGOs.

The detail of the disappearances of the lights, province by province, is... illuminating:

provinces Idlib Al Hasakah Al Raqqah Al Suwayda Quneitra Latakia Aleppo Hama Homs Turn on Deir ez-zor Ref Dimashq tartus Damascus
Percentage of lights lost -96% -77% -96% -80% -47% -88% -97% -87% -49% -74% -90% -78% -87% -33%

To this observation, we must add the study written on behalf of the UNWRA (the UN office for the reception of Palestinian refugees) and the UNDP, which a reader reminded me of, which gives some data frightening: in four years of war, the lifespan of the average Syrian would have increased from 74 to 55 years! And the living population has decreased by a sixth during this same period... Download here

(NGV)

Nicolas Gros Verheyde

Chief editor of the B2 site. Graduated in European law from the University of Paris I Pantheon Sorbonne and listener to the 65th session of the IHEDN (Institut des Hautes Etudes de la Défense Nationale. Journalist since 1989, founded B2 - Bruxelles2 in 2008. EU/NATO correspondent in Brussels for Sud-Ouest (previously West-France and France-Soir).

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