Syria war enters 10th year with no hope in sight

As it enters its tenth year, the war in Syria is anything but abating, as foreign powers scrap over a ravaged country where human suffering keeps reaching new levels.

When protesters in March 2011 demanded their rights and regime change, they likely never imagined it would trigger a reaction that has led to the 21st century's biggest war.

Nine years on, President Bashar al-Assad is still in power and there to stay, more than 380,000 people have died, dozens of towns and cities razed to the ground and half of the country's entire population displaced.

Nearly a year after the Islamic State group's "caliphate" was dismantled, the West's attention towards Syria was only pricked again last month when Turkey threatened to open the floodgates for migrants seeking to flee to Europe.

While the number of fronts has been reduced by Damascus' reconquest in recent years, the nature of the war is changing and violence is still raging in the northwest.

Some other regions have long been pacified, but people there have yet to feel the dividends of peace as Syria plays host to a complex international showdown involving Russia, the United States, Turkey, Israel and Iran.

"It's certainly not a simple international conflict," said Syria researcher Fabrice Balanche.

Nine years ago, teenagers inspired by Arab Spring uprisings they saw on television, spray-painted a message on the walls of a school in the southern city of Daraa.

"Down with the regime. Your turn, Doctor," they scrawled, referring to Assad, a trained ophthalmologist.

Within days security forces detained them, sparking angry protests many say triggered Syria's uprising.

But a violent crackdown soon saw revolutionaries take up arms with backing from Gulf nations, and wrest key areas from government control.

Jihadist groups also emerged, most notably IS, which swept across large parts of the country and neighbouring Iraq in 2014.

As the situation unravelled, foreign armies soon entered the arena, eventually leading Damascus, with the support of Russia and Iran, to regain the upper hand. It now controls 70 percent of the country.

- Five foreign powers -

Alarmed by IS, Washington intervened in 2014 with airstrikes on Syrian soil as the head of a global coalition against the jihadists.

A year later Moscow waded in on Assad's side in a move that would turn the tide of Syria's war.

Iran, with its elite Revolutionary Guards and allied Iraqi and Lebanese fighters, also took an active role in backing the regime, in what analysts say was a move to secure access to the Mediterranean.

Turkey, meanwhile, launched the first of several incursions across its southern border in 2016 and last year seized a 120-kilometre (70-mile) long strip of land from Kurdish fighters it views as "terrorists".

Israel has carried out hundreds of strikes in Syria, which it says mostly target Iranian and Lebanese fighters.

Omar Abu Leyla, an activist now living abroad, accuses Western powers who initially took a stand against Assad of shifting all their focus to fighting jihadists after 2014 -- to the detriment of the revolution.

"Syria became increasingly destroyed and splintered after 2011, and the international community is responsible," he said.

- 'Russian-Iranian protectorate' -

Syria's war has displaced more than 11 million people at home and abroad, with Turkey absorbing more Syrian refugees than any other country in the world.

In the latest fighting, a Russia-backed offensive since December on the last major rebel bastion of Idlib has forced almost a million people to flee towards the closed Turkish border within months.

The ongoing humanitarian emergency in northwestern Syria has been described by the aid community as the worst since the start of the war.

A Russian-Turkish ceasefire holds for now in Idlib, though it is not clear for how long it will stem resisting jihadists and Turkey-backed rebels. 

The deal was met with scepticism by residents who have seen countless other initiatives flounder in recent years, but Balanche said he expected the fighting to die down in the coming years.

After the northeast returns to the government, "the country will be a Russian-Iranian protectorate while Turks occupy the north", Balanche said.

Idlib would likely become a Syrian version of the Gaza Strip, he said, with millions crammed into a narrow sliver of land on the border.

"Assad will stay in power and be re-elected in 2021," he said.

In regime-held areas, the government has been accused of widespread detentions and forced army conscriptions.

Omar al-Hariri, another exiled activist, said it was hard to believe so many of his fellow Syrians were now dead. "If we asked people today if they'd rather revert to the way things were before 2011, they might say yes," he said. "But what's done is done. There's no going back."

War in numbers

More than 380,000 dead, more than half of the population forced from their homes, and a country in ruins: Syria's war, which started in March 2011, has been devastating.

Here are some figures from the nine years of conflict:

- Victims – 

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which monitors the conflict via a network of sources across Syria, says it has recorded the deaths of more than 380,000 people.

According to its toll in January 2020, those killed have included more than 115,000 civilians, of whom 22,000 were children and 13,612 women.

- Disability rates -

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), the Syrian war represents one of the most severe and complex emergency situations in the world, and has considerably weakened its health system.

Disability rates have increased to 30 percent in some parts of the country -- double the world average.

At least 45 percent of people wounded in the conflict will live with a permanent disability.

- Displacement -

According to the US NGO CARE, the conflict has caused the biggest population displacement since the Second World War.

Fighting has forced more than half the country's pre-war population of 23 million from their homes. 

The UN said in February 2020 the number of refugees abroad has reached 5.5 million, while more than six million people are displaced within Syria.

- Refugees -

Turkey, the main host country, has taken in 3.6 million refugees.

It fears another influx due to the regime's offensive in the northwestern region of Idlib, which since it started in December has displaced nearly a million people.

Lebanon says it hosts 1.5 million Syrians, bringing its total population to 4.5 million.

Less than one million of those are registered with the UN refugee agency, UNHCR. Most of the Syrian refugees in Lebanon lack security and depend on international aid.

In Jordan, where the UNHCR says it has registered more than 650,000 Syrians, the government says it is hosting 1.3 million refugees.

At least another 300,000 Syrians have taken refuge in Iraq and more than 130,000 in Egypt, the UN agency says.

Hundreds of thousands of Syrians have also headed to Europe, notably to Germany, where they account for the majority of asylum seekers.

- Jailed, tortured -

Since the start of the conflict, President Bashar al-Assad's regime has been accused of human rights abuses including torture, rape and summary executions.

According to the Observatory, at least 60,000 people have died from torture or due to dire conditions in regime prisons.

Half a million people have gone through regime jails since the outbreak of the war, it says.

In 2017, Amnesty International said authorities had hanged around 13,000 people between 2011 and 2015 at the infamous Saydnaya prison near Damascus.

Several thousand have died over the same period in prisons run by jihadists or other rebel groups, Amnesty says.

- Economy in ruins -

The economy has also been devastated by nine years of war.

Four out of five households are unable to meet their food needs, the UN's World Food Programme says.

With unemployment, power cuts and gas shortages, 83 percent of Syrians live below the poverty line, according to the UN, compared with 28 percent before the war.

The oil and gas sector has since 2011 lost an estimated $74 billion, according to Syrian authorities.

The UN estimates the overall cost in damages at nearly $400 billion. Whole areas and towns lie in ruins.

For the UN the situation in Idlib represents "probably the biggest crisis we have in the world today."