Syrians suffer from the effects of civil war

After 13 years of civil war, Syria has lost more than 528,500 people who died in this cruel struggle.

In the face of this, Syrians continue to cope with a terrible legacy of dead and missing after the fall of Bashar Al-Assad's regime. 

More than 528,500 people were killed in the Syrian civil war, according to figures from the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. 

The Britain-based Observatory said 6,777 people, more than half of them civilians, were killed in 2024 in fighting in Syria. 

Syria's civil war erupted in 2011 after the government brutally suppressed pro-democracy protests triggering a devastating conflict that pushed millions of people to flee abroad and attracted foreign powers and global jihadist groups.

Last year, 3,598 civilians, including 240 women and 337 children, were killed across Syria, according to the Observatory. 

In addition, 3,179 fighters were killed, according to the Observatory, including ‘old regime’ soldiers, but also ‘Islamist armed groups’ and jihadists. 

In 2023, the Observatory reported the deaths of 4,360 people, including almost 1,900 civilians. 

In December, Islamist-led rebels overthrew Assad, seizing power in a swift offensive that ended more than 50 years of iron-fisted family rule. 

Since 2011, the monitor with a network of sources inside Syria has recorded more than 64,000 deaths in Assad's prisons ‘due to torture, medical negligence or poor conditions’ in jails. 

The fate of tens of thousands of people missing under the Assad government also remains unknown and is a key issue for Syria's interim rulers. 

Relatives and friends are unwilling to give up before all the facts are known. 

Several dozen protesters gathered in the Syrian city of Douma on Wednesday to demand answers about the fate of four prominent activists abducted more than a decade ago. 

Holding photographs of the missing activists, the protesters called on Syria's new rulers, the Islamist rebels who seized power last month, to investigate what had happened to them. 

‘We are here because we want to know the whole truth about two women and two men who disappeared from this place 11 years and 22 days ago,’ said activist Yassin Al-Haj Saleh, whose wife Samira Khalil was among those abducted. 

In December 2013, Khalil, Razan Zeitouneh, Wael Hamada and Nazem Al-Hammadi were abducted by unidentified gunmen from the office of a human rights group they ran together in the then rebel-held town outside Damascus. 

All four played an active role in the 2011 uprising against the government of Bashar Al-Assad and also documented human rights violations, including by the Islamist rebel group Jaish al-Islam, which controlled the Douma area in the early stages of the subsequent civil war. 

No group has claimed responsibility for the abduction of the four activists and they have not been heard from again. 

Many in Douma blame Jaish al-Islam, but the rebel group has denied involvement. 

‘We have enough evidence to incriminate Jaish al-Islam, and we have the names of suspects we would like to see investigated,’ Haj Saleh said. 

He said he wanted ‘the perpetrators to be tried by Syrian courts’. 

‘We are here because we want the truth. The truth about their fate and justice for them, so that we can heal our wounds,’ said Alaa Al-Merhi, 33, Khalil's niece. 

Khalil was a well-known activist for the Assad's Alawite minority who was imprisoned from 1987 to 1991 for opposing his iron-fisted government. 

Her husband is also a well-known human rights activist who was arrested in 1980 and forced to live abroad for years. 

‘We, as a family, seek justice, to know her fate and to hold those responsible accountable for their actions,’ she added. 

Zeitouneh was one of the 2011 recipients of the European Parliament's Human Rights Prize. A lawyer, she had received threats from both the government and the rebels before she disappeared. Her husband Hamada was abducted with her. 

Protesting was unthinkable just a month ago in Douma, a former rebel stronghold that paid a heavy price for rising up against the Assads. 

Douma is in Eastern Ghouta, an area controlled by rebel and jihadist factions for some six years until government forces retook it in 2018 after a long and bloody siege. 

The siege of Eastern Ghouta culminated in a devastating army offensive in which at least 1,700 civilians were killed before an agreement was reached whereby fighters and civilians were evacuated to northern Syria. 

Douma still bears the scars of the civil war, with many buildings bombed. 

During the conflict, all sides were accused of abducting and summarily executing opponents.