Syria after the war – DW – 12/22/2024

7 million displaced people, 5 million war casualties, hunger and poverty – after 14 years of civil war, Syria is in ruins. The cost of rebuilding the country will be huge. DW has collected some important data on the situation in Syria.

With an area of ​​about 185,000 square kilometers, Syria is about half the size of Germany. About 24 million people live in the country, two-thirds of whom depend on humanitarian assistance. Western Syria in particular is densely populated, but there are entire metropolitan areas around cities such as Damascus, Aleppo, Hama and Homs that are now in ruins.

At least 140,000 buildings, including 3,000 schools, were either completely destroyed or seriously damaged. The healthcare system in most parts of the country has also been hit hard. During the war, several human rights organizations reported that Russian and Syrian forces deliberately bombed several hospitals,

Estimates vary as to how much it will cost to rebuild the country, but it is clear that the total cost will be huge – possibly up to a trillion US dollars. Reconstruction efforts could be further complicated as Syria remains under pressure Contaminated by landminesAnd the full extent of the problem is not known. Of the more than half a million people killed in the war, 12,000 were killed by mines or unexploded ordnance. For several years now, Syria has been one of the three countries in the world most affected by landmines.

millions of refugees

About 7 million Syrians are living as displaced persons in their own country. The northwestern province of Idlib, in particular, became a refuge for millions of people fleeing the Assad regime’s forces. At least more than 6 million Syrians fled abroad, the majority to neighboring Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan. Germany also took in approximately 800,000 refugees from the war.

Above all, in Lebanon, the real number of Syrian refugees is likely to be much higher than the official figure. The United Nations estimates there are 1 to 2 million Syrians in the country. The population of Lebanon itself is a little more than 5 million.

returning to a broken country

Many of these people would like to return to their homeland, but the future is still uncertain. Syria’s economy has collapsed after 14 years of war.

The country’s GDP has virtually collapsed. Unemployment is high, and those who work earn only a fraction of their pre-war income. Meanwhile, inflation has skyrocketed: it is now nearly 30 times higher than in 2011. Today, almost all Syrians live below the poverty line as defined by the World Bank. The German Red Cross reports that two-thirds of them live in extreme poverty.

Syria is fragmented

These problems have become even more complex due to the current political uncertainty. It is unclear how the country will develop. Following the overthrow of the Assad regime, the Islamist HTS militia has taken control of Damascus and begun forming a transitional government.

The group’s leader, Abu Mohammed al-Golani, presents himself as a moderate. However, his organization is still classified as a terrorist group by many countries, including the European Union.

Foreign powers will continue to strive for influence in Syria. Türkiye and the militias it supports are fighting against the Kurds in the north. The United States maintains a military base in the southeast, from which it is able to target targets of the so-called Islamic State (IS) terrorist group in the country’s less populated east. Its aim is to prevent IS from resurgent.

Meanwhile, Israel has occupied some areas of the demilitarized buffer zone near the Golan Heights in the southwest, and has conducted strategic bombings in Syria, partly out of concern that stockpiles of chemical weapons could fall into the wrong hands. .

Until recently, Russia maintained two strategically important military bases in the west of the country. It is not clear what will happen to them now. Iran, the biggest supporter of the Assad regime, is also trying to maintain its influence in the country as much as possible.

religious minorities are scared

During Bashar Assad’s long rule, Syria was considered part of the so-called “Shia Crescent” region dominated by Iran – even though three-quarters of the Syrian population is Sunni, not Shia, Muslim. Assad himself belongs to the Alawite sect, a separate branch of Shia Islam.

There are approximately 2 to 3 million Alawites in Syria, many of whom now fear they could be labeled supporters of the Assad regime, and persecuted as a result. Officially, there are also more than 2 million Christians in Syria, although many are likely to have fled the country in recent years. They are also concerned about the possibility of religious persecution.

What will happen to the Kurds?

During the war, the Kurds were able to establish an effectively autonomous, self-administered region in northeastern Syria, as they did in northern Iraq. There are approximately 3 million Kurds in Syria. They are thought to number up to 15 million in neighboring Türkiye.

Ankara is committed to preventing the creation of a Kurdish state. One of the main reasons for opposing this is that “Kurdish terrorist militia fighters” could carry out attacks in Turkey, and take refuge in northern Syria. This is why both the Turkish army and the Syrian militias it supports have continued to attack Kurdish areas in northeastern Syria even after the fall of Assad.

At a minimum, Türkiye wants to establish a buffer zone along the Syrian border controlled by its forces. Ankara probably fears that if the Kurds in Turkey manage to achieve this in neighboring countries they may demand autonomy or even an independent state.

With an estimated 25 to 30 million people worldwide, the Kurds are one of the largest ethnic groups without a state of their own. Their traditional homeland extended across parts of modern Türkiye, Syria, Iraq, and Iran. Conflict in the region has been ongoing for more than a century, since the reorganization of the Middle East following the fall of the Ottoman Empire at the end of World War I. It is therefore doubtful that political restructuring in Syria will bring lasting peace to the country’s northeast.

This article has been translated from German.