Source : MiddleEastMonitor / 02 June 2014

A UN sponsored study reveals that Syria's economic losses since 2011 reached around $144 billion at the end of 2013.

Reuters news agency reported that: "The study, conducted by the Damascus based-Syrian Centre for Policy Research and commissioned by the United Nations and International Monetary Fund estimates of a 40 per cent contraction in GDP since the start the conflict in 2011." Losses are estimated at $143.8 billion, almost triple the Syrian GDP in 2010.

Source : AA / 18 Apr 2014

A total of 14,629 children were killed in Syrian regime attacks against opposition forces since March 2011, according to a London-based rights group.

The Syrian Network for Human Rights said Thursday 2.1 million Syrian children suffer lack of food and health issues, while 1.1 million children live as refugees in neighboring countries.

Source : Presstv / 15 Mar 2014

UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) Antonio Guterres says the “unconscionable” turmoil plaguing Syria has forced over nine million people from their homes.

“It is unconscionable that a humanitarian catastrophe of this scale is unfolding before our eyes with no meaningful progress to stop the bloodshed,” said the UN refugee chief in a statement on Friday.

Source : UN.org / 14 Mar 2014

As the people of Syria continue to endure incalculable human suffering and loss, their country’s rich tapestry of cultural heritage is being ripped to shreds.

World Heritage sites have suffered considerable and sometimes irreversible damage. Four of them are being used for military purposes or have been transformed into battlefields: Palmyra; the Crac des Chevaliers; the Saint Simeon Church in the Ancient villages of Northern Syria; and Aleppo, including the Aleppo Citadel.

Source : AA / 10 Mar 2014

At least 12,813 women were killed by attacks carried out by the Syrian regime during the civil war in Syria in the last three years, according to the Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR).

The organization issued a report, entitled "Syrian women, truth and pain" to commemorate International Women's Day.

Source : Al Jazeera and AP / 28 Feb 2014

A chemical-weapon attack in Syria last summer that the U.S. says killed more than 1,400 people was the world's worst human rights violation of 2013, the Obama administration concluded Thursday.

The report, an annual survey by the State Department of global human rights abuses, also foreshadowed the unrest that has gripped Ukraine in recent weeks and toppled its government.

Source : Reuters / 21 Dec 2013

A total of 126 journalists and other media workers around the world have died on the job this year, with Syria the most dangerous place to work for the second year in a row, the International News Safety Institute said on Friday.

That was 21 fewer than last year, but INSI said the incidence of kidnappings and disappearances was rising.

The Grand Mufti of Syria preaches a message of forgiveness

‘I met those men who assassinated my own son – and they told me they didn’t even know whom they were killing.” Sheikh Ahmad Badreddin Hassoun, the Grand Mufti of Syria, sits in a straightbacked chair, his immaculate white turban atop a narrow, intelligent and very troubled face. His son Sania was a second-grade student at Aleppo University when he was shot dead getting into his car.

By Eman El-Shenawi / 29 Aug 2013

It seems to be a case of "damned if you do, damned if you don't" for Western leaders mulling a strike on Syria this week.

Only a few months ago, Middle Eastern audiences had been condemning the West's "silence" on foreign intervention in the conflict.

By AP / 1 July 2013

More than two years of fighting in Syria’s civil war has damaged some 9,000 state buildings and run up $15 billion in losses to the public sector, a government minister said Sunday, shining a light on the devastating toll the crisis has taken on the country’s economy.