Syrian war: A quarter of civilians killed are women and children

Women and children make up nearly a quarter of nearly 80,000 civilians killed during the 4½-year-old Syrian war, the vast majority being in areas controlled by anti-government forces. The main causes of civilian fatalities have been bombing, shelling, shooting, poison gas, and executions.

According to a report published in the British Medical Journal, the use of "explosive weapons in populated areas in Syria has disproportionately lethal effects on women and children and should be urgently prohibited . . . If we are looking for root causes of . . . the migrant and refugee crises in Europe today, this is surely a major contributor."

The authors, based at the Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters at Université Catholique de Louvain in Belgium, write that the conflict which “started as a peaceful uprising . . . in March 2011 escalated quickly into an armed conflict”.

By 2012 conflict had become the leading cause of death of Syrians, overtaking natural causes, with the overall figure for direct conflict fatalities put at 220,000 by the United Nations.

“The government and rebel factions in Syria typically claim that the targets of their bombs and shells are enemy combatant strongholds,” the Louvain study says. “But our findings indicate that for Syrian children these are the weapons most likely to cause death.”

This is also true to a lesser extent for women when compared with the incidence of death among men, many of whom expire from shootings and executions.

Similar pattern

This pattern has been similar to that of the 10-year conflict in

Iraq

, which has also been characterised by indiscriminate bombardment and shelling. It contrasts with the Croatian war (1991-95) where “the impact of bombs and explosives on children was much more limited and female deaths were rare”.

The researchers admit that in Syria it is not clear whether children have been deliberately targeted or are collateral damage.

The study, headed by Debarati Guha-Sapir, is the first to analyse the impact of various weapons on civilians in this war. “Our study shows that civilians become the main target of weapons and bear a disproportionate share of the burden of bombings,” the report says.

The conflict has also destroyed Syria’s healthcare facilities. In December 2014, 20 per cent of the country’s hospitals were “non-functional” while another 35 per cent could provide only partial care.

In its latest report, the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Syria has warned that Syrians are being subjected to war crimes and gross violations of human rights by a “proliferating number of warring parties [which] display a complete disregard for their international legal obligations by targeting civilians, residential areas, and locations protected under international law. Combat tactics employed by all sides . . . have resulted in mass civilian casualties, destruction of Syria’s cultural heritage and displacement of Syrian civilians on a massive scale.”

Compromise

Commission chairman

Paulo Sergio Pihnheiro

said: “Civilians are suffering the unimaginable, as the world stands witness. Without stronger efforts to bring parties to the peace table, ready to compromise, current trends suggest that the Syria conflict . . . will carry on for the foreseeable future,

“We must do more for the victims of this conflict who have been forced to flee their homes and to seek protection and refuge under the direst of circumstances. It is imperative for the world community to act with humanity and compassion by developing legal channels of migration that increases the protection space for asylum seekers and refugees.”

More than seven million Syrians are displaced within the country and four million have taken refuge in neighbouring countries, the vast majority in Jordan, Turkey and Lebanon.