The lights are going out over Syria as the country’s infrastructure has been destroyed in four years of bloody conflict, a new report from China says.
Using satellite imaging from before the start of the civil war and today, scientists at Wuhan University in eastern Hubei province said the country had been plunged into darkness.
Since March 2011, 83 per cent of areas that previously had lighting are now dark at night. Worst-hit is the devastated city of Aleppo, once Syria’s main commercial hub, which has had 97 per cent of its night lights extinguished since then.
David Miliband, the former Labour foreign secretary and current president of the International Rescue Committee, said: “Four years since this crisis began, Syria’s people have been plunged into the dark: destitute, fearful, and grieving for the friends they have lost and the country they once knew.
“Four years since the crisis began, there is at present very little light in this tunnel. Over 200,000 people have been killed and a staggering 11 million have been forced to flee their homes.
Advertisement
“Syrians deserve much better from the international community - it is past time to show that we have not given up and will work with them to turn the lights back on.”
Xi Li, the Chinese scientist who led the research, said “the night light data never tells lies” but admitted that even he had been shocked at their findings.
“More night lights lost means more displaced persons ... destruction of infrastructure and power shortages,” Mr Xi said.
“Satellite imagery is the most objective source of data showing the devastation of Syria on a national scale,” he said.
“Taken from 500 miles above the Earth, these images help us understand the suffering and fear experienced by ordinary Syrians every day as their country is destroyed around them.”
Advertisement
The exceptions were the provinces of Damascus and Quneitra, near the Israeli border, where the decline in light has been 35 per cent and 47 per cent respectively.
Madeleine Albright, the former US secretary of state, called for an increased commitment from the international community to bring about an end to the war, saying that President Assad was “making a mockery” of UN resolutions.
“What is happening on the ground in Syria is a human rights and humanitarian catastrophe of the first order,” Ms Albright said, adding that the “scale of human suffering in Syria has become almost impossible to comprehend”.