2015 – Exodus from Syria. „The Syrian civil war is the greatest human disaster of the twenty-first century. Since conflict broke out in 2011, over 470,000 have been estimated killed and 1.9 million wounded. Over 4.8 milllion have fled the country and 6.6 million more are internally displaced, more than half the pre-war population of 21 million. A United Nations report estimated that by the end of 2013 Syria has already regressed 40 years in its human development. Two years later half of its public hospitals had been closed, barely half of its children were attending school and over 80% of Syrians were living in poverty, a third in abject poverty. Thousands of cases of long-absent such as typhoid and measles returned due to a lack of vaccination. Large parts of Syria’s cities were rubble. The economy was in ruins. Hundreds of the country’s precious cultural heritage locations, including five of its six UNESCO world heritage sites, had been damaged or destroyed. The average live expectancy of a Syrian dropped from 70 to 55 in four years.“

Quote from: Christopher Phillips: The Battle for Syria. International Rivalry in The New Middle East, 2016, p. 1)