Syria Civil War
By: Tae Yeon
Where is Syria?
Syria is located in Middle East (Western part of Asia) it's capital city is Damascus.Syria is boarded by Lebanon to the west, Turkey to the north, Iraq to the east, Jordan to the south and Israel to the south - west.
Population, Size, Languages and Religion
Syria has the population of 20,800,000 and it is 71,998 square miles. Because Middle East is famous for Arabic culture,most Syrians are Muslim and uses Arabic for their language however, some people uses Kurdish, Turkish as well. Majority of people are Muslim but, there are religions such as christian
Life before the war
Life before the war, Syrians had no political freedom, no free speech, no freedom of conscience and one party system. Also there was a economic pain because of the state run system, having limited trade with outside o the word. Syria also had wide gap between rich and poor. Everybody was suffering of their economy because the country was very high in unemployment too.
Civil WAR
March 2011
Syria's civil war started in March 2011. It started by Assad's family ruling the country and the party was called the Baath Party. After Assad died he gave his power to his son in year 2000. This gave the Assad family to rule Syria for 5 decades. Through military dictatorship, the country was ruled and this system let the Assad family rich and powerful. All those frustration become war since March 2011 when school kids is Derak tagged the street with graffiti criticizing the government. The kids were arrested and they were punished harshly.
2012
As a reaction to the children arresting and punishing, it gave sparked uprising which lasted for a month. The country tried to control the protester with force, gun fires and deadly violence. This action led some of the protesters to fight back. The protesters organised a rebel army and fought back the government. Now, these two sides are having a battle across the cities.
July 2012
After few months of fight, the red cross officially called the it as a civil war.
Map of Civil War Today
Major Timline
March 2011
Violence in Daara after arresting teenagers who wrote graffiti about criticizing the politics. Many people were killed when security forces crack down on demonstrations.
March 30 2011
President AL-Assad addresses the nation in a 45-minute televised speech. He acknowledges that the government has not met the people's needs but he does not offer any concrete changes. The state of emergency remains in effect.
April 21 2011
Al-Assad lifts the country's 48-year-old state of emergency. He also abolishes the Higher State Security Court and issues a decree "regulating the right to peaceful protest, as one of the basic human rights guaranteed by the Syrian Constitution."
Augustus 18 2011
The U.S. imposes new economic sanctions on Syria, freezing Syrian government assets in the U.S., barring Americans from making new investments in the country and prohibiting any U.S. transactions relating to Syrian petroleum products, among other things.
September 23 2011
The European Union bans the import of Syrian oil. The European Union imposes additional sanctions against Syria, due to "the continuing brutal campaign" by the government against its own people.
February 26 2012
Syrians vote on the constitutional referendum in polling centers across the country. Almost 90% of voters approve the changes to the constitution.
March 15 2012
The Gulf Cooperation Council announces that the six member countries will close their Syrian embassies and calls on the international community "to stop what is going on in Syria." The council members include the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Qatar and Kuwait.
March 21 2012
After a year of fighting, the U.N. believes more than 8,000 people have died. Opposition activists claim the number to be higher than 10,000 and most of the dead are civilians.
May 6 2013
A U.S. official tells CNN that Israeli forces conducted an airstrike in Syria on May 5, as well as one the previous week. Sunday's strike targeted a research facility in a mountainous area near Damascus and weapons that were to be transferred to Hezbollah, and the earlier strike targeted Fateh 110 missiles stored at the Damascus airport.
May 17 2013
The U.N refugee agency reports that over 1.5 million Syrians have left their country to escape the war. European Unions nations end the arms embargo against the Syrian rebels.
June 13 2013
The Obama Administration says that Syria has crossed a 'red line' with its use of chemical weapons, including the nerve agent sarin gas, against rebels and indicates that it will be stepping up its support of the rebels, who have been calling for the United States and others to provide arms need to battle al-Assad's forces.
The effect on People,Country and Environment
More than 100,000+ have been killed during the civil war. The opposition fighters abuses each other and many people were killed unlawfully by opposition sniper fire. People in Syria are living everyday in horror. Even the kids have to fight for their safety. Because many of people in Syria is afraid of their own country, the citizens decides to flee from their country. So far, 2 million citizen fled Syria and most of them fled to Syria's neighboring countries. All of the refugees are waiting for other countries to accept them they are having hard time. If they decide to flee illegally, if they are caught they cannot be accepted to any other countries but to the refugee camps.All the buildings are destroyed and all the environments are ruined.
Are they getting Help?
Syria is getting helped by the United Nation and the Red Cross. The UN helps a lot of other country. They help countries like Philippines because of the natural disasters. They also help countries in Africa for water recourse. Syria is getting helped from the Red Cross, however most of people don't get enough aids to live on. Many people has to volunteer and donate to provide Syrians aids.
On the bottom there is a link, where you can donate money to help Syrians for their aids.
Media Coverage
Syria's civil war has very recent updates. I think they have recent updates because America was involved in stopping the civil war, so the CNN focuses their new on civil war. We can easily read about the Syria's civil war and their war timeline any where online.