Ruined Syrian cities will need decades to recover from war

The end of Syria’s brutal civil war is not in sight. The combatants are locked in a grinding, attritional battle that is as complex as it is cruel. More than 250,000 Syrians have been killed over the past five years, and roughly half of the country’s citizens have been forced to flee their homes.

Some of Syria’s most important urban centers have been devastated by endless street fighting and aerial bombardment.  In 2014, a U.N. study suggested that it would take Syria at least three decades to recover.The housing sector has been literally reduced to rubble.

The World Bank, using satellite imagery of six Syrian cities, came up with assessments for the damage and a conservative estimate on the losses in public infrastructure sits at $6 billion.

According to the World Bank’s analysis of six cities, Aleppo, once Syria’s most populous metropolitan center and financial capital, bore the brunt of the destruction. The damage to Aleppo has doubled in the past two years.

[Washington Post]

This entry was posted in Humanitarian Aid, International Cooperation by Grant Montgomery.