Seven years of carnage in Syria leave 500,000 dead

THE war in Syria has claimed more than half a million lives since it began seven years ago, according to British observers.

Most of the dead are civilians killed by the forces of the Syrian government and its allies such as Russia and Iran and terror groups such as Hezbollah.

Extensive use of air power by President Bashar al-Assad and some of his allies has dramatically raised the death toll.

The British war monitoring group the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said it had identified more than 350,000 of those killed, and the remainder were cases where it knew deaths had occurred but did not know the victims’ names.

The conflict began after mass protests against President Assad in March 2011, dragging in regional and global powers and forcing millions of people to flee their homes.

As the war approaches its eighth year, intense fighting continues in several areas, including eastern Ghouta near the capital Damascus and Afrin near the Turkish border.