Satellite images show war sending Syria into darkness

More than 80 percent of the lights in Syria have been extinguished in the last four years, according to humanitarian agencies who warn that the country’s devastating civil war is pushing its people into the dark ages – literally and figuratively.

Scientists based at Wuhan University in China analyzed satellite images that showed the number of lights visible at night over Syria between March 2011 and February 2014. They estimate that 83 percent are gone, evidence of the massive destruction and displacement caused by the war.

As the conflict enters its fifth year this month, the death toll stands at more than 200,000, according to figures cited by WithSyria, a coalition of 130 human rights and aid agencies that released the satellite images.

Nearly 11 million Syrians have been forced to flee their homes, including hundreds of thousands trapped in combat zones with little access to food, shelter or medical care. More than 3 million have sought shelter in neighboring countries, whose governments say they are struggling to cope.

Life expectancy has dropped 20 years, from 75 in 2010 to 55 last year, the Syrian Center for Policy Research said in a U.N.-backed report issued this week.

“What is happening on the ground in Syria is a humanitarian and human rights catastrophe of the first order,” former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, who chairs the National Democratic Institute, said on a call with reporters Wednesday. “I believe it is the single most important issue in the Middle East today, yet it sometimes feels as though the world has forgotten about it.”

The rise of the extremist group Islamic State, which seized large parts of Syria and neighboring Iraq last summer, has complicated relief efforts. But some humanitarian workers argue that too much emphasis has been placed on the military campaign against the militants.

David Miliband, the former British foreign secretary who heads the International Rescue Committee, lamented the lack of attention given to efforts to achieve a comprehensive political solution.

“The fact that the hard work of the U.N. envoy, Staffan de Mistura, has now been reduced to seeking a temporary truce in one city in Syria (Aleppo) says it all,” Miliband told reporters.

The satellite imagery puts the conflict’s impact on civilians into sharp relief. In images from 2011, the region of Aleppo glows brightly near Syria’s northern border with Turkey. By 2015, 97 percent of the lights are gone in the province that includes the heavily contested city, said Xi Li, who led the analysis.

The loss of light is less significant in areas partly or wholly controlled by the government of President Bashar Assad, about 33 percent in the capital, Damascus, he said.

“Syria is entering the dark ages, literally and metaphorically,” Miliband said.