Syrian crisis: health experts say more can be done

On March 11, 2011, protestors took to the street in the southern Syrian city of Deraa after the arrest and torture of a group of teenagers who painted revolutionary slogans on a school wall. Security forces opened fi re on the pro-democracy demonstrators, killing several and as a result, more protestors took to the streets. The unrest triggered nationwide protests demanding President Bashar al-Assad’s resignation. But the demonstrations turned more violent and subsequently into a bloody civil war that has, 4 years on, killed more than 200 000 people. The exact death toll has been so hard to determine that the UN gave up counting the dead in early 2014. What began as another Arab Spring against a despotic ruler—as in Egypt and Libya—has burgeoned into a brutal proxy war that has drawn in regional and world powers. More recently, the rise of jihadist groups, namely the Islamic State (IS), has not only complicated the war, it has made it more brutal and bloody. Beheadings and hangings are no longer shocking; they are commonplace.