8. Syrian refugee crisis

The Syrian refugee crisis remains the world’s largest refugee and displacement crisis of our time. Since the Syrian civil war officially began on March 15, 2011, families have suffered under a brutal conflict that has torn the nation apart, killed thousands of people, and set back the standard of living by decades.

More than \(6.5\ million\ \)Syrians are refugees and asylum-seekers, and another 6.7 million people are displaced within the country. This means in total, more than 13 million Syrians (more than half of the country’s population) are forcibly displaced. More than 11 million people in Syria are in need of humanitarian assistance. Almost half of the people affected by the Syrian refugee crisis are children.

Basic infrastructures like hospitals, Healthcare centres, schools, utilities, and water and sanitation systems are damaged or destroyed. Historic landmarks and once-busy trading centres have been reduced to rubble. War severed the trade and business ties that bound neighbours to their community.
 
Two events shooked the world and drawn everyone's attention towards Syria. The first event is the "Death of Aylan Kurdi" . The heartbreaking photograph of a dead 3-year-old Aylan, whose body washed up in Turkey on Sept. 2 2015, went viral becoming the top trending picture on Twitter with hashtags seeking a truce in Syria. Aylan was reported to travel with his 5-year-old brother and mother (who also met the same tragic death) to seek asylum in Canada.

 

The second one is a heart-rending picture of a four-year-old Syrian boy name Marwan who crossed the desert clutching a tattered plastic bag of possessions, which seemed to epitomise the refugee crisis and how children were affected by the civil war.