Syria · War Crimes & Atrocities
The war produced extensively documented war crimes and crimes against humanity by state and non-state actors. Syrian government forces used chemical weapons, attacked civilian infrastructure, and operated detention systems marked by torture and deaths; ISIS committed genocide against the Yazidis and used sexual slavery. The Caesar archive contains tens of thousands of photographs, but photographs are not equivalent to individually identified victims. Assad’s fall did not end atrocity: transition-era forces and other armed groups were implicated in killings on the coast and in Suwayda. Accountability remains partial.
1,400+
deaths
Victims: Civilians in rebel-held Ghouta suburb of Damascus(Estimates range from 281 (Médecins Sans Frontières) to 1,729; UN confirmed 'several hundred')
11,000+
deaths
Victims: Civilians in rebel-held areas across Syria(Airwaves Syria tracked 11,000+ deaths from barrel bombs; Syrian Network for Human Rights documented 82,000 barrel bomb attacks)
11,000+
deaths
Victims: Detained civilians, opposition figures, military defectors(11,000 documented deaths from photos; independent analysts estimate 60,000–100,000 total detention deaths)
5,000+
deaths
Victims: Yazidi religious minority of Sinjar, Iraq/Syria border region(UN estimates 5,000–10,000 killed; 7,000 women and children enslaved; 400,000 displaced)
83+
deaths
Victims: Civilians in Khan Shaykhun, Idlib governorate(83–92 killed; approximately 557 injured with sarin exposure symptoms)
43+
deaths
Victims: Civilians sheltering in apartment building, Douma, Eastern Ghouta(The OPCW Investigation and Identification Team identified 43 named individuals killed; other contemporaneous reports gave higher figures.)
2,000+
deaths
Victims: 250,000–300,000 civilians trapped in rebel-held East Aleppo(2,000+ civilian deaths in the final siege; 31,000 killed across the 4.5-year battle for Aleppo)
1,600+
deaths
Victims: Civilians in ISIS-held Raqqa used as human shields(Amnesty International documented 1,600 civilian deaths; 80% of the city was destroyed)
1,426+
deaths
Victims: Alawite civilians in Latakia and Tartous governorates(National commission of inquiry figure; other estimates range from about 1,000 to 2,000)
300+
deaths
Victims: Druze civilians and fighters in Suwayda governorate(Druze dead: 146 fighters and 154 civilians, of whom 83 were summarily executed by government forces; total crisis deaths across all groups estimated at 594–800+)