Deaths Continue to Mount in Syria

Media attention in the Middle East has recently focused especially on ISIS and its brutal murder of an American journalist, attempted genocide of the Yazidis in northern Iraq, among many other atrocities. All this time, however, people also continue to die in Syria. The United Nations estimated this week that nearly 200,000 people have died in the Syrian conflict. Of course, millions more are now refugees. Richard Engel of NBC News, who was himself kidnapped for a few days in Syria, was talking this evening about the fact that life in Syria is simply awful. Furthermore, even if the conflict ended today, it is not clear what kind of society would emerge in these places. The very rapid population growth in this part of the world--despite death and hardship--assures that a lot of people are going to be in a huge need of assistance for a long time to come. Engel's point was that no one seems to have yet given much thought to that future. At the moment, the demographic picture suggests a young population, with relatively limited educational attainment and few resources upon which to build.