World news - Isis, carnage and 3.5m refugees: a day devoted to Syria's four-year war

Four year anniversary coverage of a crisis that has claimed the lives of 200,000 people, sparked a humanitarian catastrophe, fuelled violent Islamic extremism and exposed serious splits in the international community.

Impact of the crisis

• Syria’s war: 80% in poverty, life expectancy cut by 20 years, $200bn lost. A United Nations Development Programme-backed report paints a devastating picture of a country after four years of war.
• Satellites capture how the lights have gone out in Syria. Bombings and huge numbers of people fleeing have cut night-time light levels by 83% since 2011, with places such as Aleppo almost entirely dark.
• The worst place in the world? Aleppo in ruins after four years of Syria war.
• War in Syria: how my life has changed. Six Syrians from across the divide, from rebel officers to regime supporters give their accounts of the last four years.
• The fate of medical staff on the front line of the conflict underlines the brutality of the civil war with 599 medical personnel among the casualties. Medics describes life on the front line.
• Dr Entabi, A British-Syrian eye consultant, describes one of his regular stints at a Syrian field hospitals. “There is blood everywhere: maimed bodies, dismembered bodies of people, one hand is there, one leg is there,” he said.
• The acid attack victim who is one of Syria’s lucky ones. Andi is among the minority of injured Syrians to have received treatment for her physical scars – but the crippling emotional wounds remain
• Syria conflict: share your stories

Diplomatic and political crisis

• Syrian opposition leader hits out at west’s ‘cardboard’ support. Khaled Khoja, new president of the Syrian National Coalition, urges western governments to engage with the Free Syrian Army to defeat both Assad and Isis.
• How international divisions contributed to Syria’s war without end. After four years of conflict, it is clear President Assad’s allies have been more determined to keep him in power than his enemies have been to remove him.
• How far will Barack Obama go? For the first time for years, a majority of US voters appear to favour some kind of military engagement – but the government does not speak with one voice.

Refugee crisis

• Younis, a 19 year resident of Jordan’s Za’atari camp describes a day in the life of refuge in Jordan.
• UN plan to relocate Syrian refugees in northern Europe. UNHCR proposes one-year pilot programme for ‘orderly relocation’ from overstretched southern countries.
• ‘Flowers, candles and coffee were waiting for us’. For many families escaping the war in Syria, Germany would not be the first choice for asylum. However, the German authorities’ welcoming policies have helped them rebuild their shattered lives.
• A long way from home: Syrians find unlikely refuge in Brazil. Since 2013 Brazil has resettled more Syrian refugees than any other country in the region, but Latin America can come as a culture shock after life in a war zone.
• Young Syrian refugees give up hopes of education in Jordan. Children living as refugees are forced into work to feed their families, as their parents are not allowed to earn.

Video and interactive guides

• Syria conflict: four years on - video explainer
• Syria’s war in seven maps
• Syrian refugees
• Syrian asylum applications: Europe 2011-14
• After Syria horrors, refugees start life anew in Germany – interactive

Islamic State

• ‘Hunger, displacement, theft … but is there anything worse than beheadings?’ Residents of the Syrian city of Raqqa who have fled to Lebanon tell of life back home in Isis’s capital.
• To the wire: the smugglers who get people into Syria for Islamic State. Minibuses carry everyone from foreign would-be Isis jihadis to people who simply want to cross the border from Turkey to visit sick relatives.
• The Belgian father who went to Syria to help his Isis defector son return home – video
• Laughing at Isis: Syrian video artists go beyond fear to ridicule jihadis. Young refugees risk their lives by mocking Islamic State in a series of films, as satirising the extremists grows in popularity across the Middle East

Future prospects

• What are the possible solutions to the Syria conflict? – live Q&A
• The war is still raging, but the race to rebuild Aleppo has already begun. Architects, town planners and engineers plan reconstruction of Syrian city’s historic centre, in effort So it’s time to bring this day of coverage to a close. Look out for more pieces in the run-up to this weekend’s anniversary. If you want to take the debate further, hop across to this page to take part in a more focused Q and A on the refugee problem.

If you are coming to the live membership event this evening at King’s Place, see you there. Otherwise, let’s hope this is the last war anniversary that we have to cover.

Day in the life, part IV

Before we wrap things up, it’s back to Za’atari where Younis and his family are having a meal.  A family meal in camp.We usually eat two meals a day: breakfast and a late lunch or early dinner. Today we had chicken with potatoes, salad and yogurt. It’s not my favourite dish but it was good. My favourite thing to eat is mansaf – rice with yogurt and meat or chicken. We have that about three times a week. Is there anyone who doesn’t like mansaf? My mum does most of the cooking and she’s very good. We all sit down to eat together as a family. After dinner, I usually go to play basketball, but if it’s raining, I’ll stay at home and play games on my phone until I go to bed at 10 or 11.

Tomorrow may be a little different, but it will probably be pretty much the same.”

Alas, the same is probably true of the broader Syria crisis...

But away from geopolitics, ordinary people are trying to make a difference.

There is the heartwarming case of the Syrian woman scarred by an acid attack who was rescued from a life of disfigurement by a chance meeting half the world away.

Andi before her surgery Photograph: Gabriel Chaim

There are the exiles with a plan to restore Aleppo to its former glory the moment the war is over

...after Photograph: Strategies for the Reconstruction of Aleppo

And there are the legion of aid agencies, NGOs and UN bodies who continue to do the unglamorous work of helping the millions of destitute Syrians, in Jordan, Turkey, Lebanon, Iraq - and in Syria itself.

If you feel sufficiently moved to help these people in their work, follow this link.

America is of course the crucial actor. Already the US-led coalition has launched more than 1,200 airstrikes on Isis targets in northern Syria. Tom McCarthy writes here about what the next steps might be for a president entering the twilight of his tenure.

One of the US air strikes on Kobani that may have helped drive Isis back from its assault on the town Photograph: UMIT BEKTAS/REUTERS

But America doesn’t have the appetite for another open-ended messy foreign adventure, right? Wrong - according to an NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll released on Tuesday, 52% of likely voters in the 2016 US presidential election said they would feel more favourable towards a candidate who backed sending combat troops to fight Isis.

 

One of the US air strikes on Kobani that may have helped drive Isis back from its assault on the town Photograph: UMIT BEKTAS/REUTERS

FSA commander Abu al-Farouq. Hand Photograph: Handout

Before the uprising Abu al-Farouq was an Aleppo grocer annoyed at having to pay up to a third of his family income in bribes to officials. Now he’s a commander with the opposition Free Syrian Army, fighting on numerous fronts and not just against the Syrian government but also against Islamic extremist. In our final account of life in Syria over the last four years he describes how he began his military campaign with an attack against an government checkpoint in Aleppo in 2011.

“Now we are fighting Isis, Jabhat al-Nusra, Kurds and the regime,” he told Mona Mahmood.

If we devote ourselves to fighting Isis and Jabhat al-Nusra, the regime will recapture the areas we have liberated. To solve this problem, a deal was made with Isis that the FSA would stay out of areas liberated by Isis, and Isis would not advance in our areas. But Isis began to tempt people with religious speech and money, and more than 10,000 FSA fighters went to fight with Isis. For many it was either fighting with Isis and earning a living, or fighting with the FSA and starving.

The global response

What can the world do? It’s been an ignominious four years for the ‘international community’ which, as Ian Black argues, has failed to agree on pretty much anything other than that killing children is a bad thing.

Shoulder to shoulder, but not necessarily eye to eye. Photograph: HANDOUT/REUTERS

The future is inauspicious. Attempts to bring warring parties to the table habitually fail. Even as I write, Reuters is reporting the latest military clash - a battle for control of a town called Doreen in which maybe 50 combatants died. Headlines like these don’t make the news any more. War has become banal.

How have Syrian diaspora responded to the crisis? In the fifth of our accounts from Syrians, Abu Salih a Syrian in Romania says the sight of his countrymen being killed motivated him to run aid convoys for Syrian opposition. Speaking to Mona Mahmood, he said:

After three months, I drove with my colleagues in four cars for more than 3,500km from Germany through Austria, Hungry, Romania, Bulgaria, Turkey and finally to Syria. We shipped medications, satellites, modern mobiles and cameras, secret cameras like pens, and hats and toys for the protesters to conceal themselves from the regime while they were filming. We handed this to activists waiting at the border.

Mobiles and internet equipment were hidden inside our clothes and underneath the car seats, which were piled with clothes and shoes and Syrian bread while we crossed borders. We weren’t allowed to take medication but we would bring some first-aid equipment, such as stretchers and wheelchairs, to the Free Syrian Army and local committees.

A few times the shipment fell into the hands of the security forces, or the vehicle would be hit by a rocket or get ambushed. Sometimes trucks loaded with internet receivers, Thurayas [satellite phones] and communications equipment were lost if the driver was detained by security forces or killed while making the shipment.

We were able to send more than 50 secondhand ambulances to Syria. We bought some from Hamburg city council, others from the health ministry in Hungary. They cost $5,000 each, which we paid either from our savings or from donations from Syrians in exile.

I felt guilty staying in Romania while Syrians were being killed as they faced the regime. That’s why we opened an office in Turkey, to be close to our people and to make it easier to send aid all over Syria. The fighters inside Syria said they didn’t need us to fight, but to provide important equipment. They wanted support.

We’ve asked readers for their pictures and thoughts on this anniversary.

Iranian-Kurd documentary maker, Soran Qurbani is in Kobani, the Syrian-Kurdish city recently. His two photographs sent into GuardianWitness show the devastation in the city, which was laid to waste by a three-month Isis assault late last year.

You are welcome to Kobane

We were walking in the city of Kobani and suddenly found the message of welcome which had been on the southern gate of the city.

Qurbani shares his observations about the situation in Kobani now:

Today it’s raining. Kids are on their way home from the first school that opened last week. Many families have already returned from Turkey and most of them are managing to live in their ruined or semi-ruined house especially in the west and north districts.

You are welcome to Kobane, second part 'Come to Kobane', first part was 'You are wel'

We were walking in the city of Kobani and suddenly found the message of welcome which was on the southern gate of the city.

The first shop opened four days ago and now you can cut your hair and have a Falafel or chicken kebab. People are desperately in need for basic needs like water and electricity and warm clothes. The local government has provided a huge bakery and warehouse which are being run as a co-operative by volunteers. People can have free bread and foods and also vegetables from time to time. There is a hospital located in an old school that receives people, mainly wounded fighters from the front.

Yesterday I was with an old couple when they arrived at their ruined house. It was completely destroyed by an air-strike and there were three unexploded rockets and two dead bodies that were IS members left behind.

The lack of basic utilities may soon force people to go rural areas which somehow is better than returning to the camps. In fact nearly 70% of the city isn’t habitable according to local government officials and there are plans to build a new camp here in Kobanê for those families that have nowhere to live.

Two more schools are expected to open soon to return kids into an educational environment instead of hanging around the destruction and rockets and dead bodies. Now there are 400 kids with eight teachers in the school which teaches Kurdish language, mathematics and English language too.