Syrian migrants heading to Europe (illustration)
Syrian migrants heading to Europe (illustration)Stoyan Nenov, Reuters

Over 470,000 Syrians have been killed since the start of the Syrian civil war in 2011, and another 1.9 million have been injured.

In a special report Thursday, The Guardian published a series of shocking statistics whose numbers are much higher than those published by the United Nations.

The United Nations stopped counting the casualty rate a year and a half ago when the number reached a quarter million. The current statistics were generated by the Syrian Center for Policy Research (SCPR) 

According to the report, 11.5 percent of the entire Syrian population has been killed or injured in the past five years and the life expectancy rate has plummeted from the age of 70 to the age of 55.4. The Syrian economy has also been devastated with the damage being estimated at upwards of 255 billion dollars.  

The SPCR has made great attempts at not criticizing Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad or his regime supporters which include Iran, Russia and Hezbollah, and instead used the term "armed organization," as they were based in the capital of Damascus until recently.  

One fifth of the Syrian population has emigrated to neighboring Turkey and via Turkey to the rest of Europe. An additional 45 percent of the population that has stayed in Syria has migrated from one location to another, often multiple times, in order to avoid conflict zones.

This disaster gets even worse when taking into account the destabilization of the education and health systems in the country, and the sharp rise in the poverty rate which has soared to over 85 percent of the population.  

The report was published at the same time as Assad's army, in conjunction with the Russian air force and Hezbollah guerrilla fighters, have have laid siege to the city of Haleb.

In the past ten days over 506 people have been killed in Haleb according to the Syrian Human Rights organization that sits in London. The siege has caused tens of thousands of Syrians to flee and head to the Turkish border in an attempt to cross into Turkey. The Turkish border however remains closed.