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Open Syria Map: Damaged and Destroyed Schools in Aleppo and Damascus

AMMAN: One in five schools in Syria is damaged, destroyed, […]


31 May 2015

AMMAN: One in five schools in Syria is damaged, destroyed, or has been converted into a shelter for displaced families, leaving an estimated 2.6 million children out of school–more than a third of Syria’s children.

Open Syria identifies 22 damaged and destroyed schools in Aleppo and Damascus struck between January 2014 and May 2015, as recorded in open-source videos, photos and satellite imagery. We verify media documenting each recorded attack, presenting a color-coded damage assessment ranging from “moderate” to “severe” and “destroyed.”

Open Syria only records attacks for which we have precise location data. To identify the coordinates of damaged and destroyed schools in Syria, for which addresses or on-the-ground contacts are rare, we scoured satellite imagery of Syrian cities, suburbs and villages for matches to videos and photos of bombed-out schools.

Of the 22 verified attacks against children’s schools in Aleppo and Damascus, Open Syria concludes regime air and artillery forces are responsible for all schools assessed as “destroyed,” in addition to at least 60 percent of attacks killing five people or more.

Our interactive map, best viewed in Chrome, maps damaged and destroyed schools in Syria. It also tells the stories of three schools in Aleppo and Damascus, where dozens of children died.

Warning: The images in this map are disturbing.

To view and share a full-screen version of our map, click here

Click the circled “i” information icon to learn about this interactive map. Then click any colored-coded point to learn more about an attack. Click “More Media” to access verified videos and photos of an attack. To see school attacks in the Aleppo countryside, or to the south in Damascus, zoom out and drag the map to whichever place you would like to look at closer.

Open Syria also investigates three school bombings in Aleppo and Damascus, ordered by our three-tier damage assessment scale. Click or swipe the black bar at the bottom of the map to see each school. To read the school’s story, click the circled “i” icon in the upper right-hand corner. 

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