Who is killing civilians in Syria?

This remains one of The Syria Campaign’s most simple but high impact campaigns. At a time when ISIS was considered globally to be the biggest threat to civilians, we teamed up with the Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR) to create infographics raising awareness about who was really killing Syrian people. As the data showed, in March 2016, the Syrian regime led by Bashar al-Assad was responsible for the vast majority of deaths at around 95.7% of fatalities.

This statistic was not news to many Syrians—but it shocked audiences who were well aware of ISIS’s crimes but less familiar with the scale of violence being perpetrated by the Syrian regime. Given the level of coverage ISIS was receiving, our infographics went viral, proof of the importance of timing.

Our infographics spread widely across social media, securing hundreds of retweets on Twitter and getting embedded in a Der Spiegel article. On Facebook, we uploaded all the infographics as one album, which received hundreds of shares. The photos were also used or cited by our partners in their own work. Our partners, along with Syria watchers and friends of The Syria Campaign, were vital in helping this campaign travel and reach a wider audience. We also collated all our updated infographics on one webpage, which shows from 2011 to 2019 who was responsible for the greatest number of civilian deaths, in addition to children, women, media activists, and medics.

Human rights documentation groups like SNHR do incredibly important work and sit on a treasure trove of information. Packaging that information in a creative and visual way can help amplify it and create a tremendous impact.