Background Syrian Civil War March 15, 2011 marks the beginning of the civil war in Syria. This date references a series of violent crackdowns by Syrian security forces in response to non-violent, student-led protests in Syria's southern city, Daraa.  The following ten years of conflict have resulted in over 500,000 casualties, which includes over 55,000 children. Intermittent bombings, chemical attacks, and war crimes along with severely damaged and collapsing infrastructure has forced millions of Syrians to flee from home. An estimated 12 million Syrians are in need of humanitarian assistance, half of whom have been displaced across the country. The remaining 5.6 million are seeking refuge in primarily neighboring countries like Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq and Egypt.  In 2015, an estimated 1.3 million Syrians sought refuge in Europe, thousands of which arrived daily in Greece. This surge in European migration came about during a period of reduced funding within the World Fo...