Syria four years on: how we have covered the conflict
Four years on from the start of the Syria conflict in March 2011, the battle rages, as more than 200,000 people have died. Channel 4 News takes a look at the most powerful stories from the civil war.
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As the anniversary approaches of the Syrian conflict, which has sparked a humanitarian catastrophe, Channel 4 News takes a look at the coverage and the human stories that have emerged over the past four years.
The conflict, which began early in 2011, was seen to have been part of an Arab Spring across Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Bahrain, Jordan and Lebanon.
Protests in Damascus and the southern city of Deraa demanded the release of political prisoners. However, security forces shot dead a number of people triggering days of violent unrest, which steadily spread nationwide.
Read more: Syria - timeline of a humanitarian crisis
By July 2011, activists met in Istanbul to form a unified opposition, and protests continued to turn increasingly violent. Thousands became subject to arbitrary arrest and systematic torture in detention, according to Human Rights Watch.
Read Jonathan Rugman's blog: on patrol with the 'Syrian Free Army'
In October of the same year, Channel 4 News obtained exclusive footage of the Free Syrian Army operating along the Lebanese border.
2011
Foreign Affairs Correspondent Jonathan Rugman gained exclusive access to Syria’s fledgling revolutionary army, who had smuggled themselves into the country illegally from Lebanon.
Warning: films below contain images that viewers may find distressing.
As the bombardment continued into 2012, Channel 4 News broadcasted a special report from a photographer in Homs, who captured with shocking clarity the intense assault on the city.
2012
“Mani”, a photographer who had been to Homs several times, lived through and filmed the beginning of the assault, the effects on the population, and the response of the Free Syrian Army to the massacre, on the first day, of over 140 people.
Read more: The horror in Homs
In an exlusive interview, the French photographer and film-maker told Foreign Affairs Correspondent Jonathan Miller about the onslaught he filmed. The powerful film went on to win a Royal Television Society award.
Two years after the conflict began, filmmaker Marcel Mettelsiefen spent several weeks meeting children facing unimaginable horror as they work in a hospital in Aleppo.
2013
When filmmaker Marcel Mettelsiefen met 12-year-old Mohamed Asaf, the young boy was seen battling to save a young girl’s life.
Read more: Syria's Descent - the agony of Aleppo's children
After months bearing witness to the human tragedy of Syria’s civil war, he had become desensitised to the horrors: “With time it has become easy: blood has become like water to me,” he said.
As the country descended in to chaos, it was revealed that the Iranian-backed Lebanese militia, Hezbollah, was making dramatic, strategic battlefield gains for the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad.
2014
Jonathan Miller headed to Lebanon to meet the militants in their heartland, and found out the group fighting a war that had dramatically departed from its original aim: resistance to Israel.
Read Jonathan Miller's blog: fighting and dying for a confused cause