Since the war in Syria began in 2011, more than 250,000 people have been killed and more than half of Syria's population has been displaced from their homes. Devastation on this scale is almost impossible to understand in the abstract: What does that kind of disaster do to a country? These numbers on indicators that feel familiar — things like GDP and school attendance rates — can help show how utterly the war has gutted this once-stable nation.

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By Roger Cohen

Sanliurfa, Turkey – ABOVE a restaurant specializing in sheep’s head soup, with steaming tureens of broth in the window, two young Syrian journalists took up residence in this ancient town in southeastern Turkey. They had fled Raqqa, the stronghold in Syria of the Islamic State, or ISIS, and devoted their time to denouncing the crimes of the barbarous jihadi group. Today, their second-floor apartment is a crime scene, with a red police seal on the door.

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