Violence in Syria is on the rise while aid is flagging as the civil war enters its 14th year

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FILE - People ride their motorcycle by damaged buildings in the old town of Homs, Syria, Aug. 15, 2018. Syria’s civil war has entered its 14th year on Friday March 15, 2024, a somber anniversary in a long-frozen conflict. The country is effectively carved up into areas controlled by the Damascus government, various opposition groups and Kurdish forces. (AP Photo/Sergei Grits, File)

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FILE - In this photo released by the Syrian official news agency SANA, people welcome Syrian troops as they enter the town of Ein Issa, north of Raqqa, Syria, on Oct 14, 2019. Syria’s civil war has entered its 14th year on Friday March 15, 2024, a somber anniversary in a long-frozen conflict. The country is effectively carved up into areas controlled by the Damascus government, various opposition groups and Kurdish forces. (SANA via AP, File)

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FILE - An aerial view shows a large refugee camp on the Syrian side of the border with Turkey, near the town of Atma, in Idlib province, Syria, April 19, 2020. For years, Syria’s civil war has been a largely frozen conflict, the country effectively carved up into areas controlled by the Damascus government of President Bashar Assad, various opposition groups and Syrian Kurdish forces. But as the conflict entered its 14th year on Friday, March 15, 2024 observers say violence has been on the rise again while the world’s attention is mostly focused on other crises, such as Russia’s onslaught on Ukraine and the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza. (AP Photo/Ghaith Alsayed, File)

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FILE - A U.S. military vehicle drives south of the northeastern city of Qamishli, on Oct. 26. 2019 likely heading to the oil-rich Deir el-Zour area where there are oil fields, or possibly to another base nearby, as it passes by a poster showing Syrian President Bashar Assad. Syria’s civil war has entered its 14th year on Friday March 15, 2024, a somber anniversary in a long-frozen conflict. The country is effectively carved up into areas controlled by the Damascus government, various opposition groups and Kurdish forces. (AP Photo/Baderkhan Ahmad, File)

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FILE - Women residents from former Islamic State-held areas in Syria line up for aid supplies at Al-Hol camp in Hassakeh province, Syria, March 31, 2019. Syria’s civil war has entered its 14th year on Friday March 15, 2024, a somber anniversary in a long-frozen conflict. The country is effectively carved up into areas controlled by the Damascus government, various opposition groups and Kurdish forces. (AP Photo/Maya Alleruzzo, File)

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FILE - Turkish and Russian soldiers patrol near the town of Darbasiyah, Syria, on Nov. 1, 2019. Syria’s civil war has entered its 14th year on Friday March 15, 2024, a somber anniversary in a long-frozen conflict. The country is effectively carved up into areas controlled by the Damascus government, various opposition groups and Kurdish forces. (AP Photo/Baderkhan Ahmad, File)

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FILE - In this this file photo released on May 4, 2015, on a militant website, which has been verified and is consistent with other AP reporting, Islamic State militants pass by a convoy in Tel Abyad, northeast Syria. Syria’s civil war has entered its 14th year on Friday March 15, 2024, a somber anniversary in a long-frozen conflict. The country is effectively carved up into areas controlled by the Damascus government, various opposition groups and Kurdish forces. (Militant website via AP, File)

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FILE - U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) fighters stand guard next to men waiting to be screened after being evacuated out of the last territory held by Islamic State group militants, near Baghouz, eastern Syria, Feb. 22, 2019. Syria’s civil war has entered its 14th year on Friday March 15, 2024, a somber anniversary in a long-frozen conflict. The country is effectively carved up into areas controlled by the Damascus government, various opposition groups and Kurdish forces. (AP Photo/Felipe Dana, File)

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FILE - U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) fighters, prepare for battle against Islamic state group militants, in Raqqa, northeast Syria, on June 22, 2017. Syria’s civil war has entered its 14th year on Friday March 15, 2024, a somber anniversary in a long-frozen conflict. The country is effectively carved up into areas controlled by the Damascus government, various opposition groups and Kurdish forces. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla, File)

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FILE - Syrian rebels take position during clashes with Syrian Army forces in Idlib, north Syria, on March 11, 2012. Syria’s civil war has entered its 14th year on Friday March 15, 2024, a somber anniversary in a long-frozen conflict. The country is effectively carved up into areas controlled by the Damascus government, various opposition groups and Kurdish forces. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd, File)

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FILE - Anti-Syrian government protesters flash Victory signs as they protest in the southern city of Daraa, Syria, March 23, 2011. Syria’s civil war has entered its 14th year on Friday March 15, 2024, a somber anniversary in a long-frozen conflict. The country is effectively carved up into areas controlled by the Damascus government, various opposition groups and Kurdish forces. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla, File)

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FILE - A Turkish military convoy moves in Idlib province, Syria, on Feb. 22, 2020. For years, Syria’s civil war has been a largely frozen conflict, the country effectively carved up into areas controlled by the Damascus government of President Bashar Assad, various opposition groups and Syrian Kurdish forces. But as the conflict entered its 14th year on Friday, March 15, 2024 observers say violence has been on the rise again while the world’s attention is mostly focused on other crises, such as Russia’s onslaught on Ukraine and the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza. (AP Photo/Ghaith Alsayed, File)

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FILE - This undated photo released by a militant group in 2016 shows Abu Mohammed al-Golani, of the Levant Liberation Committee and the leader of Syria’s al-Qaida affiliate, second from right, discussing battlefield details with field commanders over a map, in Aleppo, Syria. Syria’s civil war has entered its 14th year on Friday March 15, 2024, a somber anniversary in a long-frozen conflict. The country is effectively carved up into areas controlled by the Damascus government, various opposition groups and Kurdish forces. (Militant UGC via AP, File)

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FILE - Syrian government forces carry a national flag as they walk at a checkpoint near the town of Tal Tamr, north Syria, on Oct. 22, 2019. For years, Syria’s civil war has been a largely frozen conflict, the country effectively carved up into areas controlled by the Damascus government of President Bashar Assad, various opposition groups and Syrian Kurdish forces. But as the conflict entered its 14th year on Friday, March 15, 2024 observers say violence has been on the rise again while the world’s attention is mostly focused on other crises, such as Russia’s onslaught on Ukraine and the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza. (AP Photo/Baderkhan Ahmad, File)

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FILE - Victims of the suspected chemical weapons attack lie on the ground, in Khan Sheikhoun, in the northern province of Idlib, Syria, April 4, 2017. Syria’s civil war has entered its 14th year on Friday March 15, 2024, a somber anniversary in a long-frozen conflict. The country is effectively carved up into areas controlled by the Damascus government, various opposition groups and Kurdish forces. (Alaa Alyousef via AP, File)

By OMAR ALBAM and ABBY SEWELL

AL-NAYRAB, Syria (AP) — For years, Syria’s civil war has been a largely frozen conflict, the country effectively carved up into areas controlled by the Damascus government of President Bashar Assad, various opposition groups and Syrian Kurdish forces.

But as the conflict entered its 14th year on Friday, observers say violence has been on the rise again while the world’s attention is mostly focused on other crises, such as Russia’s onslaught on Ukraine and the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza.

In the village of al-Nayrab in the northwestern, opposition-held enclave of Idlib, Ali al-Ahmad burns olive branches in a stove to keep his partially destroyed house warm.

He has been living in the damaged house, struck in a recent round of shelling by government forces. Still, it’s in better condition than many of the surrounding houses that were reduced to rubble. When a new round of bombing starts, al-Ahmad leaves for a while to stay in one of the nearby displacement camps until the situation calms and he can return and repair the damage.

“We return for a day or two, then they start shelling us,” he said. “We leave for a few days, then return to our village to find our homes destroyed.”

This is a locator map for Syria with its capital, Damascus. (AP Photo)

Israel strikes several sites in Syria, wounding a soldier, Syrian military says

FILE - In this Nov. 15, 2011, file photo, Rifaat Assad poses for a photographer in Paris. Swiss federal prosecutors say they have referred former Syrian Vice President Rifaat Assad, the uncle of the war-battered country's current president, for trial on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity for allegedly ordering murder and torture more than four decades ago. The attorney general's office said Tuesday, March 12, 2024, that Assad, 86, is accused of ordering the crimes in Syria in February 1982 while serving as commander of defense brigades that carried out an attack in the city of Hama during a conflict between the military and the Islamist opposition. (AP Photo/Michel Euler, File)

Swiss refer Syrian president’s uncle to trial for alleged war crimes over 4 decades ago

UN-backed commission says 30,000 children are suffering rights abuses in northeastern Syria

The U.N.-backed body known as the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Syria said this week that since October, the country has seen the worst wave of violence since 2020.

The war, which has killed nearly half a million people and displaced half the country’s pre-war population of of 23 million, began as peaceful protests against Assad’s government in March 2011.

The protests — part of the Arab Spring popular uprisings that spread across much of the Middle East that year — were met by a brutal crackdown, and the revolt quickly spiraled into a full-blown civil war, which was further complicated by the intervention of foreign forces on all sides of the conflict, as well as a rising militancy, first by al-Qaida-linked groups and then the Islamic State group until its defeat in 2019.

Russia, along with Iran, became Assad’s biggest ally in the war, Turkey backed an array of Syrian opposition groups while the United States supported Syrian Kurdish forces in the fight against IS. Israel has carried out airstrikes targeting the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah and Iranian forces in Syria.

Over the years, the battlefields became stalemated in the war-ravaged nation.

The recent surge in violence began with a drone strike on a military academy graduation ceremony in government-held city of Homs in October that killed dozens.

Syrian government and allied Russian forces then launched a bombardment of the opposition-held northwest that hit “well-known and visible hospitals, schools, markets and camps for internally displaced persons,” the commission said.

Elsewhere, increasingly frequent Israeli strikes targeted Iran-linked targets in government-held parts of Syria — attacks that sometimes also hit civilians. Turkey stepped up its attacks on U.S.-backed Kurdish forces in northeastern Syria, while militants from IS sleeper cells have launched sporadic attacks in different parts of the country.

In recent weeks, opposition-held areas have also seen unrest, with protests breaking out in Idlib against the leadership of the al-Qaida-linked Hayat Tahrir al-Sham group that governs the area.

With all the multiple and complex layers of the conflict, there is no resolution of the crisis in sight for Syria.

David Carden, the U.N.’s Deputy Regional Humanitarian Coordinator for the Syria crisis, said during a recent visit to northwest Syria that the U.N.’s humanitarian response plan for 2023, which had appealed for more than $5 billion, only received 38% of the funds sought — the lowest level since the United Nations started issuing the appeals.

“There are 4.2 million people in need in northwest Syria, and 2 million of those are children,” of whom 1 million are not going to school, he said. “This is a lost generation.”

Compounding Syria’s misery was the devastating 7.8 magnitude earthquake on Feb. 6, 2023, that killed more than 59,000 people in Turkey and Syria. Some 6,000 of them were were killed in Syria alone, mainly in the northwest, where most of the 4.5 million people rely on humanitarian aid to survive.

United Nations agencies and other humanitarian organizations have been struggling to fund programs that provide a lifeline in Syria, blaming donor fatigue, the COVID-19 pandemic, and conflicts elsewhere that have erupted in recent years.

The U.N.’s World Food Program, which estimates that over 12 million Syrians lack regular access to food, announced in December that it would stop its main assistance program in Syria in 2024.

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Sewell reported from Beirut.