Armies of Darkness: 83% of Syria’s Lights Out Since Start of War in 2011

A recent observation of Syria’s nighttime lights reveals that 83% of the country’s lights have gone out since the start of the military conflict in 2011.

#WithSyria, a movement of some 130 organizations, has released a satellite image of Syria's nighttime lights, dated February 2015. When placed side-by-side with a similar picture from March, 2011, it shows that the country is approximately 83 percent dimmer than at the start of the military conflict.

A Chinese researcher, Xi Li, has watched Syria's warfare unfolding through nighttime satellite imagery and has measured the levels of nighttime light across the country since the start of the conflict in March 2011.

A recently released observation over Syria’s nighttime lights reveals that 83% of the country’s lights have gone out since the start of the military conflict on its grounds.

© Xi Li

He now says that most of the country’s nighttime lights have gone out, including 97 percent of the lights in Aleppo, 35 percent in Damascus and 96 percent in Raqqa, the new de facto capital of the Islamic State militants.

The researcher says the displacement of people has been the main factor behind the darkening: 3.8 million people have fled the country. He also blamed power shortages and damage to Syria's infrastructure.

As single images can be affected by cloud cover or other factors, Li came up with a monthly average image of nighttime light so it could be compared over the course of Syria's conflict.

The researcher says he is now looking at the current conflict in Iraq through a similar analysis of nighttime lights.