ICRC poll of young Syrians shows half lost a relative or friend in conflict

Red Cross research provides ‘sombre snapshot of a generation’ who continue to suffer effects of war

Fresh produce on display at a market in Raqqa, northern Syria. More than three quarters of young Syrians say they struggle to afford food and basic necessities. AFP

A buried tank next to the 'Free Woman' statue in the town of Kobani, Aleppo province, is a monument to 10 years of violence in Syria. AFP

A shepherd in Kobani, northern Syria, follows his goats past rubble and a building destroyed in the country's civil war. AFP

A boy stands next to a damaged house in the Syrian Kurdish town of Kobani, also known as Ain Al Arab, in Aleppo province. AFP

A man rides a horse and cart past damaged buildings in the northern Syrian city of Raqqa. AFP

A man extracts metal from the rubble of destroyed buildings in Raqqa. AFP

A child plays in a park in Raqqa, northern Syria. AFP

Syrian rebel fighters for the National Liberation Front walk along a trench on the front line of a battle with regime forces in Idlib province. The conflict in Syria has been going on for 10 years. AFP

Children of displaced families living in an abandoned, damaged school building in Idlib play together. The school was heavily damaged in fighting between rebels and regime forces. AFP

Syrians take part in an anti-government demonstration in Idlib city, north-west Syria. The message on the sign behind them says: "We shall continue our revolution as long as there are figs and olives." AFP

Children at a displacement camp near the village of Qah, in Syria's north-western Idlib province. AFP

A displacement camp near the village of Qah in Idlib province, near the Syrian-Turkish border. AFP

A boy stands next to a destroyed house covered in snow in Jabal Al Zawiyah, north-western Syria. The area is mostly deserted because of fighting and shelling. AFP

A child stands outside an abandoned school building in Idlib province. Families, mostly displaced from the Maaret Al Noman area, south of Idlib city, have taken shelter in the school. AFP

A Turkish military vehicle advances along a snow-covered road in the Jabal Al Zawiyah area of north-west Syria. AFP

A displaced family from Abu Al Duhur in eastern Idlib have taken shelter in a building damaged in air strikes by the Syrian regime. AFP

A displaced family from Abu Al Duhur, Idlib province, are living in building badly damaged during Syria's 10-year civil war. AFP

A member of the Syrian Civil Defence, or White Helmets, cuts off a slab of concrete hanging from the roof of a building damaged during bombing by pro-government forces in Idlib province. AFP

Children play outside a makeshift classroom, run by humanitarian group Syrian Relief, at the Haranbush displacement camp in Idlib province. AFP

Nearly half of young Syrians said a close relative or friend had been killed in the civil war in the country, research from the International Committee of the Red Cross shows.

One in six said a parent was killed or seriously injured during the 10-year conflict, while 12 per cent of young Syrians had been injured and 62 per cent had been displaced from their homes, according to a survey of 1,400 Syrians aged 18 to 25 living in Germany, Lebanon and Syria.

It said 77 per cent struggled to find or afford food and basic necessities, a proportion that increased to 85 per cent among those in Syria. Nearly half had lost their income.

Kurdish demonstrators hurl rocks at a Turkish military vehicle, during a joint Turkish-Russian patrol near the town of Al Muabbadah in the northeastern part of Hassakah in 2019. AFP

A member of the Khabour Guards (MNK) Assyrian Syrian militia, affiliated with the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), walks in the ruins of the Assyrian Church of the Virgin Mary, which was previously destroyed by ISIS. AFP

Kamal, the father of an eight-year-old girl who was fatally wounded along with his son Hamed (sitting at left on background), cries while being treated in a local hospital in a rebel-controlled area of Aleppo in 2012. AFP

A woman and her baby are seen through the scope of an opposition fighter sniper gun, as she flees the Saif Al Dawla neighbourhood of the Syrian northern city of Aleppo, amid heavy street fighting. AFP

A woman cries as she looks at her house in Raqa, after a Kurdish-led force expelled the Islamic State group from the northern Syrian city in 2017. AFP

A man carries a young girl who was injured in a reported barrel-bomb attack by government forces in Kallaseh district in the northern city of Aleppo in 2014. AFP

A female Syrian soldier from the Republican Guard commando battalion fires a rocket-propelled grenade (RPG) during clashes with rebels in the restive Jobar area, in eastern Damascus in 2015. AFP

A woman reacts as she holds her daughter during an air strike by Syrian air force near her house in the Ahad neighbourhood of Aleppo in 2013. AFP

A Kurdish Syrian woman walks with her child past the ruins of the town of Kobane, also known as Ain al-Arab. AFP

"This has been a decade of savage loss for all Syrians. For young people in particular, the past 10 years have been marked by loss of loved ones, loss of opportunities and loss of control over their future," said Robert Mardini, director general of the ICRC.

“The survey is a sombre snapshot of a generation who lost their adolescence and young adulthood to the conflict."

The ICRC said more than 50 per cent of Syria’s population was under 25.

More than half of the young Syrians polled said they suffered from sleep disorders in the past 12 months, nearly three quarters suffered with anxiety, more than half struggled with depression and more than two thirds felt distressed.

The survey showed that about half felt lonely and about two thirds experienced frustration.

"These young people are now facing their second decade of this agonising crisis,” said Fabrizio Carboni, ICRC regional director for the Near and Middle East.

“What is so poignant about their situation is that, having lost much of their childhood and teenage years to the violence, this generation will likely shoulder much of the responsibility and work of reconstruction.

“Their children's lives will be marked by this conflict, too."

Looking ahead, young Syrians said they most wanted employment and economic opportunities, with education, psychological support and health care also key priorities.

Syrian soldiers are seen cheering President Bashar Al Assad during his visit to Al Habit on the southern edges of the Idlib province, in a picture released on October 22, 2019. AFP / Syrian Presidency Facebook page

A Turkish gendarme retrieves the body of Syrian refugee Alan Kurdi from a beach in Turkey. Reuters

The guided-missile destroyer 'USS Porter' conducts strikes while in the Mediterranean Sea, on April 7, 2017. AFP / US NAVY

A handout picture released by the official Syrian Arab News Agency on October 31, 2013, shows the remains of a mortar after an alleged mortar attack by rebel fighters on the Damascus mixed Christian-Druze suburb of Jaramana. AFP / Sana

Displaced Syrians from the south of Idlib province sit out in the open in the countryside west of the town of Dana in the north-west Syrian region on December 23, 2019. AFP

This picture shows a general view of an overcrowded displacement camp near the village of Qah near the Turkish border in Syria's north-west Idlib province, on October 28, 2020, during the coronavirus pandemic crisis. AFP

A picture taken on March 23, 2019, shows the last ISIS bastion in the eastern Syrian village of Baghuz after the defeat of the group. The Kurdish-led forces pronounced the end of ISIS regime on March 23, 2019, after flushing out the diehard militants from their very last bastion in eastern Syria. AFP

Anti-government activists gesture as they gather on the streets of Daraa, 100 kilometres south of the capital Damascus, on March 23, 2011. AFP

Syria's President Bashar Al Assad heading a cabinet meeting in the presidential palace in Damascus in 2013. Sana / AFP

A picture taken on October 3, 2015 shows a Russian army pilot leaving the cockpit of a Russian Sukhoi Su-25 ground attack aircraft at the Hmeimim airbase in the Syrian province of Latakia. AFP

Members of the Free Syrian Army raise their weapons during a patrol in Idlib in north-west Syria on February 18, 2012. AFP

Syrian President Bashar Al Assad is shown shaking hands with government troops in Eastern Ghouta, in the leader's first trip to the former rebel enclave outside Damascus in years, in this handout picture released by the Syrian Presidency on March 18, 2018. Syrian Presidency Facebook page / AFP

Militant fighters wave flags as they take part in a military parade along the streets of Syria's northern Raqqa province, on June 30, 2014. Reuters