New online project looks to ‘highlight the human cost’ of Syria conflict

Syria was one of the last Middle East countries to get swept up in the Zeitgeist of the Arab Spring. Things have not, however, turned out as well for it as they have for the likes of Tunisia.

The country is locked in a state of turbulence, with a number of people having been killed in on-going protests against president Bashar Al-Assad.

A new online project looks to memorialise those who have lost their lives while protesting the ruling regime.

Faces of the Fallen describes itself as a “social journalism project highlighting the human cost of the conflict in Syria”.

It also claims to be an attempt “to re-conceptualise how people, looking in from the outside, perceive, grasp and internalize the immense human toll of a conflict like the one the world is currently witnessing in Syria”.

The site has over 100 images of people killed in the past year. The mix includes infants, young students and the elderly.

According to Faces of The Fallen, those 100 people are just a fraction “of what some estimate to be more than 8 000 slain on both sides”.

It claims that the 100 or so images on the site are just the start and that it wants “to spread the word about this site and document, with the help of photos and videos, as many of the fallen as possible by March 14, 2012 – the first anniversary of the conflict in Syria.”

“We will continue the effort beyond the anniversary date and tweet out the name and photo/video of each addition to this wall until the conflict ends,” the organisation adds.

Among the latest casualties of the conflict were 13 Syrians who died while evacuating a UK journalist from the country.