The escalation of terror by jihad groups like the EI - which took advantage of the fragility of the country to take control of vast parts of territory in the north and east - added another dimension to the conflict. What is the impact of the war? The UN envoy to Syria, Steffan de Mistura, estimated that the war has killed 400,000 people. For the Syrian Observatory of Human Rights, based in London, until September the death toll exceeded 300 thousand. The Syrian Center for Policy Research, another group of studies, estimates that the conflict has already killed 470,000 people. According to the UN, by February 2016 more than 4.8 million people had fled the country - mostly women and children.
