Syria has plunged into darkness – both literally, and figuratively.

As the country heads into a fifth year of seemingly unending conflict, almost 83 per cent of the lights have gone out.

Using satellite images taken from about 800 kilometres above the earth, the findings were revealed by a team of researchers from Wuhan University in China.

“These satellite images help us understand the suffering and fear experienced by ordinary Syrians as their country is destroyed around them,” said Dr Xi Li, the lead researcher on the project, in a statement.

In Aleppo province, 97 per cent of the electricity is off, while 96 per cent of the lights in Raqqa, an area under the control of the Islamic State group, are off.

The findings were presented in coordination with a coalition of 130 humanitarian organizations, which also launched a new campaign, #WithSyria, in solidarity with those caught in conflict.

“My nephew is there, he’s 3-years-old. The first question he asks is, ‘Do you have electricity? We don’t have electricity.’ It’s like an obsession. They spend very long hours completely in the dark,” said Susan Ahmad, a Syrian opposition activist whose family is living in a regime-controlled area of the capital, Damascus.

Ahmad, who used a pseudonym for fear of retribution, told the Star that people in Damascus are struggling to feed their families, as jobs are scarce and electricity cuts can last up to 16 hours a day.

That is nothing, she said, compared to parts of the country that are under the control of opposition groups, like the Yarmouk refugee camp on the outskirts of Damascus.

“Life is getting harder and harder in Damascus,” Ahmad, who is currently living in the Gulf but plans to return to Syria, said. “But they know that we can’t go back. They are scared, they don’t know what to expect, but all they want is to get rid of the regime and stop the killings.”

The uprising against Bashar al-Assad’s government began when residents of the southern city of Deraa held protests in March 2011, shortly after popular revolutions began rippling across the Middle East and North Africa.

Four years later, the conflict appears far from abating, and its impact on ordinary citizens is widespread: 3.3 million Syrians have become refugees, at least 7.6 million others have been internally displaced, and 210,000 people have been killed, according to recent estimates.

A new report presents an even more staggering figure: Syrians’ life expectancy has been reduced by 20 years as a result of the conflict, going from 75.9 years in 2010 to approximately 55.7 years at the end of 2014.

“We’ve never seen in our recent history something like this. It’s a real disaster. It’s a national disaster,” said Imad al-Zawahra, head of the Syrian-Canadian Democratic Forum.

Syria is on the verge of economic collapse, the report found, as the state’s losses total about $202.6 billion. Almost 58 per cent of citizens are unemployed, and more than four in five Syrians are living in poverty.

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“We have no other option but to watch closely,” said al-Zawahra, who left Syria 20 years ago when he was a university student.

According to Faisal al-Azem of the Syrian Canadian Council, people in Syria feel abandoned, and are running out of options to flee, as the country’s neighbours have tightened their borders and travel inside the country is perilous.

“The saddest part of all of this is that all of this is happening in front of our eyes,” al-Azem told the Star.

“What kind of reassurances can you tell them? All you can say is feed yourself, try to flee… there is almost nothing left in Syria. There is no help. And people are watching.”

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