Syria

Syria (officially the Syrian Arab Republic) is an eastern-Mediterranean country bordering Lebanon and the Mediterranean Sea to the west, Turkey to the north, Iraq to the east, Jordan to the south, and Israel to the southwest. According to the United Nations, more than half of the Syrian population now lives in poverty. Poverty is more widespread in rural areas. Northeastern Syria is the worst in terms of poverty. The percentage of the population below the poverty line was around 12 percent by 2006, [Page 1498]according to Central Intelligence Agency statistics. The civil strife in the country, however, caused a significant rise in figures of poverty since 2011. The country witnessed relatively high economic growth in the 1950s and 1960s. However, since this was also accompanied ...