Rebuilding Syria after over a decade of civil war is expected to cost about $216 billion, the World Bank said in an assessment published on Tuesday. The cost is almost ten times Syria’s 2024 gross domestic product. Syria’s civil war began in 2011 when mass protests against the Government of then-President Bashar Assad were met with a brutal crackdown and spiralled into armed conflict. Assad was ousted in December in a lightning rebel offensive. The conflict destroyed large swaths of the country and battered critical infrastructure, including its electrical grid. The World Bank says the rebuilding may cost between $140 billion and $345 billion.
