( CNN ) Syria is a Hell on Earth that is expanding in plain sight . The death toll there has doubled in a year 's time , if an opposition group is right . Since civil war broke out there , 310,000 people have been killed , the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Thursday . A year earlier , SOHR 's tally stood at 162,402 . And the year before , the United Nations put the death toll at 70,000 . Violence has plunged well over half of all Syrians into such destitution that they are in dire need of survival aid , the United Nations says , as food rations are being cut for lack of donations . Numbers alone ca n't convey the immeasurable anguish of millions , but maybe it can remind the rest of us of the magnitude of the world 's currently greatest tragedy . The number of years since perpetual bloodshed began , since dictator Bashar al-Assad 's security forces fired on crowds of demonstrators and armed militant groups rose up against him in March 2011 . Percentage of the Syrian population killed . It would be like killing 3 to 4 million Americans . The range comes from the SOHR 's death toll of 310,000 and a recent lower estimate by the U.N. of at least 220,000 dead . The number of Syrians in need of immediate life-saving aid , according to the U.N. That 's the population of Moscow . Syrians driven from their homes , the U.N. says . Imagine the entire Boston metropolitan area emptied out . Syrians who have fled as refugees to neighboring countries , creating humanitarian and economic hardship across Syria 's borders . Turkey has taken in 1.7 million , Lebanon 1.2 million , Jordan 625,000 , and Iraq 245,000 . The reduction in the size of food rations the World Food Programme says it has been forced to make due to a lack of donations . That means people receiving aid will get only 60 % of the daily nutrition they need .
More people have been displaced than live in Moscow ; more people lost their homes than live in greater Boston . The CNN has cut food ration sizes by 30 % for lack of donations .