The faces of the dead in Syria’s unrest

BEIRUT — Sakher Hallak went all out last year during his first trip to the United States.

He visited his brother in Philadelphia, checked out Times Square in New York and even hit Miami Beach.

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This photo provided by the Sakher Hallak’s family shows him in Miami in mid-2011. Hallak would die within the next few months. Click here to see more photos from Syria as violence continues in the uprising against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s regime.

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INTERACTIVE: Thousands of Syrians have died and President Bashar al-Assad remains in power, despite numerous calls by the international community for him to step down.

Hallak, 43, ran a successful ­eating-disorder clinic in his native Syria, and he had come to the United States for a medical conference. Before he returned, Hallak discussed with his brother the unrest gripping their homeland.

“He told me not to worry about him,” the brother said.

A few weeks later, Hallak’s body was found dumped outside Aleppo, Syria’s largest city. It bore the marks of extreme torture.

Day by day, the death count in Syria climbs as headlines mark dozens of men, women and children shot and stabbed in Houla, or entire families killed in Qubeir.

But beyond the numbers, scant attention is paid to the individuals who have lost their lives in what officials with the United Nations have described as a civil war.

Much of the killing has occurred out of the world’s sight. Syria has become, by some measures, the most dangerous place in the world for journalists, and the vast majority of international coverage of the conflict comes from outside the nation’s borders. U.N. observers, meanwhile, recently put their mission on hold, citing the risk.

No one knows exactly how many Syrians have died, but one of the most conservative counts puts the toll at more than 14,000, with others citing figures of more than 18,000. Among the nations across the Middle East that have been convulsed by popular revolts, ­Syria seems destined to be the bloodiest of the Arab uprisings.

There is no group among the diverse sectarian and ethnic mix in Syria that hasn’t been affected by the violence. Sunni Muslims, Alawites, Kurds, Druze and Christians have all lost family members, in every corner of the country. And the situation appears to be worsening, with world leaders desperately grappling for solutions that remain elusive more than 15 months after the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad began.

“Every time someone says there is a turning point, the international community still does not act,” said Radwan Ziadeh, a senior fellow at the U.S. Institute of Peace and the director of the nonprofit Damascus Center for Human Rights Studies. “The situation is going to get worse until the international community decides to take action.”

Meanwhile, the conflict claims more victims every day: Dalal Auf, a 15-year-old high school student who loved to draw; Ahmad Sadeq, a pro-government preacher who sermonized against the opposition until he was cut down by bullets at age 36; Basilious Nassar, a 30-year-old Christian priest who taught Byzantine music.

Based on interviews with friends and relatives of these three victims and four others, The Washington Post has compiled a short profile of each. The circumstances of the deaths were checked against a report by the Damascus Center for Human Rights Studies and the Syrian Network for Human Rights. Both organizations document the violence in Syria and have an extensive network of contacts inside the country.