A White Helmets rescuer holds a child killed by Russia-regime bombing of Ma’arat al-Nu’man, Idlib Province, northwest Syria, August 28, 2019
The UN has assessed that more than 350,000 people have been killed in the Syria conflict, adding that the figure is an “undercount”.
The report from the UN Human Rights Council is the first attempt at a toll since 2014, when the UN suspended a running tally based on reporting from eight organizations.
The count includes civilians and combatants. It requires the full name of the deceased, an established date, and location of death.
“On this basis, we have compiled a list of 350,209 identified individuals killed in the conflict in Syria between March 2011 to March 2021,” UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet told the Human Rights Council.
She said more than 7% of the victims are women or children.
The opposition-run Syrian Network for Human Rights has documented the killing of 226,247 civilians up to September 2020. Of the killings, 199,939 were by Assad regime forces and 6,859 by Russian operations.
The UN said the largest number of its documented killings, 51,731, were in Aleppo Province.
Karen Koning AbuZayd, a member of the UN Commission of Inquiry, told the Human Rights Council on Thursday that unlawful and incommunicado detention by regime forces is “unabated”: “This is no time for anyone to think that Syria is a country fit for its refugees to return. The war on Syrian civilians continues.”
See also Syria’s Returning Refugees Tortured, Raped, “Disappeared” by Assad Regime — Amnesty
“The opposition-run Syrian Network for Human Rights has documented the killing of 226,247 civilians up to September 2020. Of the killings, 199,939 were by Assad regime forces and 6,859 by Russian operations.”
I’d like to know how this “human rights network” arrived at this figure considering that thousands of civilians (most from ethnic and religious minorities) were *deliberately* targeted/murdered by ISIS and Al Qaeda affiliates – and the city of Ar-Raqqa was bombed extensively by the Americans.
This does not even include those civilians killed accidentally/inadvertently by the rebel shelling.
The fact is that most of the deaths in the Syrian conflict are, of course, amongst the combatants. Syrian government forces have lost 50,000 to 100,000 soldiers/miltiamen and the rebels have lost 100,000 to 150000. ISIS and the Kurdish groups have also lost tens of thousands of fighters.
The SNHR also documents the killing of thousands of civilians by Islamic State, of civilians by other armed groups, and of civilians in operations by the US-led coalition.
However, the killings by the Assad regime are almost 200,000 and those by Russia almost 7,000 — a bit higher than the 6,000+ killed by ISIS.