GENEVA –
The United Nations says the first 10 years of the conflict in Syria, which began in 2011, have killed more than 300,000 civilians, the United Nations said on Tuesday – the highest official estimate to date of the number of civilians. conflict-related deaths in this country.
The conflict began with anti-government protests that broke out in March 2011 in different parts of Syria, demanding democratic reforms following the Arab Spring protests in Egypt, Tunisia, Yemen, Libya and Bahrain have eliminated some of the Arab leaders who have been in power for decades.
However, it quickly turned into a full-blown civil war that left hundreds of thousands dead and devastated many parts of the country.
Tuesday’s report released by the United Nations Office for Human Rights follows what it says is a rigorous assessment and statistical analysis of available data on civilian casualties. According to the report, an estimated 306,887 civilians were killed in Syria between March 1, 2011 and March 31, 2021 because of the conflict.
The figures released by the UN do not include soldiers and insurgents killed in the conflict; Their number is said to be in the tens of thousands. The figure also does not include people who were killed and buried by their families without notifying authorities.
“These are the people who have died as a direct result of war activities. This number does not include the many civilians who have died as a result of the loss of access to healthcare, food, clean water and other essential human rights,” the UN said. High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet.
The report commissioned by the UN Human Rights Council cited 143,350 civilian deaths recorded by various sources with detailed information, including at least the names, dates and locations of deaths.
In addition, statistical estimation techniques were used to connect points with missing information elements. Using these techniques, an additional 163,537 civilian deaths are estimated.
“The conflict-related casualty numbers in this report are not simply a collection of abstract numbers, but represent individual people,” Bachelet said. She added that the work of civil society organizations and the UN in monitoring and documenting conflict-related deaths is key to helping families and communities establish the truth, find seek accountability and pursue effective remedies.
An estimate of 306,887 means that every day, on average, over the past 10 years, 83 civilians have suffered violent deaths as a result of conflict, the report said. It is based on eight sources of information – including the Damascus Center for Human Rights Studies, the Syria Research and Statistics Center, the Syrian Network for Human Rights, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, and the Center for Documentation of Violations.
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Associated Press journalist Bassem Mroue in Beirut contributed to this report
