MOSCOW, August 22 (RIA Novosti) – The number of documented deaths in the Syrian conflict has risen to 191,369 since the beginning of the conflict through April 2014, Reuters cited a UN report as saying Friday.
“With additional killings reported from earlier periods, in addition to the new killings that have taken place, the total is more than double the number documented a year ago,” Reuters quoted UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay as saying.
This is the most recent update on the death toll in Syria since the UN stopped releasing new accounts in late July 2013, saying it could no longer verify the sources of its information. The figure given then was 100,000.
The UN human rights office said its data had been drawn from four monitoring groups as well as government sources and then cross-checked, but added that “tragically it is probably an underestimate” as the real number of people killed during more than three years of the conflict in Syria.
The flashpoint cities of Aleppo, Homs and Idlib, as well as rural areas surrounding the Syrian capital Damascus account for the most deaths, with more than 50,000 killings excluded from the report due to a lack of evidence.
The UN human rights chief said war crimes had been committed by all parties in the conflict and urged the reference of such incidents to the International Criminal Court.
The armed conflict has been ongoing since March 2011. The conflict has spilled over into Iraq and has seen more deaths since the Islamic State (IS) militant group declared the establishment of a caliphate on June 29.
