Victims of Syrian conflict top 60 thousand: UN

January 03, 2013: The death toll in the ongoing conflict in Syria has surpassed 60,000, the United Nations human rights office said on Wednesday.

Preliminary analysis carried out by data specialists on behalf of the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) has led to the compilation of a list of 59,648 individuals reported killed in Syria between 15 March 2011 and 30 November 2012.

“As there has been no let-up in the conflict since the end of November, we can assume that more than 60,000 people have been killed by the beginning of 2013,” said High Commissioner Navi Pillay said.
“The number of casualties is much higher than we expected, and is truly shocking,” she added.

According to a news release issued by OHCHR, the preliminary analysis, which took five months to complete, was conducted using a combined list of 147,349 reported killings, fully identified by the first and last name of the victims, as well as the date and location of the deaths.
Any reported killing that did not include at least these four elements was excluded from the list, which was compiled using datasets from seven different sources, including the Syrian Government.

The analysts noted that 60,000 is likely to be an underestimate of the actual number of deaths, given that reports containing insufficient information were excluded from the list, and that a significant number of killings may not have been documented at all by any of the seven sources.
“Although this is the most detailed and wide-ranging analysis of casualty figures so far, this is by no means a definitive figure,” Ms. Pillay noted. “We have not been able to verify the circumstances of each and every death, partly because of the nature of the conflict and partly because we have not been allowed inside Syria since the unrest began in March 2011.
Recent months have witnessed an escalation in the conflict, which began as an uprising against President al-Assad and is now in its 22nd month. The crisis has left four million people inside the country in need of humanitarian assistance, and it is estimated that up to a million Syrian refugees in neighbouring countries will need help during the first half of this year.
“As the situation has continued to degenerate, increasing numbers have also been killed by anti-government armed groups, and there has been a proliferation of serious crimes including war crimes, and – most probably – crimes against humanity, by both sides. Cities, towns and villages have been, and are continuing to be, devastated by aerial attacks, shelling, tank fire, bomb attacks and street-to-street fighting,” said Ms. Pillay.
She noted that the increasingly sectarian nature of the conflict, highlighted in a recent update by the UN-mandated independent international Commission of Inquiry on Syria, means a swift end to the conflict will be “all the more difficult to accomplish.”