UN: Civil war in Syria as death toll passes 4,000

SYRIA has entered a state of civil war with more than 4,000 people dead and an increasing number of soldiers defecting from the army to take up arms against President Bashar Assad’s regime, the UN’s top human rights official has warned.

Assad has been trying to crush an eight-month-old revolt against his autocratic rule, but the violence has only intensified.

The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay, said the UN is putting the death toll for the revolt “at 4,000 but really the information coming to us is that it’s much more than that”.