93,000 killed in Syria but UN says real toll much higher

Almost 93,000 people have been confirmed killed in the Syrian conflict, but the real number is likely to be far higher, the UN says.

Its analysis documented 92,901 killings in Syria between Mar 2011 and the end of Apr 2013. But the UN’s top human rights official, Navi Pillay, acknowledged that it was impossible to put an exact figure on the death toll from Syria’s upward spiral of violence.

The last such analysis, in January, had documented nearly 60,000 killings through the end of November. The latest figures add more killings to that period, plus some 27,000 more between December and April.

“The constant flow of killings continues at shockingly high levels, with more than 5,000 killings documented every month since last July,” said Ms Pillay, the UN high commissioner for human rights. “This is most likely a minimum casualty figure. The true number of those killed is potentially much higher.”

Among the victims were at least 6,561 children, including 1,729 children younger than 10.

“There are also well-documented cases of individual children being tortured and executed, and entire families including babies being massacred.”

Eight data sets with 263,000 reported killings were studied for the analysis that the UN commissioned from San Francisco-based Human Rights Data Analysis Group.

“Civilians are bearing the brunt of widespread, violent and often indiscriminate attacks which are devastating whole swaths of major towns and cities, as well as outlying villages,” Ms Pillay said.

“Government forces are shelling and launching aerial attacks on urban areas day in and day out, and are also using strategic missiles and cluster and thermobaric bombs. Opposition forces have also shelled residential areas, albeit using less firepower, and there have been multiple bombings resulting in casualties in the cities, especially Damascus.”

Rebels have gained control of a key military base in the central Hama province after intense clashes with regime forces, activists said.

The base is on the northern edge of the town of Morek, which straddles the strategic north-south highway leading to the province of Aleppo.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the rebels seized the base yesterday after intense clashes with regime forces.

The latest battle came as the US government was split over whether to arm the rebel forces or make other military moves that would deepen US involvement in the conflict.