HomeExclusive NewsExclusive: Syria civilian death toll over 306,000 since 2011: UN

Exclusive: Syria civilian death toll over 306,000 since 2011: UN

Geneva: The UN human rights office said on Tuesday that 306,887 civilians had been killed in Syria during the conflict since March 2011 in what it said was the highest estimate yet.

UN human rights chief Michelle Bachelet said this analysis would give a “clearer sense of the severity and scale of the conflict.”

The toll included those killed as a direct result of war operations and not those who died from lack of health care or access to food or clean water.

On Monday, a US drone strike in northwestern Syria killed a Yemeni leader of a local militant group affiliated to Al-Qaeda, the US military and a Syrian war monitor said.

The strike, carried out just before midnight (2100 GMT) on the eastern edge of the city of Idlib, took out a man described as a leader of the Hurras Al-Deen group.

“Abu Hamzah Al-Yemeni was traveling alone on a motorcycle at the time of the strike,” US Central Command said in a statement, adding that an “initial review indicates no civilian casualties.”

The US is “highly confident” that the strike, carried out from a drone, killed Abu Hamzah Al-Yemeni, a US official with knowledge of the operation told CNN, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which relies on a wide network of sources inside Syria, confirmed on Tuesday that Yemeni was killed in the attack, saying it was the second such attempt to neutralize him after a similar strike last year. Reuters

 

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