GENEVA—The U.N. human rights office said on Tuesday that 306,887 civilians had been killed in Syria during the conflict since March 2011, or about 1.5 percent of its pre-war population, in what it said was the highest estimate yet.
Syria’s conflict sprang out of peaceful protests against President Bashar al-Assad’s rule in March 2011 and morphed into a multi-sided, protracted conflict that sucked in world powers.
The frontlines have been mostly frozen for years but violence is continuing and the humanitarian crisis grinds on with millions still displaced within Syria’s borders.
“The extent of civilian casualties in the last 10 years represents a staggering 1.5 percent of the total population of the Syrian Arab Republic at the beginning of the conflict, raising serious concerns as to the failure of the parties to the conflict to respect international humanitarian law norms on the protection of civilians,” according to the report which was mandated by the U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva….