New U.N. estimate shows the Syrian civil war's deadly toll on civilians

GENEVA (AN) – The Syrian civil war has killed an average of 84 civilians a day over the past decade, according to the U.N. human rights office.

The new estimate reported on Thursday by the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, or OHCHR, is based on an estimated 306,887 civilians killed in the country between March 2011 and March 2021.

More than half of those deaths, or 163,537, were never documented by any group, according to OHCHR. It's hard to collect reliable data on death tolls in conflict zones, and the brutality of Syria's war has made it all the more difficult to ensure accountability, a basic requirement of peace.

For 10 years, OHCHR has worked with Syrian Network for Human Rights, or SNHR, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, or SOHR, and other organizations in the field to document civilian deaths linked to the war that broke out after the 2011 peaceful uprising against President Bashar Assad's government.

Human rights and statistics experts compile the data on the number and circumstances of direct conflict-related deaths. The casualty count – even if it is not comprehensive and cannot cover every incident – also helps to identify concerns like the use of highly explosive weapons in urban areas.

SNHR's founder and executive director, Fadel Abdul Ghany, said his organization kept daily watch on many areas and residential neighborhoods that were stormed or bombed.

"We faced enormous security challenges having lost colleagues who were killed or arrested,” he said.

SOHR's founder and director, Rami Abdurrahman, agreed. “It is not easy for any organization to work under such dangerous and difficult circumstances and obstacles hindering the documentation and monitoring activities,” he said.

But the organizations "cooperate with each other," he added, in order to improve the future of Syrian people who have been grappling with destruction and hunger for years.”

'Data becomes a new ally'

OHCHR's education and training section in Geneva is working to strengthen the connection between human rights and statistical and data science techniques.

It also has worked with the Human Rights Data Analysis Group, or HRDAG, to integrate information collected from multiple sources.

“The information collected by these documentation groups is so important,” said Megan Price, executive director of the California-based Human Rights Data Analysis Group, which supports other organizations. "It is critical that we make the most use of it, to do our best to recognize and honor the victims of this conflict."

The U.N. Human Rights Council has requested a report from OHCHR on the impact of casualty recording on human rights.

““Data becomes a new ally in the path to victim-centered and gender-responsive efforts to bring justice, accountability, and hopefully, sustainable peace," said Dimiter Chalev, head of OHCHR's office for Syria.

News media outlets often have cited the work of OHCHR and the U.K.-based SOHR for estimates on the more than half a million people killed in the Syrian war, three-fifths of whom are estimated to be civilians.

That means the war has killed more than 2% of Syria’s 22 million prewar population. But in Jan. 2014, OHCHR announced it stopped updating the death toll due to a lack of access in Syria and inability to verify others' source material.