UN Envoy Revises Syria Death Toll to 400,000
TEHRAN (Tasnim) – A senior United Nations official said the five-year civil war in Syria has killed some 400,000 people, a staggering figure that underscores the war’s carnage —and is far higher than the previous UN toll of 250,000 calculated a year and half ago.
Staffan de Mistura, the UN’s special envoy in Syria, said Friday the 400,000 figure is based on his “own analysis,” and is not an official UN figure, but it comes close to a recent calculation by a Syrian research group that estimated at least 470,000 Syrians have died in the war.
The UN stopped counting the death toll in Syria due to a lack of confidence in its own data, a nearly insurmountable problem in a complex conflict involving a vast array of militant groups, Foreign Policy reported.
“We had 250,000 as a figure two years ago,” said de Mistura. “Well two years ago was two years ago.”
De Mistura’s remarks come as an uptick of fighting between the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and the foreign-backed militant groups working to unseat him has all-but unravelled the fragile cessation of hostilities agreement, sponsored by the US and Russia, that went into effect on February 27.
The UN envoy vowed to continue the current peace talks in Geneva through Wednesday of next week despite a decision by the main armed opposition group to demand a suspension of the negotiations.
The talks are aimed at finding an agreement on a transitional government to end the conflict, which has created the biggest refugee crisis since World War II and allowed the rise of the Daesh (ISIL) militant group.
