Beirut : At least 220,271 people have been killed, 67,293 of whom were civilians, since the beginning of the Syrian conflict in mid-March 2011, according to figures released by the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) on Thursday.
The NGO reported that among the civilian fatalities recorded between March 18, 2011, and April 14, 2015, at least 11,021 were children and 7,049 were women, Efe news agency reported citing the data.
A total number of 68,101 combatants were killed, 37,336 of whom were Syrians belonging to rebel brigades, while 2,512 were soldiers and officers who defected from the Syrian national army.
The SOHR also documented that 28,253 of the deaths were Arab, European, Asian, North American, and Australian militants belonging to Islamic State, Nusra Front, and other militant groups in the country.
At least 46,843 combatants from government forces were killed, in addition to 31,346 militiamen of pro-regime groups, while 682 members of the Lebanese Shia Hezbollah and 2,844 more foreign Shias were killed in defense of the Syrian regime.
The London-based NGO also documented the deaths of some 3,162 unidentified people.
“It is worth mentioning that the numbers do not include more than 20,000 detainees in regime prisons and thousands of those who disappeared during regime raids and massacres,” the NGO said, adding that an estimated 9,000 combatants taken prisoner by IS and other militias are not reflected in the data either.
The toll documented by the SOHR is on par with UN figures that the conflict has left 220,000 people dead, with more than four million refugees scattered in neighbouring countries, and 7.6 million displaced in Syria.