Syrian war’s death toll at 470,000: Report

A recent report has disclosed that the number of people who have lost their lives as a result of nearly five years of foreign-sponsored conflict in Syria is far higher than the total figure released by the United Nations.

According to Press TV, the Syrian Center for Policy Research reported that 400,000 Syrians have been killed since the outbreak of the crisis as opposed to the latest UN toll of 260,000.

The report added that another 70,000 people have perished due to the lack of adequate health services, food, clean water, sanitation and proper housing, especially for those displaced within conflict zones.

It further noted that Syria’s mortality rate soared from 4.4 per thousand in 2010 to 10.9 per thousand in 2015, and life expectancy plunged from 70 in 2010 to 55.4 in 2015.

The report also put the number of those wounded at 1.9 million, stating that 11.5 percent of Syria’s population has been killed or injured since the crisis broke out in March 2011.

“We think that the UN documentation and informal estimation underestimated the casualties due to lack of access to information during the crisis,” Rabie Nasser, the author of the report, told The Guardian on Thursday.

Moreover, 6.36 million people have been displaced internally and more than four million others have fled the country since the beginning of the conflict. That accounts for 45 percent of the country’s population, which has shrunk by 21 percent.

ME