An “exhaustive” investigation by the the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights has placed the death toll of the Syrian civil war at approximately 60,000. This runs contrary to earlier reports that placed the number of casualties closer to 30,000. “The number of casualties is much higher than we expected and is truly shocking,” said U.N. Human Rights Commissioner Navanethem Pillay. Since the report indicated specifically that 59,648 people had been killed by the end of November 2012, “we can assume that more than 60,000 people have been killed by the beginning of 2013,” Pillay added.
“What we have done is take the statistical analysis of seven of the lists of casualties that exist, analyse them all and remove all the double counting,” said Pillay’s spokesman Rupert Colville. “But the criteria are quite strict. There has to be a set amount of information and there may well be people who have been killed who aren’t included as a result of that.” While Colville admitted the figure given was not exact, he did say it “is probably the minimum” number of deaths that have occurred as a result of the violence.
