UN study indicates at least 93,000 people killed in Syria conflict

United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay announced Thursday an updated list of 92,901 documented cases of individuals killed in Syria between March 2011 and the end of April 2013.

The total figure included 59,648 killings up to November 30, 2012, as published in previous report in January, plus 6,347 additional killings in the same period, and 26,906 new killings recorded from Dec. 1, 2012 through April 30, 2013.

The latest study was conducted using a combined list of 263,055 reported killings, identified by the name of the victim, and the date and location of the death.

Datasets from eight different sources, including the Syrian government, the Syrian Network for Human Rights and the Syrian Center for Statistics and Research, according to the High Commissioner.

Any reported killing that did not include these three elements was excluded from the list, compiled by data specialists on behalf of the OHCHR.

Each reported killing was compared to all the other reported killings in order to identify duplicates, she said.

The statistical analysts who produced the report noted that despite the possibility of some duplicate or erroneously reported deaths being included, this total is likely to underestimate the actual number of killings.

It was based on the fact that 37,988 reported killings containing insufficient information were excluded from the analysis, and that there is a strong likelihood that a significant number of killings may not have been reported at all by any of the eight sources, they said.

The study showed a dramatic increase in the average monthly number of documented killings since the beginning of the conflict, from around 1,000 per month in the summer of 2011 to an average of more than 5,000 since July 2012.

The sharpest increases since November 2012 were recorded in rural Damascus and Aleppo with 6,200 and 4,800 new documented deaths respectively, it said.

Some 82.6 percent of the victims documented so far are male, while 7.6 percent are female. The gender of the victim is not indicated in 9.8 percent of cases.

The analysis was not able to differentiate consistently between combatants and non-combatants, and around three-quarters of the reported killings do not record the victim's age.

However, "the killings of at least 6,561 minors, including at least 1,729 children under ten years old, have been documented," said the High Commissioner.

"I urge the parties to declare an immediate ceasefire before tens of thousands more people are killed or injured," Pillay said.