Thursday, September 05, 2013

SYRIA REPORT 72 - WAR DEAD


The line graph below is a timeline which helps show the rise and decline in the death figures over the past 13 months.



Casualty figures continue to fall through the month of Ramadan (however see footnote highlighted below). The figures are very different from those of July 2012. There is a significant drop in civilian casualty figures showing the shift in the nature of the conflict and the way it has become increasingly militarised. There is no credible data available on the numbers of foreign fighters killed in the conflict.
According to NCF figures, the war dead total for July stands at 2,726. The UN says that more than 100,000 people have been killed in the Syrian conflict and NCF figures support this contention. We will be making available all our background data over the coming couple of days, as is our practice. Background data thus far for the current period is on this link to the NCF website where a weekly breakdown of the figures according to provinces is currently being made available and will be complete within a day or two:

The majority of refugees have fled to Lebanon, Turkey and Jordan. There are over 700,000 registered refugees in Lebanon while there are more than 960,000 in Turkey and Jordan. U.N. officials say more than 44,000 refugees have poured into Iraq's northern Kurdish region since August 15, when Kurdish officials opened access to a bridge leading from Syria.

The UN's refugee agency and UNICEF say a further two million children are displaced within the country (though figures for numbers displaced internally are at best a guess though obviously they are very high) and a million being forced to flee the country with three quarters of them being under the age of 11. 

"The youth of Syria are losing their homes, their family members and their futures…Even after they have crossed a border to safety, they are traumatised, depressed and in need of a reason for hope," " said UN high commissioner for refugees Antonio Guterres. 

The UN also says that due to a severe lack of funds, they are struggling to meet the needs of the refugees. Roger Hearn, Save the Children's regional director for the Middle East, added: "It is appalling that the world has stood and watched as one million children have been forced from their country, terrified, traumatised and in some cases orphaned."

Following the chemical attacks of the 21st of August, international pressure on Syria and the UN has been escalating. French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius warned that France must react "with force" if the use of chemical weapons was confirmed. President Obama has said that he is considering “limited, tailored" action which would not be "a repetition of, you know, Iraq, which I know a lot of people are worried about - but if we are saying in a clear and decisive but very limited way, we send a shot across the bows saying, stop doing this". 

According to a Reuters poll, only 9% of US voters were in favour of a military intervention. 

David Cameron recalled Parliament on Thursday, 29th August, stating he wanted to have "a clear government motion and vote on the UK response to chemical weapons attacks." The government was defeated. 

FOOTNOTE: The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights claim that more than 4,420 were killed in Syria during the month of Ramadan, some two thirds of them being fighters; there were no figures or data on any of the NCF sources to back up these claims. We will be posting our own sources on the NCF website over the coming days and will be happy to answer any questions.


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