Watchdog Group: More Than Half A Million Killed in Syria War

According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, more than half a million people have been killed in the war in Syria. The watchdog group, which tracks developments on the ground using a network of contacts inside the country, said it had identified some 350,000 victims and could confirm the killing of more than 160,000 others whose names are unknown. The Observatory claimed that 85 percent of the dead were civilians killed by Syrian regime forces and their allies, most notably Iran and Russia, the latter having turned the tide in favor of Bashar al-Assad after intervening militarily in the conflict in 2015. The war, which began after mass anti-government protests in March 2011, has dragged in other regional powers, including Saudi Arabia and Turkey, as well as the United States, whose operations in Syria have for the most part been limited to targeting Islamic State fighters. An estimated 11 million people—about half the pre-war population—have been displaced, including about 5 million refugees who fled primarily to neighboring Lebanon, Jordan and Turkey. Nearly 20,000 children have been killed in the conflict.