Around 560,000 killed in Syria since 2011: monitor

Around 560,000 people have been killed in Syria over the past eight years, the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) said in a report on Monday.

Civilians in Syria have been suffering since 2011 when Bashar al-Assad regime’s forces thwarted a peaceful uprising, leading the country into a civil war and creating an ongoing refugee crisis.

Out of the total death toll, the number of civilian casualties listed by the monitor is 111,330 Syrians - including 20,819 children under the age of 18 - and 13,084 women over the age of 18 as a result of the war.

"With the start of military operations, after the Syrian regime refused to listen to the demands of the Syrian people, who revolted at the authoritarian era of their country's history; the overall humanitarian conditions began to change, and the situations started deteriorating increasingly, until it came to the point where millions of Syrians were displaced to displacement camps and asylum countries," the report said.

SOHR added the total statistic is separate from the 88,000 people who were killed by torture in the detention centers and prisons of Bashar al-Assad's regime.

The Syrian war began when the Baath regime, in power since 1963 and led by President Bashar al-Assad, responded with military force to peaceful protests demanding democratic reforms during the Arab Spring wave of uprisings, triggering an armed rebellion fuelled by mass defections from the Syrian army.

At least tens of thousands of civilians have been killed in the war, mostly by the regime and its powerful allies, and millions have been displaced both inside and outside of Syria.

The brutal tactics pursued mainly by the regime, which have included the use of chemical weapons, sieges, mass executions and torture against civilians have led to war crimes investigations.