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Syria War Deaths Reach 387,000 in Slowest Annual Increase, Says Monitor

People visit a cemetery in the al-Shaar neighborhood of Aleppo. (Reuters file photo)
People visit a cemetery in the al-Shaar neighborhood of Aleppo. (Reuters file photo)
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Syria War Deaths Reach 387,000 in Slowest Annual Increase, Says Monitor

People visit a cemetery in the al-Shaar neighborhood of Aleppo. (Reuters file photo)
People visit a cemetery in the al-Shaar neighborhood of Aleppo. (Reuters file photo)

The overall death toll for Syria's war has crept up to 387,000 following the least deadly of 10 years of conflict, a monitor said Wednesday.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which relies on a wide network of sources inside Syria, said the new figure included almost 117,000 civilians, among them more than 22,000 children.

The Observatory's previous tally was issued in January and stood at more than 380,000.

The fighting, which erupted in 2011 after the brutal repression of anti-government protests, has largely abated this year as a ceasefire held in northwestern Syria and attention turned to containing the coronavirus pandemic.

The latest toll included more than 130,500 pro-government fighters, among them foreigners.

More than half of those were Syrian soldiers, while 1,703 were from the Lebanese Hezbollah party whose members have been fighting in Syria since 2013.

The conflict has claimed the lives of more than 57,000 non-extremist opposition fighters.

It has also killed more than 67,500 extremists, mainly from the ISIS group and Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), a group dominated by ex-members of Syria's former al-Qaeda affiliate.

More than 12,500 Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces fighters have been killed in battles against ISIS and Turkish forces.

The Observatory's toll does not include some 88,000 people it says died of torture in government-run prisons, nor thousands who were abducted during the conflict and are still missing.

After turning the tide of the war with Russian and Iranian support since 2015, the Syrian government now controls around two-thirds of the country.

Among the regions still beyond its reach are the last opposition enclave of Idlib in the northwest, Turkish-held areas along the northern border, and northeastern parts of the country held by US-backed Kurdish forces.

The war has forced more than half the country's pre-war population to flee their homes.

Some 6.7 million Syrians remained displaced inside the country, while 5.5 million are registered as refugees abroad, according to the United Nations.

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Sudanese Stakeholders Hold Roundtable Talks in Geneva

A previous meeting of the coordination of Tagadum with the officials of the African Mechanism in Addis Ababa. (Tagadum on Facebook)
A previous meeting of the coordination of Tagadum with the officials of the African Mechanism in Addis Ababa. (Tagadum on Facebook)
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Sudanese Stakeholders Hold Roundtable Talks in Geneva

A previous meeting of the coordination of Tagadum with the officials of the African Mechanism in Addis Ababa. (Tagadum on Facebook)
A previous meeting of the coordination of Tagadum with the officials of the African Mechanism in Addis Ababa. (Tagadum on Facebook)

Geneva has hosted a third “roundtable” of meetings involving Sudanese political and civil groups aimed at bridging the gap between the country’s warring parties. These talks, coordinated by the French organization Promediation, follow similar meetings held previously in Cairo and Geneva. The primary goals are to negotiate a ceasefire and facilitate humanitarian aid to civilians.

The two-day meetings, which began on Monday, include representatives from the Coordination of Democratic Civil Forces (Tagadum), the pro-army Democratic Bloc coalition, and armed movements aligned with the bloc. However, some groups have announced their boycott of the meetings.

The Democratic Bloc has shown conflicting stances on attending the Geneva talks. Mohammed Zakaria, spokesperson for the bloc and a member of the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM), announced his group’s decision not to participate.

Omar Khalafallah, a leader in the Democratic Unionist Party and another bloc spokesperson, refuted Zakaria’s statement, insisting that the bloc would attend the meetings to promote a national vision.

A source within the Democratic Bloc told Asharq Al-Awsat that the meetings revealed significant internal divisions in the coalition. The JEM, led by current Finance Minister Jibril Ibrahim, appears to be charting its own course, which the source described as a form of defection.

In remarks to Asharq Al-Awsat, Sharif Mohammed Osman, a leader in Tagadum and the political secretary of the Sudanese Congress Party, explained that the meetings seek to achieve consensus on ending the war through negotiated solutions, starting with a humanitarian truce to ensure aid delivery and the opening of safe corridors.

These measures are considered preliminary steps toward a ceasefire and a peaceful resolution to the conflict, he underlined.

A wide array of civilian leaders are participating in the talks, including key figures from Tagadum, such as Sudanese Congress Party leader Omar Al-Dukair, Federal Gathering Party leader Babiker Faisal, and head of the Sudan Liberation Movement – Transitional Council Al-Hadi Idris.

Osman expressed optimism that the participants would issue a unified final statement addressing the peaceful resolution of the war and agreeing on a humanitarian truce to facilitate aid delivery.

In October, Cairo hosted a similar meeting, which resulted in a final statement signed by the participating groups, except for the Sudan Liberation Movement – Minni Minnawi faction and the JEM – Jibril Ibrahim faction, which refused to endorse the Cairo declaration despite attending the discussions.

Promediation, a French organization supported by the French and Swiss foreign ministries, has played a consistent role in Sudanese affairs. Since June 2022, it has organized roundtable discussions, initially focusing on negotiations between Darfuri armed movements before expanding its scope to include Sudanese political and civil forces in the wake of the war.