The death toll from Syria’s civil war could be as high as 400,000, the UN envoy said on Friday, in what would be a major revision of casualty figures. Staffan de Mistura stressed that figure was a personal estimate, but said official UN figure of 250,000 was two years out of date
Speaking during a press conference in Geneva – where parties to the conflict are holding fraught talks – Staffan de Mistura stressed that the figure was based on his own personal estimate, but said the UN’s current figures are out of date.
“We had 250,000 as a figure two years ago,” de Mistura told reporters. “Well, two years ago was two years ago.”
He said that, while he is not “capable of giving mathematical certitude,” an estimate that includes people who have died because of a lack of medical care and other “secondary lives lost…we will not be far away [from 400,000]”.
 

Volunteers evacuate people from a damaged building after a reported airstrike on April 23, 2016 in the rebel-held neighbourhood of Tareeq al-Bab in Aleppo)

The UN’s top human rights body decided in January 2014 to stop issuing public estimates of casualties because of the difficulty of verifying figures and relying on data published by the Syrian government or rebel groups.
However, a report published by the Syrian Centre for Research in February found that up to 470,000 people had been killed during five years of conflict.
Twelve civilians were killed in air strike on the northern metropolis of Aleppo on Saturday, a local civil defence official said.
The Syrian Human Rights Observatory said 13 others died in shelling of the rebel-held town of Douma, east of Damascus, while two men were killed in regime air strikes on Talbisseh in central Homs province.
 

Damaged buildings in the Salah al-Din neighbourhood of the northern Syrian city of Aleppo .

The barrage of air strikes on Aleppo targeted several neighbourhoods, including the heavily populated Bustan al-Qasr district, an AFP correspondent in the city said.
The deadliest raid was on the Tariq al-Bab neighbourhood on the eastern edges of the city.
A civil defence volunteer was seen carrying a screaming woman down a ladder from a damaged building in the neighbourhood, as a pick-up truck removed the remains of a victim’s body.
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Volunteers evacuate a family from a damaged building following bombardments on April 23, 2016 in the rebel-held neighbourhood of Tareeq al-Bab in Aleppo

Another volunteer operating a crane brought down a young man cradling a baby from an upper storey.
It was the second day of deadly strikes on Aleppo, after 25 civilians were killed and another 40 wounded in air strikes on Friday.

– Regime ’intensifying air strikes’ –

Once Syria’s commercial hub, the northern metropolis has been divided by government control in the west and opposition groups in the east.
“The ceasefire ended when the first bomb hit the city,” Muhammed Mashhad, a civil defence volunteer, said.
“The regime is intensifying its air strikes, which have reached around 20 a day,” the 42-year-old said.
“This regime is criminal and doesn’t understand the language of political negotiations. All it gets is bombing, killing and destruction.”
The head of a Britain-based monitoring group said the escalating violence meant a ceasefire between the regime and non-jihadist rebels, in place since late February, had effectively collapsed.
The truce brokered by Russia and the United States had raised hopes that UN-backed talks in Geneva this month would lead to a solution to the five-year conflict.
In the rebel-held town of Douma, 13 people — including three women and two children — were killed in government shelling on the city. The Observatory said all the dead were civilians.
Douma lies in the Eastern Ghouta opposition bastion, where the Jaish al-Islam rebel group — also party to the truce deal — is dominant.
But Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman said on Saturday that the truce had effectively collapsed.
“Most of the areas that were under the ceasefire are now seeing fighting again,” he said.
US President Barack Obama and the UN’s special envoy to Syria Staffan de Mistura on Friday said the ceasefire was in grave peril.
Syria’s main opposition High Negotiations Committee halted its formal participation this week in the Geneva talks, which started on April 13.
But De Mistura said members of his team had continued to meet remaining HNC members at their Geneva hotel.

Source: Middle East Eye, Daily Mail 23 April 2016