Report: Nearly 20,000 Syrians were killed in 2018

Civil defense team members and citizens carry out search and rescue operation at the wreckage of a building after an airstrike to the de-escalation zone of Khan al-Sabil village in Idlib, Syria on January 02, 2018. ( Muaz Yemen – Anadolu Agency )

Some 19,666 people were killed in Syria in 2018, the Syrian Observatory on Human Rights (SOHR) announced yesterday.

The organisation said that last year registered the lowest death toll since the outbreak of the Syrian civil war in 2011.

Among those killed in 2018, SOHR explained, were 6,349 civilians, including 1,437 children.

“2018 was the lowest annual death toll since the start of the eight-year-long Syrian conflict,” SOHR chief, Rami Abdel Rahman, said.

In 2017, more than 33,000 people were killed in the war-torn country, including 10,000 civilians.

The UK-based observatory pointed out that 2014 marked the highest annual death toll, with more than 76,000 killed. In the same year, the Syrian opposition groups announced control over Ghouta, east of Aleppo, Daraa and Homs cities.

In the same year, Daesh proclaimed a “caliphate” over large parts of Syria and Iraq, while the Syrian army – backed by Russia – also announced the recapture of the country’s major cities.

The US-based Armed Conflict Location & Event Data (ACLED) reported earlier that more than 40,000 people had been killed in Afghanistan’s conflict, which is equivalent to the total death toll in Syria and Yemen combined.

READ: Over 40,000 Syrians return home from Turkey in 2018

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