[LINK] "Syria war death toll tops 160,000"

[rfmcdonald]

This Associated Press report carried by the CBC about the death toll from the Syrian civil war is terrible but unsurprising. The only thing I can say is that the civil war might be coming closer to an end, as the fragile opposition coalition loses ground to the government, but the nature of the post-war repression isn't something I'd like to imagine too closely.

The death toll in Syria's three-year conflict has exceeded 160,000, an activist group said Monday, a harrowing figure that reflects the country's relentless bloodletting that appears no closer to a resolution.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said it has documented 162,402 deaths since the uprising against President Bashar Assad's government began in March 2011.

The figure includes civilians, rebels and members of the Syrian military, the Observatory said. It also includes militiamen, such as Lebanese Hezbollah members, who have been fighting alongside Assad's forces, and foreign fighters battling with the rebels for Assad's ouster.

The Observatory remains the sole organization providing a reliable tally of Syria's dead.

The UN has stopped updating its own tally of the Syrian dead, saying it can no longer verify the sources of information. The world body's last count in late July was 100,000 dead.

The Observatory bases its tally on information it gets from a network of activists on the ground in Syria. The figures are based on the names of those killed, collected by activists who document the dead in hospitals, morgues and identify them from video materials.