War Has Killed 1.5 Percent of Syria’s Population: UN Estimate

Michelle Bachelet, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights attends the Human Rights Council at the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, on June 13, 2022. Denis Balibouse/Reuters

GENEVA—The U.N. human rights office said on Tuesday that 306,887 civilians had been killed in Syria during the conflict since March 2011, or about 1.5 percent of its pre-war population, in what it said was the highest estimate yet.

Syria’s conflict sprang out of peaceful protests against President Bashar al-Assad’s rule in March 2011 and morphed into a multi-sided, protracted conflict that sucked in world powers.