Over 4,360 people died this year as part of Syria's civil war

This year's count included 1,889 civilians, 241 of them women and 307 children, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights

i24NEWS
i24NEWS
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FILE - Demonstrators display pictures of people, they say disappeared in Syria, outside the International Court of Justice in The Hague, Netherlands.
FILE - Demonstrators display pictures of people, they say disappeared in Syria, outside the International Court of Justice in The Hague, Netherlands.(AP Photo/Peter Dejong, File)

Syria's ongoing civil war has claimed more than 4,360 lives this year, including combatants and civilians, a Syrian war monitor announced on Sunday, as the conflict enters its 13th year since fighting began.

The previous year, 2022, had been the lowest annual death toll of the conflict with 3,825 people killed, which the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) has been tracking as civil war wages on.

The Syrian conflict pulled in foreign armies, militias and terror groups, and has led to the deaths of more than 500,000 people, displaced millions and ravaged the country's infrastructure and industry.

With Iranian and Russian support, Damascus clawed back much of the territory it lost earlier in the conflict, although large parts of the country's north remain outside the control of President Bashar al-Assad's regime.

This year's count included 1,889 civilians, 241 of them women and 307 children, according to the United Kingdom-based SOHR, which has a network of sources inside Syria.

Syrian government forces accounted for almost 900 of the dead this year, with other fighters including from the Kurdish-led and U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces, pro-Iran groups, Islamist factions, Islamic State group jihadists and foreign combatants accounting for the rest.

SOHR reported on Saturday that several people, including a fighter and a child, were killed in government bombardment of "residential areas and a market" near the city of Idlib. A ceasefire brokered by Russia and Turkey was declared in the area after a Syrian government offensive in March 2020, but it has been repeatedly violated.

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Also on Saturday, 25 pro-Iran fighters were killed in air strikes in eastern Syria "likely" carried out by Israel, the SOHR added, raising an earlier toll of 23. The dead included five Syrians, six Iraqi fighters, four from Lebanon's Hezbollah and 10 other non-Syrian combatants.

Israel rarely comments on individual attacks but has repeatedly said it will not allow Iran to expand its presence in war-torn Syria.

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