Syria toll over 280,000

Talks set to resume

BEIRUT, May 26, (Agencies): Syria’s devastating war has killed more than 280,000 people, a monitoring group said on Thursday in a new toll for the five-year conflict.

The toll of 282,283 includes 81,436 civilians, among them 14,040 children and 9,106 women, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

Non-jihadist rebel fighters accounted for 48,568 of those killed, while extremist militants — including non-Syrians — numbered 47,095.

The Observatory documented the deaths of 101,662 pro-regime fighters, including 56,609 government soldiers.

Another 3,522 of the deaths were unidentified.

The Observatory is based in Britain and depends on a network of sources inside Syria to gather its information on the conflict that erupted in March 2011.

The toll was the first given since a partial truce came into effect between the government and non-jihadist rebels on Feb 27.

Several weeks into the truce, the Observatory said violence — and daily death tolls — had dropped dramatically.

But since then clashes have broken out in parts of the country where the ceasefire was meant to have taken hold.

The previous toll of 271,138 had been published by the Observatory on Feb 23.

Meanwhile, the UN special envoy for Syria said he will speak to the UN Security Council later on Thursday and after that, announce plans for the resumption of stalled peace talks between the government and the opposition.

Speaking to reporters in Geneva, Staffan de Mistura said he will ask the council for “the best options for the resumption of the talks” but that he was not ready to announce a planned date for the next round of negotiations before seeking the council’s guidance.

However, he noted a sense of urgency for resuming the talks before August 1 — a previously announced deadline for an agreement.

De Mistura said for the talks to be credible, there needs to be “credible ground, based on humanitarian improvement and on cessation of hostilities improvement and stabilization.”

The Muslim holy month of Ramadan, which begins in first week of June, “will not be a factor” in determining the talks’ timetable, de Mistura added.

Also Thursday, the UN humanitarian aid coordinator for Syria, Jan Egeland, sounded alarm bells, saying the threat of children dying from malnutrition hangs over at least three communities besieged by government troops.

Access to besieged areas in Syria has fallen short of what was planned for May, Egeland said. Out of 1 million people, only 160,000 have been reached with aid so far, he said, citing problems including government restrictions.

Two Damascus suburbs, Daraya and Moadamiyeh, and a district in the central city

of Homs, al-Waer, all besieged by government forces, are locations where the situation “is still horrendously critical,” he added. “Children are so malnourished in these places that they will be dying if we are not able to reach them.”

Additionally, activists in Daraya said government forces shelled several areas in the town Thursday, attempting to advance from the south in violation of a cease-fire. There were no reports of casualties.

The International Support Group of Syria, which includes the US, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Iran and Turkey, had set a June 1 deadline for the resumption of humanitarian aid to areas cut off from the outside world, saying if land routes remain blocked, food aid will be air dropped.