872 Syrian civilians killed in May: UK-based watchdog

By Suhib Mohammad, Nemed Abed and Meryem Kasim

ISTANBUL (AA) – The Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR) on Wednesday reported that a total of 872 civilians had been killed last month in ongoing violence in war-torn Syria.

In its monthly report, the U.K.-based NGO noted that a full one third of those killed were women or children.

The report also revealed that 57 percent of the victims -- 498 people -- had been killed in attacks carried out by the Assad regime and its supporters, including 73 women and 89 children.

Of these, 46 had died as a result of torture, according to the report.

The SNHR report also found that 49 Syrian civilians, including six women and 15 children, had been killed in attacks carried out by Russian forces.

Over the same period, another six civilians, including one child, were killed by the PYD -- the terrorist PKK’s Syrian affiliate -- while 178 others -- including 38 women and 21 children -- were killed in attacks carried out by the Daesh militant group, the report asserted.

Another five civilians, according to the report, were killed in attacks carried out by the Nusra Front.

A further 91 civilians, including 31 women and 19 children, were killed in attacks by Syrian armed opposition groups, the NGO said, while 15 others, including three women and eight children, were killed in attacks by an international anti-Daesh coalition.

The SNHR went on to state in its report that another 30 civilians, including four women and two children, had been killed in various bomb attacks carried out by unknown attackers.

Syria has been locked in a vicious civil war since early 2011, when the Bashar al-Assad regime cracked down on pro-democracy protests with unexpected fury and disproportionate force.

Since then, more than 250,000 people have been killed over the course of the five-year-old conflict and more than 10 million forced to flee their homes, according to the UN.

* Anadolu Agency correspondent Can Erozden contributed to this report from Ankara.