From BBC

More than 60,000 people have been killed since Syria’s uprising began in March 2011, the UN has said.

A study commissioned by UN human rights commissioner Navi Pillay collated data from seven different sources, and concluded that there had been 59,648 deaths until November 2012.

Ms Pillay said the figure would now have risen above 60,000 and described the bloodshed as “truly shocking”.

Syrian opposition groups had previously estimated 45,000 people killed.

The study was released hours after a petrol station near Damascus was hit in an air strike.

The missile attack apparently sparked a huge explosion in which up to 70 people died, according to activists, in one of the deadliest incidents of the uprising.

The UN-commissioned report took data from sources including the Syrian government and opposition groups.

The report looked at 147,349 reports of deaths from all seven of its sources.

The authors, from the Benetech research group, then matched the reports and removed duplicates.

They also counted only those reports that provided the first and last name of the victim, and the date and location of death.

After this process, they arrived at the figure of 59,648.

However, they warned that there were an unknown number of killings that had not been documented by any of their sources.

“The statistics presented in this report should be considered minimum bounds,” the report said.

The study did not provide a breakdown of whether those who died were rebels, soldiers or civilians.

Ms Pillay said: “Given there has been no let-up in the conflict since the end of November, we can assume that more than 60,000 people have been killed by the beginning of 2013.

“The number of casualties is much higher than we expected, and is truly shocking.”

She warned that increasing sectarianism was making it increasingly difficult to find a satisfactory solution.

For more on this story go to:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-20893697

Also see “Syria petrol station blast ‘kills dozens’”

2 January 2013

Dozens of people have been killed by an air strike on a petrol station on the outskirts of the Syrian capital, Damascus, activists say.

Damascus residents say they saw burning bodies and horrific scenes after the air strike in Mleiha district.

The report (see link below) contains unverified video footage of the blast scene.

Lina Sinjab reports from Damascus.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-20886629