More than 191,000 killed in Syrian civil war
UN human rights chief says number of people killed in Syria has doubled in the past year
GENEVA
Syria's civil war has killed more than 191,369 people since it began three years ago, according to a UN report released Friday.
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay said in a statement that the figures had doubled in the past year but "tragically it is probably an underestimate of the real total number of people killed."
"The killers, destroyers and torturers in Syria have been empowered and emboldened by the international paralysis," said Pillay.
"I deeply regret that, given the onset of so many other armed conflicts in this period of global destabilization, the fighting in Syria and its dreadful impact on millions of civilians has dropped off the international radar."
The outgoing human rights chief also criticized the UN Security Council for not referring continuing war crimes and crimes against humanity to the International Criminal Court.
The report is the third produced by the UN Human Rights Office since the conflict spiralled into a civil war in March 2011 and covers the period until April 2014.
On Thursday, Pillay rebuked the UN Security Council for failing to prevent conflicts around the world.
In her final briefing as the UN's human rights head, Pillay said: "I firmly believe that greater responsiveness by this Council would have saved hundreds of thousands of lives."
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