Death toll from Syria conflict exceeds 220,000: Report

The death toll from the five-year-long foreign-backed militancy in Syria has surpassed 220,000, a UK-based monitoring group says.

Rami Abdel Rahman, the head of the so-called Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said on Thursday that the organization had so far counted 222,271 deaths since the start of the crisis in March 2011.

More than 67,000 of the dead were civilians, including more than 11,000 children, he said.

Nearly 68,000 foreign-backed militants have been killed in the conflict while nearly 47,000 Syrian army troopers and pro-government fighters have lost their lives in the conflict, Abdel Rahman said.

The group noted that the actual toll is likely much higher than the deaths it has been able to count.

The toll does not include some 20,000 people listed as missing.

Over 3.8 million Syrians have left their country since the beginning of the crisis in March 2011. More than 7.2 million Syrians have also become internally displaced, according to the United Nations.