09, Dec 2017 | CJP Team

A study published in Lancet Global Health found that shelling and aerial bombings in Syria had a “disproportionate lethal impact on civilians, particularly children,” according to the study’s lead author, Professor Debarati Guha-Sapir at the University of Louvain, the Guardian reported. The study found that in the first six years of Syria’s civil war, 71% of the 143,630 deaths were civilian deaths. The study was based on data collected by Violations Documentation Center (VDC), and found that child civilian deaths rose from 9% of 4,354 deaths in 2011 to 23% of 11,444 deaths in 2016. The researchers concluded that this spike was a result of “increased reliance on aerial bombing by the Syrian government and international partners”.