Syrian death toll tops 120,000, group says

More than 120,000 people have been killed in Syria’s two-year civil war, a Syrian rights group said Thursday.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a British-based organization that has documented casualties in the war-torn country, said it counted 120,296 people who had died since the conflict began in March 2011.

{mosads}The casualties documented included nearly 43,000 civilians; 6,400 of which were children.

It said nearly 30,000 soldiers from Syrian President Bashar Assad’s regime had died, as well as 18,700 pro-government fighters. Another 2,200 defected soldiers and officers had also died.

The organization said 18,100 opposition forces had been killed, along with 5,400 non-Syrian rebel fighters or unidentified rebels.

The group says it estimates there have been another 40,000 killed that it has been unable to document.

The Syrian civil war between Assad’s forces and the opposition groups does not appear to have an end in sight. Secretary of State John Kerry is seeking to bring the two sides together for peace talks in November, but the status of the talks are in doubt.

Assad told U.N. envoy Lakhdar Brahimi on Thursday that the peace talks could only succeed if foreign governments ended their support of the Syrian opposition.