Middle East expert condemns UN casualty figures in Syria

Latest UN report estimates deaths in Syria approaching 70,000 A leading political commentator has condemned UN’s latest casualty figures in Syria, stating the release of "such unreliable data” is actually "escalating the conflict." In an article published yesterday by British newspaper the Guardian, political analyst Sharmine Narwani hit out at claims made by UN’s high commissioner for human rights Navi Pillay that deaths in Syria are “probably now approaching 70,000.” Narwani claims that revealing these death tolls are not helpful and contribute to deepening the crisis.
“Casualty counts during modern wars have become a highly politicised business. On one hand, they can help alert the outside world to the scale of violence and suffering and the risks of conflict spreading both within a country's borders and beyond them. On the other, as in Syria, Iraq, Darfur, the Democratic Republic of Congo and elsewhere, death tolls have routinely been manipulated, inflated or downplayed – a tool for the advancement of political interests,” wrote Narwani in a piece entitled: “What the Syrian death tolls really tell us”.
Narwani’s claims echo a recent announcement made by Libya’s new government, which found that death tolls during the country’s civil war in 2011 were grossly exaggerated. Although tens of thousands of casualties were reported by the media and organisations such as NATO, the actual figure was around 5,000 deaths on either side.
In the article, the Middle Eastern expert, who works for Oxford University, reports several incidents where UN agencies, backed by the US, did not verify casualty numbers.
"We were not asked for verification of whether the casualties are real," Megan Price, lead author of the UN's casualty analysis project, whose firm, Benetech, is part-funded by the US state department, told the Guardian.
Narwani goes on to admit that although in some cases, casualty numbers can be useful in analysing a crisis, inaccurate figures should not be made public as they cause more harm than good.
With regards to Syria, Narwani believes figures are being manipulated by foreign governments to support military intervention in the country.
“The problem is that death tolls are used as political tools to scene-set for western-backed humanitarian interventions in the Middle East and north Africa and – more broadly – against the kinds of negotiated political settlements that could actually reduce or stop the killing,” she concluded.