BEIRUT: A devastating earthquake that struck Turkiye and Syria killed more than 50,000 people, in a toll revised by AFP that includes figures from both government and rebel-controlled parts of war-torn Syria.
A total of 5,951 people were killed across Syria, while Turkiye recorded 44,374 deaths after the February 6 earthquake.
The new tally brings to 50,325 the total number of deaths caused by the disaster across both countries.
The Syrian government said 1,414 people had been killed in areas under its control, while Turkish-backed officials in Syria have put the death toll at 4,537 throughout rebel-held areas of the country.
The toll in areas outside government control includes deaths in territory held by rival rebel groups.
Local authorities relied on data collected from hospitals, medical centres and civil defence in Idlib and northern Aleppo province, health official Maram al Sheikh said.
They also included civilian sources, he said, many of whom buried their dead without taking them to hospital.
The toll was finalised with help from the Assistance Coordination Unit (ACU) organisation, a local United Nations partner.
The UN said it relied on the ACU’s data, including death tolls, which match those of the Turkish-backed authorities.
The death toll in rebel areas was “almost final, since most victims have been pulled from under the rubble”, he said.
AFP had previously reported 3,688 deaths across Syria.
The quake came nearly 12 years into Syria’s civil war, which devastated swathes of the country, killed nearly half a million people and displaced millions more.
Meanwhile, around 40,000 Syrians who had fled areas affected by the deadly February 6 earthquake have returned from Turkiye to rebel-held northwestern Syria in the two weeks since Turkiye eased restrictions on their movements, a Turkish official and a Syrian rebel official said.
The immigration was recorded at four border crossings held by Syrian armed groups opposed to Syrian President Bashar al Assad, Mazen Alloush, a media officer at the rebel-held Bab Al Hawa border crossing with Turkiye, said.
As of Monday, some 13,500 had crossed through Bab Al Hawa, nearly 10,000 through Jarabulus crossing and around 7,000 each through the Bab Al Salam and Tal Abiad crossings, according to a table of statistics Alloush provided. — AFP/ Reuters
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