PHOTOS: August, Syria's 'bloodiest month'; 5,000 dead
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Nearly 5,000 people have been killed in Syria's escalating civil war in the month of August, activists groups have claimed.
This is the highest figure ever reported in over 17 months of fighting against the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad.
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Image: A Free Syrian Army fighter runs across a street dodging Syrian army bullets in El Amreeyeh neighbourhood of Syria's northwest city of Aleppo
Photographs: Youssef Boudlal/Reuters
August, Syria's 'bloodiest month'; 5,000 dead
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"The past month witnessed large massacres and the regime was conducting wide operations to try to crush the uprising," the New York Post quoted Omar Idilbi, a Cairo-based activist with the Local Coordination Committees group, as saying.
"Last month's acts of violence were unprecedented," Idilbi added.
Image: Smoke rises from a residential building at the Sunni Muslim dominant neighbourhood of Bab al-Tebbaneh in Tripoli, northern Lebanon, during clashes between Sunni Muslims and Alawites
Photographs: Reuters
August, Syria's 'bloodiest month'; 5,000 dead
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According to the paper, the United Nations children's fund UNICEF put the death toll for last week alone at 1,600, the largest weekly figure for the entire uprising.
The Britain-based activist group Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said that 5,440 people, including 4,114 civilians were killed in August.
Image: A Free Syrian Army fighter reacts after his friend was shot by Syrian Army soldiers during clashes in Salah al-Din neighbourhood in central Aleppo
Photographs: Goran Tomasevic/Reuters
August, Syria's 'bloodiest month'; 5,000 dead
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According to the report, the LCC put the toll at 4,933 civilians.
The two main activists groups also released new death tolls for the entire uprising since March 2011.
Image: Tyres set on fire by demonstrators block a road during a protest against Syria's President Bashar al-Assad in Jubar near Damascus
Photographs: Shaam News Network/Reuters
August, Syria's 'bloodiest month'; 5,000 dead
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The Observatory said over 26,000 have been killed, including more than 18,500 civilians. The LCC put the death toll at more than 23,000 civilians.
Image: A Syrian boy rides a bicycle as smoke rises over the Syrian city of Aleppo after missiles fired from a fighter jet hit petrol tankers in the Bab al-Nayrab district
Photographs: Youssef Boudlal/Reuters
August, Syria's 'bloodiest month'; 5,000 dead
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According to the paper, Syria's uprising has been the bloodiest in the Arab Spring that has already removed long-serving authoritarian leaders in Egypt, Tunisia, Yemen and Libya.
Image: A Free Syrian Army fighter screams in pain after he was injured in his leg by shrapnel from a shell fired from a Syrian Army tank in the Salaheddine neighbourhood of central Aleppo
Photographs: Goran Tomasevic/Reuters
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