Up to 850 Syrians may have been killed in a two-month military crackdown and thousands of demonstrators have been arrested, the United Nations human rights office said on Friday. "We again call on the government to exercise restraint, to cease use of force and mass arrests to silence opponents," Rupert Colville, spokesman of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, told a news briefing.
The toll of 700 to 850 dead, based on information provided by human rights activists, was "quite likely to be genuine", he said, adding that it had lists of names of alleged victims.