U.N. panel: More human rights violations in Syria as fighting worsens GENEVA, Switzerland, Dec. 20 (UPI) -- Human rights violations are becoming more common in Syria as the fighting becomes more intense, a United Nations panel said Thursday. The U.N. Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Syria said minority ethnic and religious groups like Christians, Druse, Kurds and Turkmen are being drawn into the fighting, the U.N. News Center reported. Foreign fighters have been drawn to Syria in greater numbers. Most are Sunni Muslims fighting with the rebels but Shiites from Lebanon and Iran have joined the government side. As a result, the conflict is becoming more sectarian, the report said. The United Nations appealed this week for $1.5 billion in humanitarian aid for Syrian refugees. What has become a civil war began in early 2011 with large demonstrations against the government of President Bashar Assad. Thousands of people have been killed and 500,000 have fled the country, primarily to Turkey and Lebanon. The war of attrition that is being fought in Syria has brought immeasurable destruction and human suffering to the civilian population. As the conflict drags on, the parties have become ever more violent and unpredictable, which has led to their conduct increasingly being in breach of international law," the commission said. The Syrian Network for Human Rights said Thursday that the government has arrested 194,000 people since March 2011. The group said 60,000 have been victims of "forced disappearance," arrested or abducted by government agencies or political groups that refuse to acknowledge the victims are being held. The United Nations predicted the number of refugees would top 1 million. Its $1.5 billion appeal is its largest ever for refugee relief. The violence has left Syria with "nearly no more safe areas," Radhouane Nouicer, U.N. regional humanitarian coordinator for Syria, said in a statement Wednesday. "Terrorists" is the regime's standard term for armed opponents of Assad.