More than 80,000 killed in Syria: monitor MORE than 80,000 people have been killed in Syria's conflict since it erupted more than two years ago, a monitoring group says. Nearly half of those who died were civilians, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said on Sunday. The conflict started out in March 2011 as a peaceful uprising against President Bashar al-Assad but spiralled into a civil war after the army unleashed a brutal crackdown against dissent.