Wars killed 12.5M Muslims in last 25 years: Expert

By Zeynep Rakipoglu

ISTANBUL

Some 12.5 million Muslims have been killed in wars during the last 25 years, a Turkish scholar said Saturday.

Speaking at a conference in Istanbul, Refik Turan, head of the Turkish Historical Society, said that throughout history humans have fought and war is an inevitable fact of life.

“Usually war is between two states, but there are wars within the country as well. The results of a war cannot be predicted. Wars are a fact of our lives,” he said at the "World Wars, Turkey and Syria on Unending Struggles for Power" conference.

“According to a recent research, the number of Muslims who died in the fights and wars in the world in the last 25 years have reached 12.5 million. This almost accounts to the losses in a World War.”

Turan also said that the U.S., Russia, and Iran do not want peace in Syria, and the result is evident.

“Turkey addresses 80 percent [of problems] in Syria. No one has this sort of potential. After the terrorists are cleared from Manbij, the ray [of hope] will light up all of Syria.”

Syria has been locked in a vicious civil war since 2011 when the Assad regime cracked down on pro-democracy protests with unexpected ferocity.

Since then, hundreds of thousands of people have been killed in the conflict, according to the UN.