On the difficulty of estimating the dead in Syria

Something interesting from the New Scientist website:

"Given the situation, case-by-case documentation is the only game in town," says Michael Spagat of Royal Holloway College in London. He says that neither of the other two main methods of rough estimating – through door-to-door sampled interviews or by assessing overlap between independently compiled lists of casualties – are currently possible in Syria. "If the Syrian regime prevails, no one can go and document this stuff," Spagat says.