Syria death toll more than 93,000: UN!

More than 93,000 people, including at least 6,500 children, have perished in Syria's brutal civil war, a new study from the United Nations human rights office showed Thursday.

"Unfortunately, as the study indicates, this is most likely a minimum casualty figure. The true number of those killed is potentially much higher," UN rights chief Navi Pillay said in a statement.

The exact figure released on Thursday - 92,901people - is much higher than the UN's last death toll back in January of 59,000 people.

An average of more than 5,000 people have been killed every month since last July, while Rural Damascus and Aleppo have recorded the highest tolls since November, the UN said in its latest study compiling documented deaths.

Al Jazeera's diplomatic editor James Bays, reporting from the UN headquarters in New York, described the figures as "staggering".

The UN has not had much access to Syria, and therefore has been unable to count bodies. Instead, the body did a statistical survey.

"They have gone through sources which had the names, dates and locations [of those killed]," our correspondent said, adding that body acknowleges it has "underreported the number of deaths."

Rebel-led mass killing

Meanwhile, Syrian rebels reportedly killed at least 60 people, including civilians government loyalists, in a battle in Halta, a Sunni-majority village in the country's east, activists said.

The fighting over the past few days targetted members of the Shia community, highlighting the increasingly sectarian nature of the country's civil war.

The opposition fighters reportedly stormed and burned civilian homes in the village in the eastern Deir Azzor province. 

The attack is said to be in retaliation for an earlier assault by Shias from Hatla that killed four opposition fighters.

A Syrian government official denounced the attack on the Shia-section of the Sunni-majority Hatla village as a "massacre" of civilians, the Associated Press news agency reported on Thursday. 

A video posted online by rebels on Tuesday, entitled "The storming and cleansing of Hatla", showed dozens of fighters carrying black flags celebrating and firing guns in the streets of a small town as smoke curled above several buildings.

One fighter shouts in the video: "This is a Sunni area, it does not belong to other groups."

Most armed rebels in Syria are from the country's Sunni majority, while President Bashar al-Assad has retained core support among the minorities, including his own Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shia Islam, along with Christians and Shia.

US debates strategy

Meanwhile, the US has again debated how to help the Syrian opposition, US Secretary of State John Kerry has said.

The US has weighed for months whether to give arms to the rebels, but the issue is now firmly on the table given increased involvement by Hezbollah, the armed Lebanese Shia group, and as Iran backs President Assad on the battlefield.

Government forces are also reported to be preparing for majour offensive on rebel-held parts of the northern city of Aleppo.

"We are focusing our efforts now doing all that we can to support the opposition as they work to change the balance on the ground," Kerry said at a joint news conference with William Hague, UK foreign secretary, in Washington DC on Wednesday.

The Obama administration is meeting this week on whether to arm the Syrian rebels, a topic that Kerry said he discussed with Hague.

Brigad