‘Right to know’: Advocates renew calls for justice for Syria’s disappeared

Syria is marking its archetypal International Day of the Victims of Enforced Disappearances since the autumn of erstwhile President Bashar al-Assad, arsenic the state grapples with lingering questions implicit the destiny of the galore thousands who disappeared during the country’s civilian war.

In a study released connected Saturday to coincide with the yearly commemoration, the Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR) said this twelvemonth holds “particular significance” arsenic it received a large summation successful the fig of cases since al-Assad was toppled successful December.

Desperate families flocked to erstwhile detention centres, prisons, morgues, and wide sedate sites to effort to find their missing relatives aft al-Assad’s removal, and investigators gained unprecedented entree to authorities documents, witnesser accounts and quality remains.

“A constricted fig of detainees were released alive, portion the destiny of tens of thousands remained unknown, rendering them forcibly disappeared,” SNHR said connected Saturday. “This revealed a large calamity that affected Syrian nine arsenic a whole.”

The rights radical said successful its study that astatine slightest 177,057 people, including 4,536 children and 8,984 women, were forcibly disappeared successful Syria betwixt March 2011 and August 2025.

It estimated that the erstwhile authorities was liable for much than 90 percent of those cases.

“Al-Assad’s authorities has systematically adopted a argumentation of enforced disappearance to terrorize and collectively punish society, targeting dissidents and civilians from assorted regions and affiliations,” SNHR said.

This year’s International Day of the Victims of Enforced Disappearances comes conscionable months aft a new Syrian government was established nether the enactment of interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa.

Al-Sharaa has pledged to code the enforced disappearances, issuing a statesmanlike decree successful May that established a National Commission for Transitional Justice and a National Commission for Missing Persons (NCMP).

The bodies are tasked with investigating questions of accountability, reparations and nationalist reconciliation, among different issues. Al-Sharaa has besides pledged to punish those liable for wide killings and different violations.

On Saturday, Syria’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said enforced disappearances would stay a “national priority” for the country. “It tin lone beryllium resolved by providing justness to the victims, revealing the truth, and restoring dignity to their families,” the ministry said.

The caput of the NCMP, Mohammad Reda Jalkhi, besides said that portion “Syria faces a daunting task … [the] families of the missing person the close to afloat and effectual investigations”.

Independence and resources

Rights advocates person welcomed the Syrian government’s aboriginal steps connected enforced disappearances, including the constitution of the NCMP. But they accent that the committee indispensable beryllium autarkic and get each the resources it needs to beryllium effective.

“Truth, justness and reparations for Syria’s disappeared indispensable beryllium treated arsenic an urgent authorities priority,” Kristine Beckerle, lawman determination manager for the Middle East and North Africa astatine Amnesty International, said successful a statement this week.

The NCMP indispensable person “adequate resources and the highest levels of practice crossed each authorities institutions”, Beckerle said. “With each time that passes, the torment of families waiting for answers astir the destiny and whereabouts of their loved ones grows.”

The Syrian Network for Human Rights besides said the caller commissions’ effectiveness “depends connected their existent independency and afloat entree to accusation and documents”.

“The ineligible frameworks regulating their enactment indispensable beryllium formulated to guarantee the practice of victims and civilian society, and to consolidate the comprehensiveness of justice, from truth-telling to accountability, reparations, and prevention of recurrence,” the radical said.

On Saturday, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said the disappearance of a household subordinate was “not conscionable a idiosyncratic tragedy, but 1 of the deepest and astir prolonged quality wounds of the Syrian conflict”.

“The families of the missing merit unwavering enactment and compassion to assistance them hunt for answers astir the destiny of their loved ones and enactment an extremity to their suffering,” Stephane Sakalian, caput of the ICRC delegation successful Syria, said successful a statement.

“Their close to cognize is simply a cardinal humanitarian principle.”

Meanwhile, Syria’s state-run quality bureau SANA reported that an interactive website titled “Syria’s Prison Museum” was launched connected Saturday to cod witnesser accounts of those detained successful al-Assad’s detention centres, including the infamous Sednaya prison.

The platform, enactment unneurotic by journalists and activists, aims to beryllium some a memorial and forensic archive to facilitate the propulsion for accountability.

The United Nations estimates that al-Assad’s authorities ran more than 100 detention facilities and an chartless fig of concealed sites.

Under al-Assad, Syrian authorities officials utilized respective techniques to punish existent and perceived opponents, including whipping, slumber deprivation and electrocution.