Over 100,000 Syrians forcibly disappeared during Baath regime
Last Updated on December 31, 2024 6:01 am
The Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR) said that more than 112,000 Syrians who were forcibly disappeared during the Baath regime are unaccounted for, many of whom died in detention.
The Anadolu Agency reported this in a report on Saturday (December 28).
The fall of Bashar al-Assad on December 8 ended 61 years of Baath Party rule. Since then, reports of torture and extrajudicial killings have been published in Syrian prisons.
The human rights organization’s database contains records of about 136,000 people who were detained or forcibly disappeared during the Baath regime. The organization reported the release of about 24,000 prisoners from prisons across Syria since the fall of the government.
SNHR Chairman Fadel Abdul Ghani told Anadolu that the group is currently verifying the details of those released from prisons in Aleppo on November 28, Hama on December 5, Homs on December 7 and Damascus on December 8.
Abdul Ghani said that after the recent releases, another 112,414 people detained by the Baath regime are still unaccounted for and may have been killed.
He explained that since their bodies have not been returned to their families, they are still classified as forcibly disappeared … There is no evidence that they are still alive.
Ghani said that the government has deliberately delayed recording deaths in civil registries to prolong the suffering of families. The government used this tactic to give false hope.
He noted that dozens of mass graves remain undiscovered across Syria. Only a few mass graves have been uncovered.
He stressed that identifying bodies and matching them with family samples of the missing is a very complex process, and only when the bodies are identified can the fate of the forcibly disappeared be confirmed.
He also warned against raising false hopes among families about rumors of secret underground prisons.
Ghani said that all prisons of the regime have been opened after December 8. None of these facilities, including secret prisons, are available.