At least 113,218 of the People Arrested by the Parties to the Conflict in Syria Since March 2011, Including 3,129 Children and 6,712 Women, Are Still Forcibly Disappeared
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The Hague – The Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR)
The Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR) today released its 13th annual report on enforced disappearance in Syria, to mark the International Day of the Disappeared, which is observed annually on August 30. In the report, the group notes that at least 113,218 of the people arrested by the parties to the conflict in Syria since March 2011, including 3,129 children and 6,71 women, are still forcibly disappeared. SNHR also stressed that there is no end in sight for the crime of enforced disappearance in Syria.
The 22-page report notes that, in Syria’s case, enforced disappearance has become an exceptionally pressing and critical issue, so much so that it can be called a phenomenon, given the breadth of its scope and the way in which it’s proliferated since the start of the popular uprising for democracy in Syria in March 2011. In the years since then, rates of enforced disappearances have only increased, in what is one of the most overwhelming human tragedies that continues to haunt and devastate the lives and hearts of the Syrian people, as it’s done for over 13 years to date, with numerous lives, including those of both the forcibly disappeared persons and their loved ones, being shattered and destroyed as a result of this horrendous crime. The Syrian regime, the report adds, has used enforced disappearance as a strategic instrument to consolidate control and crush its opponents. To achieve this objective, the regime has utilized this strategy in a deliberate and direct manner against all those who became activists or participated in the popular uprising for democracy, particularly in its early years that saw the highest rates of enforced disappearances, in order to crush and undermine the anti-regime protests. Subsequently, these practices grew in scale and targeted specific populations based on their regional or sectarian identity, as the protests spread across the country. Similarly, these ‘disappearances’ have also been among the regime strategies to terrorize and collectively punish society. By no means are these barbaric practices isolated or random occurrences. Rather, they’re part of a systematic strategy used by the regime security establishment, which carries out enforced disappearances in an organized and calculated manner involving the highest echelons of power in the state and the security apparatus, meaning that all the various levels of the military and security establishment are implicated in these crimes, along with the judiciary that has failed to uphold its role in protecting the rights of forcibly disappeared persons. Indeed, the judiciary itself has served as another instrument used by the regime to facilitate and cover up enforced disappearance crimes.
As the report explains, SNHR has been engaged in investigating and documenting enforced disappearance cases since March 2011, building a central database for this purpose that contains information and items of evidence regarding the victims of arbitrary arrest and enforced disappearance in Syria. The report reveals that SNHR has been able to collect tens of thousands of items of data and documents that support the processes of investigation and analysis of enforced disappearance carried out by SNHR itself, and by the UN and various respected international bodies, or as part of the litigation processes taking place under universal jurisdiction. In all of this, SNHR’s objective has been to realize a comprehensive and thorough path to ensuring that the perpetrators are held to account and that victims and that victims and their families receive full reparation. The constantly increasing number of enforced disappearance cases in Syria since 2011 is, after all, a direct result of the impunity that has shielded the main perpetrators for too long, which, shamefully, continues to do so.
As SNHR’s database attests, at least 157,634 of the people arrested by the parties to the conflict and controlling forces in Syria since March 2011 up until August 2024, including 5,274 children and 10,221 women (adult female), are still under arrest and/or forcibly disappeared. Syrian regime forces are responsible for the vast majority of arrests and enforced disappearances, detaining 86.7 percent of all such victims. Meanwhile, at least 113,218 of the aforementioned people arrested by the parties to the conflict and controlling forces in Syria since March 2011 up until August 2024, including 3,129 children and 6,712 women (adult female), are still forcibly disappeared. Of the 113,218 enforced disappearance cases, Syrian regime forces are responsible for at least 96,321 cases, including of 2,329 children and 5,742 women (adult female), while ISIS has been responsible for 8,684, including of 319 children and 255 women (adult female). Moreover, Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) has been responsible for 2,246 enforced disappearances, including of 17 children and 32 women (adult female), while all armed opposition factions/Syrian National Army (SNA) have been responsible for 2,986, including of 261 children and 574 women (adult female). Lastly, Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) have been responsible for 2,981 enforced disappearances, including of 203 children and 109 women (adult female).
These figures, which draw upon SNHR’s data, show that the Syrian regime has arrested and ‘disappeared’ by far the largest proportion of Syrian citizens in these categories. A detainee usually becomes a forcibly disappeared person immediately after or a few days after their arrest, which is reflected in the massive number of forcibly disappeared persons, the largest proportion of whom – approximately 85 percent – have been forcibly disappeared by Syrian regime forces. The enormous number of enforced disappearance victims confirms that this is a systematic, routine practice carried out in a widespread manner against tens of thousands of detainees. As such, it constitutes a crime against humanity.
The report also documents that Syrian regime forces registered at least 1,634 forcibly disappeared persons, including 24 children and 21 women, as well as 16 medical personnel, as dead in the civil registry records since the start of 2018 up until August 2024. In all these 1,634 cases, the cause of death was not revealed, and the regime failed to return the victims’ bodies to their families or even to notify the families of their loved ones’ demise at the time of death. Among these 1,634 cases were also four people who have been identified from the photos of torture victims leaked from regime military hospitals, known as the ‘Caesar photos’. According to the death certificates issued by the Syrian regime’s civil registry offices, the largest proportion of these 1,634 victims died in 2014, followed by 2013 and then 2015.
In 2024, the report adds, the parties to the conflict in Syria have continued to use enforced disappearance as an instrument of oppression to consolidate control, as well as to blackmail victims and their families. As SNHR has documented, all parties to the conflict, including Syrian regime forces, the SDF, HTS, and all armed opposition factions/SNA, have been responsible for the enforced disappearance of civilians. The report stresses that the majority of enforced disappearances carried out by regime forces since the beginning of this year targeted refugees who were forcibly deported from Lebanon, as well as refugees returning from Jordan via the Nasib Crossing in southern Daraa governorate, and refugees returning via Damascus International Airport in Damascus city. These detainees are usually taken to regime security and military detention centers in Homs and Damascus governorates. Since the start of 2024, SNHR has documented the Syrian regime’s arrest of 156 of the refugees forcibly deported from Lebanon, including four children and three women.
Meanwhile, in 2024, the SDF has also continued to use enforced disappearance as an instrument to crush any form of political or social dissent, and as a means of tightening its security grip in areas under its control. To achieve these ends, the group established secret detention centers, where detainees are forbidden any contact with the outside world. Our data suggests that the SDF routinely use unproven allegations, such as “affiliation with ISIS”, “security threats”, and “terrorism”, as pretexts to justify the detentions they carry out in a widespread manner. US-led International Coalition forces have even been involved in some of these operations which targeted individuals including children, women, and persons with special needs under the pretext of “failing to inform the authorities”, although the actual goal of these practices is to consolidate control and spread fear in the areas under the SDF’s control. Those detained over these accusations have been forced during interrogation to confess to acts they never committed under the coercion of torture and various threats. They were also denied any opportunity to contact their lawyers either during interrogation or when they were referred to court.
Additionally, the report records that at least 92 individuals were kept under arrest/detained in HTS detention centers between January 2024 and June 2024 over their participation in anti-HTS protests. Meanwhile, armed opposition factions/SNA have also carried out arbitrary arrests/detentions, including of women. Most of these detentions were conducted on a mass scale, targeting individuals coming from areas controlled by the Syrian regime or the SDF. In addition, we documented detentions that exhibited an ethnic character, with these incidents concentrated in areas under the control of the armed opposition factions/SNA in Aleppo governorate. Most of these arrests occurred without judicial authorization and without the participation of the police force, which is the sole legitimate administrative authority responsible for arrests and detentions through the judiciary, as well as being carried out without any clear charges being presented against those being detained. Furthermore, we documented raids and arrests by SNA personnel targeting civilians who were accused of working with the SDF, with these arrests being concentrated in some of the villages which are administratively part of Afrin city in Aleppo governorate.
The report concludes that, based on our database on cases of arbitrary arrest, torture, and enforced disappearance at the hands of regime forces, there is no indication at all of any willingness on the regime’s part to cease torture, or even to introduce the most minimal and basic of measures mentioned above in response to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruling. Furthermore, at least 136,614 people are still arbitrarily detained and/or forcibly disappeared by the regime, and enduring torture in regime detention centers. Despite being responsible for such unimaginably horrific suffering, the Syrian regime has not launched even one investigation into the disappearance or torture of any detainees by its personnel. On the contrary, the regime has enacted ‘laws’ shielding them from accountability.
The report calls on the UN Security Council and the UN to protect tens of thousands of detainees and persons forcibly disappeared by the Syrian regime from the severe risk of dying due to torture, and save those who are still alive. Also, the report calls on the ICJ to take more decisive provisional measures against the Syrian regime in light of the abundance of evidence showing the regime’s lack of commitment to the previous provisional measures, especially considering that the case brought against the Syrian regime before the ICJ is a genuine test of the ICJ’s credibility and power. As such, the report states, the ICJ must take immediate and effective measures to address those violations and ensure the realization of justice and accountability. All possible measure must be taken against the Syrian regime, the report adds, including the UN Security Council issuing a binding resolution calling for ending systematic torture, which constitutes crimes against humanity, and unequivocally condemning the Syrian regime’s breach of the ICJ Order, with the report also making a number of other recommendations.