The SNHR has briefed the UN Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances on the case of the citizen Mahmoud Omar Qawas, from Kafr Lata village in Jabal al Zaweya area in the southern suburbs of Idlib governorate, who was born in 1970. He was arrested on Tuesday, January 1, 2013, by gunmen affiliated with the Syrian Regime’s Military Security forces as he was heading from Kafr Lata village to Lebanon while passing through one of their checkpoints on the Harasta International Damascus-Homs Highway. He was last seen in 2017 by a former detainee in the General Intelligence Forces’ Branch in Damascus city. His fate remains unknown to the SNHR, as well as to his family.
The Syrian authorities have denied any connection with the disappearance of Mahmoud Omar Qawas. The SNHR has been unable to determine his fate, as have his family members, who fear that they may be arrested and tortured by regime personnel themselves if they continue to ask about his whereabouts and fate, as has happened in numerous previous cases.