At least 112,414 individuals who were forcibly disappeared by the Assad regime are most likely dead, according to the Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR).
The rights group says that despite the thousands of detainees being released following the fall of the regime, many are still missing and were probably killed by the regime.
The group said that of the 136,614 individuals it recorded as detained or forcibly disappeared in its database, only 24,000 have been released.
Speaking to Anadolu Agency, Fadel Abdul Ghany, chairman of the SNHR, said the individuals unaccounted for “were most likely killed”.
He says that the people are still classified as “forcibly disappeared” since their bodies have not been returned to their families, and their fates are unknown.
SNHR says that an overwhelming majority of forcibly disappeared people either died from torture or brutal detention or were executed.
The group said that thousands of the disappeared were registered as dead from 2018 onwards without returning their bodies or properly informing their families of the details of their deaths.
Many of the victims were killed and buried in mass graves, some of which were uncovered following Assad’s fall, without their families being informed.
“Only a few mass graves have been uncovered, and there are rumours of many more,” Abdul Ghany said.
Many of those disappeared have been missing since Assad’s forces brutally cracked down on anti-regime protests, when thousands of people were detained.
During the Syrian rebel offensive which resulted in the capture of Damascus and other major Syrian cities, thousands of detainees were freed . The 61-year dictatorship of the Baath regime fell on 8 December, allowing families desperately searching for their loved ones to access the former regime’s jails.
Hundreds of thousands of Syrians however have been unable to find their loved ones.
Syria’s interim authorities announced that all surviving prisoners had been liberated, but many family members are desperately clinging to hope that their loved ones may still be alive.
