The head of Syria’s commission for missing people said more than 300,000 may have disappeared since the 1970s, when the country was under Assad family rule.
The commission estimates between 120,000 and 300,000 people have gone missing between 1970, when Hafez Al Assad took power, and the present day. “It could be more,” Mohammed Reda Jalkhi, head of the body created in May, told state news agency Sana on Monday.
Tens of thousands of people were disappeared or detained during the Syrian civil war, which broke out in 2011 after a brutal crackdown on anti-government protests. The country was ruled at that time by Hafez’s son, Bashar Al Assad.
Under Assad family rule, Syria operated a notorious detention system, which included Sednaya prison, known for disappearing people without a trace. The Assad regime was toppled in December by a lightning offensive led by Hayat Tahrir Al Sham.
The new government in Damascus, led by President Ahmad Al Shara, has vowed to deliver justice for the atrocities committed by the Assad regime. During the civil war, all sides were accused of carrying out attacks on civilians.
“We have a map that includes more than 63 documented mass graves in Syria,” Mr Jalkhi said, without providing details on their locations, who dug them, or who was thought to be buried there. He added that work was under way to establish a data bank for missing people.
He said a national conference would be held on the needs and rights of the families of missing people, to bring together Syrian and international organisations. He said Syrian personnel had been granted European scholarships in forensic medicine and documentation.
He stressed that the work of the commission was “essential to the process of transitional justice and civil peace” and described the issue of missing people as “one of the most complicated and painful in Syria
By The National
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