The Syrian Network for Human Rights says the fall of the Assad regime has not closed one of Syria’s gravest files, calling for a nationwide effort to locate the missing, preserve evidence and hold perpetrators accountable.
More than 177,000 people remain forcibly disappeared in Syria more than fifteen years after the start of the conflict, according to the Syrian Network for Human Rights, which warned that determining their fate has become an urgent test for the country’s transitional justice process.
In its annual report marking the International Day of the Victims of Enforced Disappearances, the rights group said at least 177,021 people, including 4,536 children and 8,984 women, have remained forcibly disappeared since March 2011.
The report, Fifteen Years of Enforced Disappearance in Syria: Families’ Right to the Truth Remains an Ongoing Obligation, also documented the deaths of at least 45,365 people as a result of torture or inhumane detention conditions over the same period. Of those, 45,038 died in detention facilities run by the former Assad regime.
The network stressed that its figures represent minimum estimates, meaning the true scale of enforced disappearance and deaths in detention is likely to be significantly higher than the number of cases it has been able to document.
The organisation described enforced disappearance as one of the central instruments of repression employed by the Assad government following the outbreak of protests in 2011. Arbitrary detention and disappearance were carried out on a wide scale against protesters and individuals regarded as actual or suspected opponents of the government.
The detention system was accompanied by torture, sexual violence, denial of medical care, unlawful killings and deaths caused by inhumane conditions, while families were systematically denied reliable information about the fate and whereabouts of detainees.
The network also documented serious abuses by other parties to the Syrian conflict, including cases that met the legal criteria for enforced disappearance, as well as arbitrary detention, abduction and hostage-taking. It nevertheless emphasised substantial differences in the scale, patterns and attribution of violations committed by the former Assad regime and those committed by other actors.
Regime’s fall leaves disappearance cases unresolved
The overthrow of the Assad government on 8 December 2024 did not end the disappearance crisis, the network said. Under international law, enforced disappearance is considered a continuing violation for as long as the fate or whereabouts of the missing person remain unknown.
Syria must therefore move from a period dominated by documentation, much of it conducted under severe restrictions, towards systematic efforts to determine the fate of the missing. That process should include securing former detention sites, protecting evidence, locating and documenting mass graves, examining government archives and connecting databases and sources of information that were previously fragmented.
The issue presents both a humanitarian and judicial challenge for Syria’s new authorities. Thousands of families have spent more than a decade without knowing whether relatives are alive or dead. Many have been unable to hold funerals, obtain reliable death certificates, settle inheritance cases or resolve other legal and civil matters.
The network said the definition of a victim should extend beyond the disappeared person to include relatives and others who suffered direct harm as a result of the disappearance. It called for families to be placed at the centre of all efforts to locate the missing and for any system established to provide transparency while maintaining confidentiality and protecting personal data. Particular consideration should be given to women, children and other groups facing heightened vulnerability.
Evidence at risk
The report warned that vital evidence could be lost through destruction, removal, tampering or inadequate protection of former detention facilities and mass graves. It called for a comprehensive national and international programme to identify former detention centres and safeguard security, military, judicial and civil archives that could help determine what happened to detainees.
Mass grave sites should be documented and secured under established rules governing the chain of custody of evidence. Forensic specialists, including forensic anthropologists and DNA experts, will be needed on a large scale to identify human remains and reconnect them with missing-person cases.
The network urged coordination between Syrian institutions dealing with missing persons, the UN-backed Independent Institution on Missing Persons in the Syrian Arab Republic, international organisations, civil society groups, judicial authorities and forensic bodies. It cautioned, however, that cooperation between truth-seeking efforts and criminal accountability mechanisms should not result in the automatic transfer of sensitive information. Data-sharing procedures, it said, must be designed to avoid creating additional risks for survivors, witnesses or relatives of disappeared people.
Possible crimes against humanity
The report said patterns documented in Syria could amount to the crime against humanity of enforced disappearance where the necessary legal elements are established before a competent judicial body. It cited Article 7 of the Rome Statute and other relevant international legal standards.
Syria has not joined the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance. The network called on the Syrian authorities to ratify the convention and establish enforced disappearance as a separate criminal offence under domestic law. It also called for independent investigations into disappearances, arbitrary deprivation of life, torture and deaths in detention.
Where evidentiary and legal thresholds are met, investigations should extend beyond direct perpetrators to those who ordered, incited or facilitated crimes, as well as commanders and officials who may bear responsibility under international criminal law.
Fadel Abdul Ghany, executive director of the Syrian Network for Human Rights, said the search for the missing could not be separated from accountability. Every disappearance, he said, raises questions about who carried out the arrest, where the person was held, who issued and supervised the relevant orders, and what ultimately happened to the victim. Families, he added, have a right not only to information, but also to remedy, reparations and accountability.
Pressure on Damascus to make missing persons a national priority
The network urged the Syrian government to make the fate of the missing and forcibly disappeared an urgent national priority and a central component of the transitional justice process. It called for the national body responsible for missing persons to be given institutional independence, sufficient funding and the legal authority required to obtain access to archives, records, former prisons and burial sites.
The government should also establish secure systems for managing missing-person data and create a national DNA programme based on free and informed consent. Other recommendations included protecting witnesses, survivors and whistleblowers, preserving former detention facilities and mass graves, and opening independent investigations conducted according to fair-trial standards.
The network also called on Syrian prosecutors and courts to prioritise cases involving enforced disappearance and deaths in detention and to strengthen international judicial cooperation.
For the United Nations and international donors, it called for sustained political, technical and financial support for missing-person programmes, including forensic work, DNA analysis, criminal investigations, archival preservation and the protection of mass grave sites. It urged UN member states to continue pursuing Syrian enforced-disappearance cases under universal jurisdiction where legally possible.
The network also warned against allowing the fate of Syria’s missing to become a bargaining chip in political negotiations. Donor states, it said, should commit to long-term funding for missing-person programmes for at least five years, arguing that determining the fate of more than 177,000 people will require a sustained institutional effort rather than a short-term humanitarian response.
Fifteen years after enforced disappearance became one of the defining features of Syria’s conflict, the organisation said the central obligation remains unchanged: families have a right to know what happened to their relatives, while the evidence needed to establish the truth must be protected before it disappears with them.
