Nearly 100 people abducted or disappeared in Syria since January, says UN

By Olivia Le Poidevin

GENEVA (Reuters) -Nearly 100 people have been recorded as abducted or disappeared in Syria since the start of the year, with reports of new enforced disappearances continuing, the U.N. human rights office said on Friday.

“Eleven months since the fall of the former government in Syria, we continue to receive worrying reports about dozens of abductions and enforced disappearances,” spokesperson for the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) Thameen Al-Keetan told reporters in Geneva.

The OHCHR has documented at least 97 people who have been abducted or disappeared since January this year, and said it was difficult to ascertain an accurate figure.

The latest number is in addition to the more than 100,000 people who went missing under ousted President Bashar al-Assad, Al-Keetan said.

Assad was toppled by Islamist rebels Hayat Tahrir al-Sham last year in a rapid 11-day offensive that ended a 13-year civil war. Many Syrians want to see accountability for abuses suffered under the former government, including in a notorious dungeon-like prison system.

Though some families have been reunited with their loved ones since the fall of Assad, many still do not know the fate of their relatives, the OHCHR said.

The U.N. human rights office said that the volatile security situation in Syria, following outbreaks of violence in coastal areas and the southern city of Sweida, made it difficult to find and trace missing persons as some are scared to speak.

Some people faced threats for speaking to the U.N., Al-Keetan added.

The OHCHR had raised the case of the disappearance of the Syria Civil Defense volunteer Hamza Al-Amarin, who went missing on July 16 while supporting a humanitarian evacuation mission during violence in Sweida, and called for international law to be respected.

In May Syria’s presidency announced that Syria will set up commissions for justice and missing persons tasked with probing crimes committed during the rule of the Assad family.

(Reporting by Olivia Le PoidevinEditing by Peter Graff)