Thameen Al-Keetan, an official of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner of Human Rights (OHCHR) stated in Geneva, eleven months after the overthrow of the previous government in Syria that they are still getting disturbing reports of dozens of abductions and forced disappearances.
The OHCHR has reported a minimum of 97 kidnappings or losses since January, yet it has claimed that the actual amount was probably greater.
The most recent ones are added to over 100,000 individuals who had disappeared during the reign of ousted President Bashar al-Assad, Al-Keetan said.
This was achieved by the 11-day offensives that Islamist rebels Hayat Tahrir al-Sham conducted last year ousting Assad and ending the 13-year civil war in the country. The majority of the Syrians are currently seeking justice on violations perpetrated during the past administration even in its infamous prison system.
According to the OHCHR, although there are families that have been reunited with their missing relatives since the fall of Assad, there are still those that are still unaware of the fate of their loved ones.
The U.N. human rights office statement indicated that the tense security environment including fresh violence in the coastal regions and the southern city of Sweida has complicated the process of finding missing persons in the country because some witnesses are afraid to testify.
According to al-Keetan, a number of people were threatened because they had talked to the U.N. representatives.
The OHCHR has also called on respect of international law, concerning the case of the Syria Civil Defense volunteer Hamza Al-Amarin, who was missing since July 16 when he was helping facilitate humanitarian evacuation amid fighting in Sweida.
In May, the presidency of Syria stated that it established justice and missing persons commissions to probe the crimes carried out by the Assad family in its decades of rule.
