The Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR) said that it has recorded nearly 71,000 cases of enforced disappearance over the past four years in Syria. The figure included over 4,100 children and 2,377 women, according to the rights group.
The SNHR released a report on the occasion of the International Day of Victims of Enforced Disappearances today, the report was titled: “Extensive Pain,” and in it the SNHR says that since the start of the revolution in 2011, the Assad regime has resorted to enforced disappearance; a practice of terrorizing and intimidating the Syrian people into submission. The report cited the cases of at least 17,000 people in Syria between 1979 and 1982 who were forcibly disappeared at the hands of the Assad regime prior to and during the Hama Massacre.
Enforced disappearance in Syria is not limited to political dissidents or opposition activists, but also women, children and the elderly have been subjected to the practice, the report adds.
The report also says that the United Nations Declaration on the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in 1992 describes the practice as a crime. Enforced disappearance also breaches the Geneva Conventions of 1949. (Source: Syrian Coalition)
