The Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR) has reported that the Assad regime has officially recorded at least 1,614 forcibly disappeared individuals as deceased in civil registry departments. The SNHR highlights that approximately 96,000 people remain missing in the regime’s prisons, emphasizing the continued barbaric treatment of the forcibly disappeared.
In a recent Sunday release, the SNHR disclosed that the Assad regime registered Moaz and Qusay Burhan, two prominent activist brothers who were forcibly disappeared in its detention centers, as deceased in civil registry departments.
The report underscored the regime’s ongoing brutal approach to dealing with the forcibly disappeared since 2018. Not only has it failed to account for nearly 96,000 missing Syrian citizens, some absent for years, but it has also, since 2018, officially recorded numerous cases as dead in civil registry departments—often without notifying their families.
On November 9, the SNHR obtained a document confirming the death of the Burhan brothers through the Civil Registry Department in the Damascus Countryside. The document indicates Qusay’s death on January 31, 2014, and Moaz’s death on February 16, 2014, with minimal details—a common trend in the majority of death records for forcibly disappeared persons.
The Syrian Opposition Coalition (SOC) has condemned the Assad regime’s persistent policies of kidnapping and forced disappearance, branding them as systematic warfare against the Syrian people. The SOC urges the UN Security Council to enforce relevant resolutions and calls for adherence to the Universal Declaration for the Protection of Persons from Enforced Disappearance. This includes revealing the circumstances and fate of disappeared individuals, implementing measures to locate and release them, determining the location of remains in the event of death, and ensuring the right to compensation for material and moral damages. The SOC emphasizes the importance of preventing the recurrence of such crimes.
(Source: SOC’s Media Department)
