The Action Group for the Palestinians of Syria said that the Palestinian refugees in Syria have been subjected to a systematic mass displacement since the start of the revolution. It reiterated calls for the release Palestinian-Syrians from the prisons of the Assad regime and the closure of the fates of hundreds of others currently in the prisons of the Assad regime.
In a report it published on the occasion of World Refugee Day, the Group said that it has compiled a list of the names of 1,758 Palestinian-Syrians who the Assad regime has detained since the beginning of the Syrian revolution in 2011.
The report said that the number of detainees and victims of torture could be much higher in view of the Assad regime’s refusal to give information on detainees in its prisons. In addition, some families of the detainees and victims of torture choose to remain silent for fear of reprisal by the Assad regime.
The London-based monitoring group went on to say that the majority of the arrests took place at regime checkpoints and during house-to-house raids by the Assad regime forces.
Obtaining information about the whereabouts of the detainees is impossible, the report added. In many cases, the Assad regime’s security forces would notify relatives of the deceased detainees to receive the bodies from the regime-run hospitals.
According to the report, more than 150,000 Palestinian-Syrians have fled Syria out of 650,000 who lived in the country before the outbreak of the Syrian revolution. It noted that more than 60 percent of Palestinian-Syrians have been internally displaced at least once.
The World Refugee Day, which falls on June 20 of every year, is dedicated to discuss the issues of refugees and people whose lives are at risk as well as to highlight the suffering of refugees and discuss ways to provide them with assistance under the auspices of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees. (Source: Syrian Coalition’s Media Department)
