UN official: We support the establishment of an international mechanism to determine the fate of the missing in Syria
A UN official at the Human Rights Council expressed support for the call for the establishment of an independent international mechanism to highlight the issue of missing persons during the conflict in Syria.
The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet, said, during her statements on the tenth anniversary of the war in Syria, that the problem of the missing there, “which was really worrisome before 2011”, took on an urgent nature with the start of the conflict.
Bachelet explained that the vast majority of the victims are men, which puts the burden of ensuring survival on the shoulders of women who face reprisals when they try to collect information about the missing from the Assad regime.
The High Commissioner added that “some individuals target these families by offering to provide information about their relatives or release them in exchange for money,” adding that “enforced disappearance is a continuous crime that has devastating effects on the individual of unknown fate and on his family members, which causes extended trauma to them and limits them.
In large part from exercising their human rights ”.
And she continued, “As we pass this tragic stage, I also call on all parties to the conflict, as well as states that have influence over them, to put an end to arbitrary arrests and enforced disappearances and to ensure the immediate release of arbitrary detainees.”
In early March, the UN Commission of Inquiry on Crimes in Syria revealed that the fate of tens of thousands of detainees or forcibly disappeared persons, whether by the Assad regime or by other controlling powers, is still unknown, and described the case as a “national trauma” that will affect the Syrian society for decades.
