Syria war: Tens of thousands of detainees still missing, UN says

Tens of thousands of civilians are still missing after being detained arbitrarily during 10 years of civil war in Syria, UN investigators say.

Thousands more have been tortured or killed in custody, according to a new report detailing alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity by all parties.

Victims and witnesses described "unimaginable suffering", including the rape of girls and boys as young as 11.

The issue is a "national trauma" that must be addressed, the report says.

Syria has been devastated by a conflict that erupted after President Bashar al-Assad's government responded with deadly force to peaceful anti-government protests in March 2011.

The fighting has left at least 380,000 people dead and caused half the population to flee their homes, including almost six million refugees abroad.

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The report by the UN Human Rights Council's Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Syria was based on more than 2,650 interviews and investigations into more than 100 detention facilities. It documents violations by almost every major party to the war that were apparently intended to intimidate and punish perceived opponents.

"The government forces' arbitrary detention of political opponents, journalists, human rights activists and demonstrators were both a root cause and a trigger of the conflict," the commission's chairman, Paulo Pinheiro, said.

"Armed groups and UN-designated terrorist organizations such as [Hayat Tahrir al-Sham] and [the Islamic State group] then also started depriving people of their liberty, committing heinous violations against them, often with sectarian undertones."

Former detainees described not seeing daylight for months, being forced to drink unclean water and eat mouldy food, sharing overcrowded cells without a toilet with hundreds of other people, and being denied medical care.

Those who were allegedly tortured or subjected to inhuman treatment in government-run prisons told investigators of at least 20 different methods used by security personnel to extract false confessions.

These included administering electric shocks, the burning of body parts, pulling off nails and teeth, and hanging people from one or two limbs for prolonged periods.

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"They tortured me..., then the interrogator told me: 'We can kill you here and now, nobody will ever know'," recalled a man held by the government in Homs.

Survivors of torture described how they continued to suffer chronic physical pain and severe emotional suffering or post-traumatic stress disorder.

"I cannot live without diapers. I suffer from severe pain all over my body. There is no hope for me. My life is completely ruined," said a woman who alleged that she was tortured and raped at Military Security and Military Intelligence branches in Homs and Damascus.

The report also says detainees were frequently tortured at facilities run by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, the jihadist alliance that dominates the last opposition stronghold in Syria.

Several men described being forced to strip naked, electrocuted on their genitals and raped. Female detainees reported being threatened with rape, and one woman was raped at a checkpoint in Hama.

Investigators were also told about the killings of detainees without trial, or following what the commission said were unfair trials in the government's counter-terrorism and field military courts or makeshift proceedings by opposition armed groups.

The exact number of detainees who have died in detention is unknown. But conservative estimates say tens of thousands of individuals have been killed while in government custody, according to the report.

Multiple sources indicate that, following the registration of deceased detainees at military hospitals, the bodies were buried in various mass graves, including two on the outskirts of Damascus, the report says.

The government and Hayat Tahrir al-Sham have denied torturing prisoners.

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"Hundreds of thousands of family members have a right to the truth about their loved ones' fate," Mr Pinheiro said. "This is a national trauma that needs to be urgently addressed by action from the parties and the international community."

The commission of inquiry is urging all countries to pursue accountability for the crimes, pointing to last week's ground-breaking verdict in Germany, where a former Syrian government security official was found guilty of aiding and abetting crimes against humanity.

It is dark, cold and there is an overpowering smell of death and disease. Nearly 70 men are cramped in a room measuring 3m by 4m - one of hundreds of cells inside Syria's notorious detention centres. The men are skinny, naked and shivering with fear. They have no dignity. Day in day out, death and fear surrounds them till they accept it as normal.

"They used to bring the bodies from the basement and pile them in front of us," says the artist, whom I will call Sami.

"Every day there would be about eight new bodies. After a week I managed to get closer and count the number written on a body's forehead. It was 5,530 - and after a month and a half, the number on another body was 5,870.

"I got used to it. The first night I saw a dead body and smelled it, I felt so sick and sad I couldn't sleep. But later on we were eating while a dead body was next to us. I remember leaning on a dead body and thinking, 'When are they going to remove it so I can have more space?'"

Sami was arrested twice in the years after the Syrian uprising in 2011. His crime was coming from a town, a religious group and a family that had revolted against President Bashar al-Assad.

"I had long curly hair when I was detained for first time. This modern look was a sign for the government that I belong to the co-ordination committees that organised protests. The security officer dragged me by my hair and told his boss, 'We've got one of the co-ordinators sir,'" Sami told me.

"I was picked up on my way to work, my head was covered and I was put in a car. I don't know where they took me but they put me in a hall while my hands were tied with wires. They started beating me up madly. Then I reached the detention centre. I was bleeding, bones broken, ears damaged so that I couldn't hear properly. The place was like Dante's inferno. You are constantly tortured and you hear the cries of people being tortured. I was kept in the basement maybe seven storeys down."

https://dunandkonflik.medium.com/syria-war-tens-of-thousands-of-detainees-still-missing-un-says-6bb33f28db6f

Sami's second period of detention was even worse. He spent three months in a detention cell before being referred to terrorism court, set up under an anti-terrorism law issued in 2012. He was accused of inciting terrorism and threatening state security. He was imprisoned awaiting trial for nine months.

Eventually, Sami was able to bribe his way out. He paid nearly $15,000 to get out of prison and later out of the country.

"Your family pays money to find a key person inside the detention cells who can help keep you alive," he says. "Money is paid so that prisoners are transferred from a detention cell to prison, where they are referred to the terrorism court."

His wife, Fidaa (not her real name) had the difficult job of finding the right person to bribe. It took $3,000 simply to find out where Sami was being held.

Then she had to pay money to ensure that Sami would not continue to be tortured. One of the people who promised to help ensure Sami's release disappeared after a week, forcing her to look for another contact who might help.