The two brothers from al Boukamal city in the eastern suburbs of Deir Ez-Zour suburbs, named as Tareq and Taher Ziad Sheikhou, were arrested by Syrian Democratic Forces on February 26, 2021, as they were passing through a checkpoint in Tal Abyad Street in the center of Raqqa city and taken to an undisclosed location.
SNHR notes that no other members of the detainees’ family were informed of their arrest or whereabouts, with their phones being confiscated, preventing them from contacting their other family members. SNHR fears that they will be subjected to torture and ultimately classified as forcibly ‘disappeared’, like approximately 85 percent of all detained persons in Syria.
We can confirm that at least 3,398 Syrian citizens are still detained or forcibly disappeared in the SDF’s detention centers, constituting a grave threat to the detainees’ wellbeing, given the spread of the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic.
