A man from al Sheikh Maskin city in the northern suburbs of Daraa governorate, named as Ammar Muhammad Sa’ed al Din al Khalaf, who defected from Syrian regime forces and was formerly a fighter with Armed Opposition factions, was arrested by Syrian regime forces in 2018 after having agreed on a settlement, and returned to the area where he performed his compulsory military service. Since then, he has been classified as forcibly disappeared, with the Syrian regime denying his arrest and preventing anyone, even a lawyer, from visiting him. On March 6, 2021, his family was informed by the Civil Registry office in the city of his death. SNHR data from numerous sources confirms that he was in good health at the time of his arrest, indicating that he probably died due to torture in a regime detention center.
SNHR can confirm that at least 131,106 Syrian citizens are still detained or forcibly disappeared in the regime’s detention centers, constituting a grave threat to the detainees’ wellbeing, given the spread of the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic.
SNHR notes that at least 14,315 Syrian citizens have died due to torture in Syrian regime forces’ detention center.
