Two brothers from Hasaka city, named as Mahmoud and Hamed Khalaf al Atiyah, were arrested on September 22, 2021, by Syrian Democratic Forces personnel in raids on their homes in the city’s al Nasera neighborhood and taken to an undisclosed location.
SNHR notes that no members of the detainees’ families were informed of their arrest or whereabouts, with their phones being confiscated, preventing them from contacting their family. 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 3,817 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.
