On October 9, 2021, Syrian regime forces personnel arrested four women and a child, all from Hama city, as they were passing through a checkpoint in Kwaires town in the eastern suburbs of Aleppo governorate heading from Hama city to the suburbs of Aleppo governorate which is controlled by factions from the Armed Opposition, and taken to an undisclosed location.
The arrests were conducted without any legal arrest warrants being issued by a court, with no members of the detainees’ families being informed of their arrests or whereabouts, and with their phones being confiscated, preventing them from contacting their families or lawyers. 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.
SNHR can confirm that at least 131,469 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.
