On October 27, 2021, Syrian National Army personnel arrested three civilians, two of them women, from the same family, in Ghazawiya village, which is administratively a part of Afrin city in the northern suburbs of Aleppo governorate, on charges of dealing with Syrian Democratic Forces and took them to undisclosed location.
SNHR notes that no other members of the detainees’ family were informed of their arrests or whereabouts, with their phones being confiscated, preventing them from contacting 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.
SNHR demands that financial and therapeutic compensation be provided to the victims and their families, as well as insisting on an end to all arbitrary arrests which aim to spread terror among Syrians and to the blackmail of families, and we further demand that the fates of thousands of people disappeared by all factions of the Armed Opposition/ Syrian National Army be revealed as we have serious concern for the detainees’ wellbeing, particularly given the spread of the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic.
