Mohammad Mahmoud al Thuraya, a 60-year-old retired civil engineer from Tadmur city, who had worked at the state-run Tadmur City Water Administration plant in Homs governorate’s eastern suburbs, was arrested by Syrian regime forces from his home in Homs city early in March 2022 in a raid and taken to an undisclosed location. On March 28, 2022, personnel from the Syrian regime’s political security division notified his family of his death in a regime detention center.
We have received information confirming that he was in good health at the time of his arrest, indicating that he probably died due to torture and neglect of healthcare.
SNHR notes that Syrian regime forces failed to hand Mohammad’s body over to his family; this is standard practice for the regime, with the bodies of the majority of detainees who die in its detention centers being disposed of through mass cremations. Since the whereabouts of these prisoners’ remains is unknown and they are not handed over to their relatives, these detainees continue to be classified as being among the forcibly disappeared.
SNHR can confirm that at least 132,667 Syrian citizens are currently still detained or forcibly disappeared in the regime’s detention centers, constituting a grave threat to the detainees’ wellbeing, particularly given the spread of the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic.
SNHR notes that at least 14,449 Syrian citizens have died due to torture in Syrian regime forces’ detention center.
Photo of the victim Mohammad al Thuraya.
