Bervan Foad Ismail, a woman who works as a media worker with the Kurdish National Council, and Fawwaz Saleh Bankou, a man who is a member of the Kurdish Democratic Unity Party in Syria (Yekiti), were arrested on June 10, 2024, by Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) personnel who raided their houses in their home city of Amouda in northern Hasaka governorate. They were then taken to an undisclosed location.
The Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR) notes that they have not been allowed to contact their families. We are concerned that they may be subjected to torture in detention and may go on to become another enforced disappearance cases, with 85% of all those detained in Syria falling into this category.
We call for the provision of both material and moral reparations for the victims of such detentions and for their families, and call on all parties to put an end to all arbitrary detentions whose only purpose is to spread mass fear and extort people.
We also call on the SDF to reveal the fate of thousands of people forcibly disappeared at its hands.
