The Syrian National Army carried out raids on the villages of Mestika and Aranda, which are administratively a part of Afrin city in the northern suburbs of Aleppo governorate, on December 22, 2020. SNHR has documented that ten civilians were arrested in the raids and taken to an undisclosed location.
We note that no members of the detainees’ families have been informed of their arrests, with the phones of those detained civilians being confiscated, preventing them from contacting their families. SNHR fears that they will be subjected to torture and ultimately classified as forcibly ‘disappeared’, like approximately 85 percent of all detained persons.
SNHR notes that about 3,262 Syrian citizens are still detained or forcibly disappeared in the Armed Opposition’s detention centers, constituting a grave threat to their wellbeing given the spread of the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic.
