A man from Ghreibet al Gharbiya village in the northern suburbs of Deir Ez-Zour governorate, named as Khader Amlah Su’oud al Dahham, was arrested by Syrian regime forces in September 2021, as he was passing through the checkpoint known as the ‘Panorama checkpoint’ near the southern entrance to Deir Ez-Zour city. Since then, he has been classified as forcibly disappeared, with the Syrian regime denying his arrest and preventing anyone, even a lawyer, from visiting him. On January 13, 2022, a Syrian regime forces officer informed Khader’s family of his death in a detention center in Damascus city. SNHR’s data from numerous sources confirms that he was in good health at the time of his arrest, indicating that he probably died due to torture and lack of health care.
SNHR has received confirmation that Syrian regime forces failed to hand over his body 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’ remain unknown and they are not returned to their families, these detainees continue to be classified as being among the forcibly disappeared.
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.
SNHR notes that at least 14,360 Syrian citizens have died due to torture in Syrian regime forces’ detention centers.
