SyriaAssad government profits from a policy of enforced disappearances – 65,000 disappeared so far

A new report by Amnesty International reveals the vast scale and chillingly orchestrated nature of tens of thousands of enforced disappearances by the Syrian government over the past four years. The report was published yesterday.

The report, Between prison and the grave: Enforced disappearances in Syria, reveals that the state is profiting from widespread and systematic enforced disappearances amounting to crimes against humanity, through an insidious black market in which family members desperate to find out the fates of their disappeared relatives are ruthlessly exploited for cash.

“The government’s enforced disappearances are part of a coldly calculated, widespread attack against the civilian population. These are crimes against humanity, part of a carefully orchestrated campaign designed to spread terror and quash the slightest sign of dissent across the country,” said Philip Luther, director of Amnesty International’s Middle East and North Africa Program.

“This report describes in heart-breaking detail the devastation and trauma of the families of the tens of thousands of people who have vanished without trace in Syria, and their cruel exploitation for financial gain.”

The scale of the disappearances is harrowing. The Syrian Network for Human Rights has documented at least 65,000 disappearances since 2011 — 58,000 of them civilians. Those taken are usually held in overcrowded detention cells in appalling conditions and cut off from the outside world. Many die as a result of rampant disease, torture and extrajudicial execution.

Amnesty says that enforced disappearances have become so entrenched in Syria they have given rise to a black market in which “middlemen” or “brokers” are paid bribes ranging from hundreds to tens of thousands of dollars, by family members desperate to find out the whereabouts of their loved ones or whether they are even still alive. Such bribes have become “a big part of the economy” according to one Syrian human rights activist. A lawyer from Damascus also told Amnesty International the bribes are “a cash cow for the regime… a source of funding they have come to rely on.”

Those forcibly disappeared include peaceful opponents of the government such as demonstrators, human rights activists, journalists, doctors, and humanitarian workers. Others have been targeted because they are believed to be disloyal to the government or because their relatives are wanted by the authorities.