Determined to know the fate of their loved ones, relatives of Syrians who went missing under the Assad regime protested in Damascus on Friday.
Some of those detained under Assad were freed following his ouster. But since then, the majority of those missing have not been accounted for.
Among those calling for truth and justice is Wafa Mustafa, whose father was imprisoned during Assad’s rule.
“Our search for our loved ones did not stop yet. It will not end until we find the full truth of what happened to them. We accept nothing less than knowing all details related to what happened to them, who is responsible for their detention? Who tortured them? If they were killed, unfortunately, who killed them? And where they were buried,” Mustafa says.
Prisons under the Assad regime were notorious for their inhumane conditions. Human rights groups and former detainees say torture was widespread – a prospect which has long disturbed the relatives of those who disappeared.
“I saw how they tortured young men, how they put them in cages and tortured them. My son was among them, then he disappeared. I call upon the entire world to find out where our sons are. My son has been missing for 12 years. He was 16 years old (meaning 18 years old when they detained him), where is he?,” says Marah Allawi, the mother of a missing detainee.
Last year, the UN set up an independent body in a bid to discover the fate of missing Syrians.
According to the Syrian Network for Human Rights, more than 100,000 went missing since 2011.