It is difficult to grasp the sheer magnitude of enforced disappearances in Syria. According to recent estimates, since 2011 over 150,000 Syrians have been disappeared or arbitrarily detained (out of a total population of around 17 million), most of them by the regime. By comparison, during the Argentinian military dictatorship from 1976 to 1983, the estimated total of desaparecidos was 30,000 (Argentina had a population of around 27 million at the time).
What is more, the regime is known to brutally torture those who vanish inside its industrial-scale secret prison system. One of the most notorious locations is the Saydnaya military prison 30 kilometres north of Damascus. Human rights group Amnesty International and a team of forensic architects from Goldsmiths, University of London reconstructed the Saydnaya complex for an international audience in 2017. No recent photographs exist, so they had to rely exclusively on former detainees’ recollections.
The picture that emerges is truly shocking: prisoners are kept in darkness and complete silence; they are routinely beaten, and many die from starvation or lack of medical care. There is severe overcrowding, meaning that as many as 50 people may be crammed into a cell of nine square metres. It is estimated that between 2011 and 2017 alone, as many as 13,000 people were arbitrarily sentenced to death and executed in Saydnaya.
Since August 2013, when a military forensic photographer codenamed Caesar defected and smuggled over 50,000 images out of Syria, we also know that the regime meticulously documents its crimes.
The corpses depicted in Caesar’s photographs – prisoners who died in captivity – had been assigned three numbers: a number indicating the detention facility where they were held; a detainee number from said facility; and a death number issued by the forensic doctor who examined the body.
Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands of government documents smuggled out of Syria indicate that Bashar al-Assad himself oversees the chain of command of state torture and enforced disappearances.
It is also worth bearing in mind that these are far from the only gross abuses committed by the regime: in June, the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) concluded in its briefing to the UN Security Council that Assad’s forces likely used chemical weapons on at least 17 occasions. Rights groups have further slammed the regime and its Russian allies for deliberately bombing hospitals, schools, and other civilian infrastructure in rebel-held areas, in clear violation of international humanitarian law.
Source: opendemocracy
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