Syria: Up to 300,000 'Disappeared' in the Last 55 Years

A Syrian committee for the missing estimates that 120,000 to 300,000 people have disappeared in Syria in the last 55 years. The investigation begins in 1970, when Hafez al-Assad took power.

Tens of thousands of people were arrested or disappeared after the outbreak of the civil war in 2011. Bashar al-Assad was overthrown in December 2024 by a coalition of Islamist rebels.

Mohammad Reda Jalhi, head of the committee, said that 63 mass graves have been recorded in Syria and efforts are being made to create a database of the missing. The International Committee of the Red Cross has registered and is searching for 43,000 people, a number considered smaller than the total number of missing.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reports that over 100,000 people have died in detention, due to torture or poor prison conditions, during the civil war.