{"id":226069,"date":"2019-08-07T22:52:11","date_gmt":"2019-08-08T02:52:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=226069"},"modified":"2019-08-07T22:52:11","modified_gmt":"2019-08-08T02:52:11","slug":"un-official-says-over-100000-detained-and-missing-in-syria","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2019\/08\/07\/un-official-says-over-100000-detained-and-missing-in-syria\/","title":{"rendered":"UN official says over 100,000 detained and missing in Syria"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Rosemary DiCarlo urged all parties to heed the Security Council’s call for the release of all those arbitrarily detained, and to provide information to families about their loved ones as required by international law. (File Photo<\/a>: @UN\/Twitter<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Reports suggest that more than 100,000 people in Syria have been detained, abducted or gone missing during the eight-year conflict, with the government mainly responsible, the U.N. political chief said Wednesday.<\/p>\n

Rosemary DiCarlo urged all parties to heed the Security Council’s call for the release of all those arbitrarily detained, and to provide information to families about their loved ones as required by international law.<\/p>\n

She told the Security Council that the U.N. can’t verify the figure of more than 100,000 because it has been unable to gain access to places of detention and detainees in Syria. She said its information comes from accounts corroborated by the Commission of Inquiry on Syria authorized by the U.N. Human Rights Council and human rights organizations since the conflict started in 2011.<\/p>\n

DiCarlo also reiterated U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres’ call for the Syria conflict to be referred to the International Criminal Court, saying accountability for serious violations of international human rights and humanitarian law \u201cis central to achieving and maintaining durable peace in Syria.\u201d<\/p>\n

DiCarlo spoke at an open meeting following the Security Council’s unanimous approval in June of its first-ever resolution focused on the many thousands of people missing in conflicts around the world. The International Committee of the Red Cross, which was mandated by the 1949 Geneva Conventions to address and oversee the issue of missing persons in conflicts, said it registered over 45,000 missing cases in countries around the world in 2018 alone.<\/p>\n

The council meeting, initially requested by the United States, offered a rare opportunity for the U.N.’s most powerful body to hear directly from families of the detained.<\/p>\n

Dr. Hala Al Ghawi and Amina Khoulani, who both campaign for freedom and justice for Syrian detainees, criticized the council for its failure to end the war and urged its deeply divided members to adopt a new resolution to pressure all warring parties to reveal the names and whereabouts of all those detained \u2014 and release all those arbitrarily detained.<\/p>\n

Al Ghawi said she left Syria at the end of 2011 after her husband was detained and held in a cell \u201cso tiny that he didn’t have space to sit down.\u201d He was released but she said her brother, father-in-law and some cousins remain missing.<\/p>\n

Al Ghawi said many medical colleagues were also detained by the Syrian government for helping wounded protesters, and \u201csome of them were killed under torture while in detention.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAs families, we have suffered enough and I’m here today to urge you to act,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

She said the council must pass a resolution to put pressure on the Syrian government and all warring sides to immediately release a list of detainees, \u201cto immediately stop torture and mistreatment,\u201d and in the case of death provide \u201ca report on the real causes of death and burial location\u201d to the families.<\/p>\n

Khoulani, whose three brothers were taken by the Syrian government eight years ago, said they all died in detention and she herself was imprisoned for six months, \u201carrested by the Air Force Intelligence Branch for my peaceful activism.\u201d Her husband was detained in a military prison for 2 1\/2 years, and \u201cwe were both lucky to survive, but many others weren’t as lucky.\u201d<\/p>\n

Khoulani said that while the majority of the missing were detained by the Syrian government, armed opposition and extremist groups like the Islamic State group \u201care also guilty of detention and disappearance.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe United Nations Security Council has utterly failed Syrian detainees and their families,\u201d she said. \u201cIt’s your responsibility to protect Syrians from a system that kills, tortures, and illegally detains its own citizens, in systematic violation of international law.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Reports suggest that more than 100,000 people in Syria have been detained, abducted or gone missing during the eight-year conflict, …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":226070,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-226069","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","category-news-w","mauthors-edith-m-lederer","mauthors-the-associated-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/226069","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=226069"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/226069\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":226071,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/226069\/revisions\/226071"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/226070"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=226069"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=226069"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=226069"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}