Syria’s forced disappearances: No relief for grieving families

Thousands of people who vanished during former Syrian president Bashar al-Assad's reign are still missing, a month after the regime's collapse. While some families have been reunited after the release of the regime's prisoners, others are desperately searching. Four families told FRANCE 24 the stories of their loved ones' forced disappearances.

136,000. That’s the number of people – men, women and children – who disappeared under the Assad dictatorship. This tragedy touches almost every family in Syria.

After the fall of the regime on December 8, 2024, many of these families rushed to prisons, hospitals and morgues in the hopes of finding their loved ones – dead or alive.

While some have been lucky enough to arrive at the end of their harrowing journey, others continue to look for traces, however small, of people they have had no news of for years.

Only an estimated 24,000 people on the list of the more than 136,000 missing have been released from prison, according to the Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR), an NGO that documents the abuses committed by the regime since 2011.

But the families refuse to give up hope.

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