The Secretary General of the United Nations Organization (UN), António Guterres, defended on Tuesday the creation of a new international institution to find the whereabouts of disappeared citizens, at a time when the fate of thousands of Syrians is unknown.
Speaking at an informal UN General Assembly meeting on Syria, Guterres said the Syrian people deserve hope for the future after 12 years of suffering the “brutalities of war, systematic atrocities, oppressive deprivation and large-scale human suffering.” .
“They deserve to know the truth about the fate of their loved ones. Justice demands it, peace and reconciliation depend on it. This is the heart of the problem of detained, kidnapped and disappeared people. The whereabouts and fate of around 100,000 Syrians remain undiscovered,” the UN leader said.
According to António Guterres, people in all parts of Syria have friends or relatives who have disappeared, forcibly disappeared, been kidnapped, tortured and arbitrarily detained.
Most of the disappeared are men, leaving the women alone to “maintain their families in impossible conditions” while at the same time carrying out “the search -often terrifying and treacherous- for their children, husbands, brothers or fathers”, said.
“We must work to resolve this deeply painful situation with determination and urgency,” he urged.
In this regard, the former Portuguese Prime Minister recalled his report last August, in which he outlined the framework for a solution: the creation by the UN General Assembly of a new international institution to clarify the fate and whereabouts of the disappeared and provide support to the victims and their families.
“I call on all member states to act and urge the Syrian government and all parties to the conflict to cooperate. It is essential to help Syrians recover and remove obstacles to ensure a sustainable peace,” he said.
He concluded: “It breaks my heart to see such warm and welcoming people suffer so much. The international community has a moral obligation to help alleviate their plight. I urge the creation of an institution focused on the needs and rights of victims, survivors and their families. Let us fulfill this obligation. Let us restore some hope, dignity and justice to the Syrian people.”
The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Turk, also spoke about the situation in Syria, noting that although 100,000 is the indicative number of missing persons, “the real number could be much higher.”
“Families on all sides of this conflict have been devastated. I am here (…) to amplify their voices. It is such a simple and deeply human need and it is also the right of these people to know the truth. Children are growing up with this stark absence where a father should be,” Turk said.
Family searches have exposed several families to the risk of exploitation, physical threats and extortion, or charges for whereabouts information that later turns out to be false, the High Commissioner reported.
Furthermore, survivors who were eventually released after arbitrary detention in Syria described how they were deeply scarred by the experience, which included torture and sexual violence.
“While most of the missing are men, the experience is especially devastating for women. After being released, many women and girls are shunned by their families because they assume they have been raped and thus allegedly ‘disgraced’ to their loved ones. This heartbreaking accumulation of trauma has led many surviving women to leave the country, or even attempt suicide,” Turk said.
In this sense, the High Commissioner also called on the General Assembly to consider the creation of a new institution to help bring answers and support to all the families of the thousands of disappeared, as well as to the survivors.
“We owe no less to the people of Syria,” Turk said.
Sparked in March 2011 by the violent crackdown on peaceful protests by the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, the conflict in Syria has grown enormously complex over the years, involving foreign countries and ‘jihadist’ groups. ‘, and several combat fronts. .
In a highly fragmented territory, the civil conflict in Syria has caused, since 2011, more than 490,000 deaths and millions of displaced persons and refugees.
Source: TSF
