Syria: gathering of families of disappeared and prisoners of the regime

The families stuck letters on a wall asking for news of their relatives, during a rally in the city of Azaz, controlled by the rebels of the Syrian province of Aleppo, on January 7, 2022. AFP - BAKR ALKASEM

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During a rally in the north of the country under pro-Turkish control, more than 70 Syrian families called for light to be shed on the fate of their relatives, missing or detained.

They hope in this way to sensitize the international community to their cause.

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With our correspondent in Beirut, 

These several dozen families gathered in northern Syria illustrate the tragedy experienced by hundreds of thousands of relatives of detainees or missing from the Syrian war.

The demonstration comes the day after the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (OSDH) announced the “ 

 ” of two detainees in prisons run by the Syrian authorities.

The Observatory has drawn up a list of more than 47,000 people who have died in detention since the start of the Syrian war in 2011. The UK-based NGO, however, assures that the number of deaths is 105,000, and that more than 'a million Syrians have been in government prisons in ten years.

The Syrian authorities have also drawn up their own list of the names of thousands of soldiers or supporters of the regime who died in places of detention held by rebels and jihadists.

Photos that tell the horror of prisons

In 2014, a former photographer of the Syrian military police, nicknamed “Caesar”, fled the country with

of bodies tortured and tortured in the prisons of the Syrian authorities.

His revelations are at the origin of the

promulgated by Donald Trump in June 2020, and which imposes severe financial and trade sanctions against Damascus.  

► See also: Syria: Human Rights Watch identifies victims of photos of "Caesar"

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