Damascus, Sep. 1 (SANA) Syrian Network for Human Rights Director Fadel Abdul Ghany said the launch of the National Commission for Missing Persons’ Athar national program represents an important step toward consolidating data on missing persons in Syria and building a unified national registry to support efforts to determine their fate and pursue accountability.
In remarks to SANA, Abdul Ghany said the program, launched Aug. 30 to mark the International Day of the Victims of Enforced Disappearances, allows families to file reports through the Athar application and website, as well as through dedicated telephone numbers and centers providing technical assistance.
He said the commission is expected to expand its outreach later to families unable to use digital services.
Athar: Consolidating data, building a national registry
Abdul Ghany said the program’s importance lies in its capacity to integrate new reports with accumulated data held by Syrian and international organizations, transforming fragmented information into files that can be verified and followed up.
He stressed that an initial classification of a case should not exclude any possibility regarding the fate of a missing person.
A case description may change as new information emerges, he said. A person may initially be listed as missing under unknown circumstances before later information points to enforced disappearance, abduction, death or disappearance linked to military operations.
Such flexibility in classification, he said, is necessary for both search and accountability purposes.
177,021 forcibly disappeared since 2011
According to the latest figures issued by the Syrian Network for Human Rights on Aug. 30, 177,021 people, including 4,536 children and 8,984 women, remain forcibly disappeared in Syria since March 2011.
The network said the figures represent cases it has been able to document, meaning the actual number is likely to be higher.
From filing a report to launching a search
Abdul Ghany said every report should be linked to a search plan beginning with verification of the person’s identity and the circumstances of the disappearance.
Information should then be cross-checked against arrest, detention and death records and searched across civil, judicial, military, security and medical records, he said.
The process should include analysis of arrest patterns and detainee transfers, as well as comparisons among witness accounts.
Abdul Ghany said searches should extend to burial sites and unidentified remains, using forensic expertise and scientific identification methods when necessary.
He stressed the need to integrate humanitarian searches with criminal investigations and said efforts to locate missing people should continue alongside accountability procedures and measures to preserve evidence.
15 years of disappearance: Evidence deteriorates as challenges mount
Abdul Ghany said the scale of the caseload, the passage of time and the deterioration of evidence are among the principal challenges.
Some disappearance cases date back more than 15 years, he said, during which witnesses have died or left the country, records have been lost or transferred, and institutions and locations have changed.
Previous data were collected using different forms and standards, meaning their integration requires a rigorous methodology for matching information, assessing sources and assigning levels of confidence rather than simply combining files in a single database, he said.
He noted the importance of analyzing patterns and contexts associated with arrest locations, detainee transfer routes, detention facilities and burial sites.
On mass graves and human remains, Abdul Ghany said locating a burial site alone is not enough to establish the fate of victims.
The site must be protected and documented, remains must be recovered by specialists, and the chain of custody must be preserved, he said. Reference samples must then be collected and subjected to scientific matching.
Protecting data and safeguarding families’ rights
Abdul Ghany said data protection is an essential condition for Athar’s success because reports may contain personal information, witness testimony, burial locations, medical and genetic data, as well as information potentially linked to people suspected of responsibility for violations.
He called for databases to be technically secured and for access to medical and genetic information to be restricted to legitimate purposes.
Victims, witnesses and people providing information should be protected according to the level of risk associated with each case, he said.
Abdul Ghany said families’ expectations should be managed clearly by keeping them informed about the stages of processing their reports, the measures taken and the obstacles encountered.
He cautioned against presuming a missing person dead solely because a long period has passed or no new information has emerged.
How can Athar’s success be measured?
Abdul Ghany said the program’s performance could be measured by the proportion of reports assigned case numbers and receipt notifications, the quality of the collected data, the handling of duplicate cases and the percentage of files that move from registration to documented search plans.
Other indicators could include the time between submission of a report and the first action taken, the number of requests for access to records and sites and the responses to those requests, he said.
Further measures could include the number of cases in which a person’s fate or whereabouts are established through verifiable evidence, the number of missing people found alive and the number of remains scientifically identified and returned to their families.
Abdul Ghany called on the National Commission for Missing Persons to publish periodic aggregate data showing the number of reports received, their processing stages, results and obstacles.
Such transparency, he said, would help transform Athar from a platform for receiving reports into an integrated national tool for searching for missing people and determining their fate.
