Syria: Enforced Disappearance of Five Relatives From Hama Between 2012 and 2014
Between November 2012 and March 2014 five Syrian men, all members of the same extended family originally from Hama, disappeared after their arrests by pro-Assad security forces. Concerned over their fate, Alkarama and Human Rights Guardians sent their cases to the United Nations Working Group on Enforced Disappearances (WGEID) hoping that the UN experts’ intervention will help shed light on their fate and whereabouts.
Mazen Al Nazzal, a 22-year old student in University, disappeared on 28 November 2012. That day he was travelling by taxi from Hama to Muhradah, a town situated 23 kilometers northwest of Hama, when he reached the Air Force Intelligence checkpoint near Kafr al-Tuna. The security officers asked Mazen to get out of the taxi and arrested him, explaining the taxi driver that they wanted to ask him some questions, as his name was similar to the one of a wanted person. A former detainee refers having last seen him in detention centre managed by the “Shabiha”, a pro-Assad militia, in Deir Shamil, a village in the Hama governorate, on May 2013.
On 16 January 2014, Mazen’s uncle, Khalid Al Nazzal, a 28-year old daily worker living in Maar Daftein village, Hama governorate, disappeared after he was arrested at his house by officers of the Military Intelligence Directorate, also known as “Military Security”, who came to take him with members of the “Shabiha”. Muhanna Al Nazzal, Khalid Al Nazzal’s brother, who was also arrested on 15 January 2014 and then released on 17 February 2014, said that he saw his brother Khalid in the premises of the Military Intelligence Directorate in Hama, where they were detained together. Mazen and Khalid Al Nazzal’s relatives tried to inquire about their fate, but are fearing retaliation.
On 15 March 2014 other three members of the same family, Ibrahim Al Hammadi, 54 years old, his younger brother Fadel Al Hammadi, aged 45, and the latter's son Bashar Al Hammadi, 27, all grain and food traders living in Homs, were traveling on a white KIA truck transporting food supplies. Once they stopped at the checkpoint situated in Al Furqlus, Homs governorate, the Air Forces Intelligence officers controlling it asked for their ID and seized the truck. Accusing them of transporting “weapons to terrorists” they arrested the three men. According to a testimony of a former detainee, they were detained in the premises of the Air Force Intelligence in Homs in April 2014, but their relatives have never gotten official confirmation of their fate and whereabouts.
Since the beginning of the conflict the use enforced disappearance in Syria has reached such a breath to become a widespread systematic practice amounting to a crime against humanity, a continuous and imprescriptible crime. Concerned over the gravity of such phenomenon, and echoing the findings and recommendations of Alkarama’s report, several States recommended the Syrian authorities during the last Universal Periodic Review (UPR) of Syria to put an end to this practice, to clarify all cases of enforced disappearances and inform the victims' families about the fate and whereabouts of their missing relatives.
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