The head of the UN agency tasked with determining the fate of Syria's disappeared has handed over a preliminary project on the matter to Syria's foreign minister on Monday.
Karla Quintana, the head of the Independent Institution on Missing Persons in Syria (IIMP) met with Asaad al-Shibani on the sidelines of the EU's aid conference in Brussels, where the two discussed "the preliminary project to support the search for missing persons".
The IIMP told The New Arab that the preliminary project offered a pathway for Syria to "clarify the fate and whereabouts of all missing persons in Syria" and "provide adequate support to victims, including survivors and the families of those missing".
The IIMP added that it has been working with the transitional government since February, offering technical assistance and expertise to begin a 'Syrian-owned' process in discovering the fate of the country's tens of thousands of disappeared, the vast majority arbitrarily detained by the Assad regime.
The IIMP was established in June 2023 by the UN General Assembly to determine the fate of Syria's missing persons, as well as support victims, survivors, and their families.
The EU also reaffirmed its support for efforts to find Syria's disappeared as thousands of families search for signs of the fate of their loved ones.
"Both parties further underlined the need to work collectively towards discovering the fate of the 150,000 forcibly disappeared Syrians, particularly in Assad's prisons, whose fates remain unknown, and the EU reaffirmed its support to national and international efforts in this respect," a joint statement from the EU and Syria's foreign ministry said.
In a speech at the conference in Brussels the head of the International Committee of the Red Cross, Mirjana Spoljaric, said that the ICRC was looking into the cases of 30,000 missing Syrians, including 2,000 who were aged under 16 at the time of disappearance.
"I visited Syria earlier this year and met with families whose loved ones were detained for years and are now missing," she said. "The suffering of so many could have been avoided if the ICRC had been allowed to visit all detainees, monitor their conditions, and maintain vital contact between them and their families."
Families for Freedom, a women-led association of Syrian families whose relatives disappeared during the civil war, told The New Arab that it welcomed plans by the government to establish a national entity and to work with the IIMP to do so.
"[It is] crucial that the national entity collaborates with the UN mechanism to support its search efforts and assist families," the group said.
Families for Freedom said that it and other Syrian organisations had "long fought for the establishment of this institution (IIMP) when the international community failed to help us uncover the fate of our loved ones".
During and after the fall of the Assad regime in December 2024, thousands of prisoners held by the Assad regime were released by Syria's new authorities, however, tens of thousands of people of other detainees have not been found, despite desperate attempts by their relatives to search for signs of life.
The Syrian Network for Human Rights previously said that it believed that over 112,000 of them were dead.
"We hope that this institution will play a key role in supporting the national entity through a partnership that allows for the training and capacity building of Syrian personnel, provides necessary support, and ensures that families can access the full truth," Families for Freedom added.
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