ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Ten detainees have died “under torture” in Syria since the beginning of 2026, a war monitor said on Saturday, warning of what it described as an “alarming rise” in fatalities linked to abuse in Syrian prisons and detention centers.
“This comes amid mounting accusations of gross violations against detainees, a complete absence of legal oversight, and the continuation of arbitrary arrests,” said the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), adding that the initial reasons for arrest varied from “participating in peaceful protests to accusations of belonging to military or political factions.”
SOHR detailed the victims' geographic origins, as well as their ethnic and sectarian backgrounds, noting that nine of the deceased belonged to minority groups.
The report comes amid continued documentation of detainee deaths across Syria, including individuals from several minority communities and regions.
On January 8, an inmate from the Alawite community died in central Homs due to “physical torture and medical neglect,” about two weeks after being “arbitrarily” arrested, SOHR reported. Another detainee from Homs was killed in April, one year after his arrest.
The UK-based monitor also reported the death of a young man from the Shiite community.
The Alawite community has faced heightened sectarian violence since March 2025, when an insurgency in coastal areas by loyalists of the ousted Bashar al-Assad triggered clashes with forces affiliated with the new Damascus administration. SOHR said 1,700 civilians from the community were killed during that period.
Separately, SOHR said a Kurdish man died less than 48 hours after his arrest in Raqqa, while four others from Sheikh Maqsoud and al-Ashrafiyah - Kurdish-majority neighborhoods in northern Aleppo - were also killed under torture, according to the monitor.
In January, fierce clashes broke out between the Syrian interim government and the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) before later being eased by an integration agreement. The fighting, which began in Sheikh Maqsoud and al-Ashrafiyah, led to the arrest of hundreds of Kurdish security personnel (Asayish) and civilians.
SOHR also documented the death of a detainee originally from the Druze-majority southern province of As-Suwayda.
Intercommunal violence between Druze factions and Bedouin tribes - backed by Damascus - erupted in As-Suwayda in July 2025, escalating with the involvement of Syrian government forces and Israel. A late-2025 report by the Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR) said more than 800 people were killed and over 900 injured in the violence.
In a separate report released in March, SNHR said it had recorded at least 1,108 cases of arbitrary arrest and 32 deaths under torture by authorities in Syria.
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