UN agency says it probes disappearances under Syrian rebels in Afrin

NEW YORK — A United Nations body set up to locate Syria’s tens of thousands of missing people said on Wednesday it was investigating the fate of residents who disappeared under the control of Turkey-backed armed groups in the northern Syrian district of Afrin.

 

Speaking to reporters at UN headquarters in New York, Karla Quintana, head of the Independent Institution on Missing Persons in the Syrian Arab Republic (IIMP), said the organization was broadening its inquiries beyond cases attributed to the Assad government or to the Islamic State (ISIS), locally known by its Arabic acronym Daesh, to include abuses by other actors in the conflict.

 

“Syrian National Army (SNA) factions that fought the Assad government with backing from Türkiye continue to detain, mistreat, and extort civilians in northern Syria," according to a Human Rights Watch report published in May.

 

“It focused on capturing northern Aleppo territory, including Shahba, an area that had largely served as a refuge for Kurds displaced during Türkiye’s takeover of Afrin in 2018,” the report added.

 

Asked about this report, Quintana said, “about the Human Rights Watch, we have been in contact with them to receive more information on the events of Afrin.”

 

She confirmed she would travel to Syria next week as part of what she called a Syria-led but independent process. The IIMP was created in 2023 by the U.N. General Assembly to coordinate efforts to locate the more than 130,000 Syrians who have vanished since the war began.

 

“Our mandate is key to supporting the right of families and to all Syrian society to know the truth, to know what happened to their loved ones,” she said.

 

 

Afrin, a majority-Kurdish district in northwest Syria, was seized by Turkish-backed forces in 2018. Since then, rights organizations have accused factions aligned with the Syrian National Army (SNA), supported by Ankara, of looting property—particularly olive groves—carrying out kidnappings for ransom, and arbitrarily detaining residents.

 

Mutlu Civiroglu, a Kurdish affairs analyst based in Washington, DC said such conditions have deterred victims from coming forward.

 

“Attacks, ransom, looting of property—especially olive trees—and beatings are still ongoing in Afrin,” he said. “Considering all these factors, it’s not easy for a family or an individual from Afrin to come forward.”

 

He added that many Yazidi women who fled ISIS captivity remain in displacement camps such as al-Hol, alongside thousands of ISIS-affiliated detainees.

 

 

Although the IIMP operates in coordination with Syria’s government and within a “Syria-led” framework, Quintana emphasized that its work is not dictated by Damascus.

 

She explained that the agency is also investigating the disappearances of Alawites—members of the minority sect traditionally associated with the Assad family—and Druze, a distinct ethnoreligious community that emerged after Islam in the 11th century.

 

These cases involve individuals who have gone missing in areas now controlled by the new Sunni-led authorities that took power following the regime’s collapse.

 

Quintana added that her organization is currently examining “new disappearances occurring post-December 2024, especially in the governorates of Latakia, Tartus, and As-Suwayda.” 

 

These regions are home to significant Alawite and Druze populations, many of whom have been affected by ongoing instability and reprisals amid shifting control of territory.

 

 

Experts say the institution faces immense obstacles: fragmented control across Syria, political resistance, and the trauma that keeps witnesses silent. Human Rights Watch and other monitors have documented ongoing abuses in Turkish-held areas, where looting and arbitrary arrests remain widespread.

 

Quintana admitted that lack of resources is likely to pose a serious challenge to the organization’s work.

 

“When looking for the missing, resources are never enough,” she said. “Not only financial resources, but political will—that’s very important from member states.”

 

Still, Quintana described her mandate as a long but necessary path toward “truth.” The IIMP plans to open an office in Damascus and to deploy investigators across the country in cooperation with local NGOs.

 

“Everyone has someone or knows someone that is missing in Syria,” said the UN official. “We search for everyone who is missing in Syria or in the context related to Syria, regardless of their affiliation, their nationality, their ethnicity, or the context in which they went missing.”