The chairman of a Syrian committee for missing people said today that more than 300,000 people may have disappeared during the decades of the country’s rule by the Assad family and during the Civil War.

Mohammed Reda Jalchi, the chairman of this committee set up in May, said the investigation, based on the mandate he has received, begins in 1970, the year that Hafez al -Assad took power, and arrives to this day.

“We estimate that the number of people who disappeared is between 120,000-300,000. The number may be higher, “he told the official Sana agency.

Tens of thousands of people were arrested or disappeared after the civil war broke out in 2011, following the bloody suppression of anti -government protests by then President Bashar al -Assad, his son Hafez. Bashar al -Assad was overthrown in December 2024 by a coalition of Islamist rebels.

During the war, all sides were accused of cruelties – such as the Islamic State jihadist organization that occupied large areas in Syria and Iraq and proceeded with violence and summary executions.

“We have a map that records more than 63 group graves in Syria,” Jalich said, without giving more clarifications. He added that an attempt was made to create a database for the missing.

Thousands of prisoners have been released after the fall of Assad but many Syrians are still looking for their traces of relatives. In January, the chairman of the International Committee of the Red Cross Miriana Spoliaric said it would be a “colossal challenge” to find the missing civil war. The PSC has recorded and is looking for 43,000 people, but this number is probably much smaller than the total number of missing.

According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, more than 100,000 people died in detention, from torture or due to miserable conditions in Syrian prisons during the Civil War.