Our colleagues in Syria have just concluded a visit to Al-Hassakeh Governorate in the northeast of the country, where they received firsthand testimonies and accounts of past and present human rights violations and abuses. These include reports of significant numbers of killings, enforced disappearances, arbitrary detention, and deportation of detainees. During the five-day visit, our colleagues were also informed that three mass graves had been uncovered in Al-Hassakeh last month, including one inside a former detention facility operated by Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).
Our team also heard testimonies from families of disappeared people, including children and women, who reported loved ones having disappeared while being detained by SDF or international coalition forces. The coalition says it transferred 7,000 detainees to Iraq, around half of them Syrians, in January 2026. We fear that many of them have no access to families or legal representation. Procedural guarantees, including regarding their transfer to another country or detaining authority, non-refoulement, and rights to fair trial for those suspected of criminal offences, must be fully respected, regardless of their nationality.
Now turning to the south of Syria. We are receiving mounting protection concerns for civilians in southern Syria, where expanding operations by Israeli forces occupying these areas are placing lives at risk. Rights to family life and privacy are being curtailed, and livelihoods, particularly in agricultural communities, have been seriously impacted.
We have received reports of increased harassment and intimidation, detentions, interrogations, house searches and movement restrictions. In the Quneitra governorate, Israeli forces have reportedly erected checkpoints, searched residential properties, and arrested and detained civilians. In February, Israel reportedly sprayed chemical substances on agricultural lands, and restricted the access of Syrian farmers to their lands, in addition to shelling that hit agricultural land.
According to Syrian authorities, the Israeli military has arrested at least 250 people in the south of Syria, including children, since the fall of the former government - 50 remain detained and some have been taken to prisons in the Israeli-occupied Syrian Golan. This raises concerns regarding arbitrary detention, as well as enforced disappearances in some cases, where there is still no confirmed information on their legal status or whereabouts.
In yet another worrying development, the Israeli Government has approved a project to expand illegal settlements in the occupied Syrian Golan, with reported plans to bring 3,000 new Israeli families as settlers to the area, in violation of international humanitarian law.
UN Human Rights Chief Volker Türk calls on the Israeli authorities to bring an end to all violations of international humanitarian law and international human rights law in Syria, to conduct prompt and independent investigations of these alleged violations, and bring those responsible to account. The settlement activities in the occupied Syrian Golan must also stop, and announced plans in this direction must be halted.
In another development, the opening in Damascus of the trial of the former Syrian president, Bashar Al-Assad, and figures from his regime - mostly in absentia - is an important first step. Justice and redress for the hundreds of thousands of victims must be achieved, in accordance with international human rights standards.
The heartbreaking scenes of bereaved mothers in tears at the courtroom speak to the need for a victim-centred transitional justice process. Al-Assad, his brother Maher and all those tried in absentia should ultimately face court in person, and be held accountable for the full scope of the crimes and violations they have committed.
Also significant is the arrest of former regime official Amjad Youssef. The horrific massacre he orchestrated in the Tadamon neighbourhood in Damascus, in 2013, demands full accountability.
Accountability must also extend to all parties that have committed serious violations and abuses in Syria, prior to and during the war.
