Vanishing Nation: Enforced Disappearance in Syria

In March 2011, protests erupted on the streets of the Syrian Arab Republic. By mid-February 2012, the spreading unrest had metastasized into a brutal civil war, the brunt of which has been borne by civilians. Ten years after the violence first ignited, an estimated half a million men, women, and children have been killed.¹ Today, the war grinds on. As the sound and fury of the battlefield begin to subside, a quieter, more insidious violence continues to be perpetrated. Between March 2011 and August 30, 2020, nearly one hundred thousand Syrians have been forcibly disappeared.2 Most are adult men who