SOHR Estimates Over 2,100 Detainees Slain in Syrian Prisons in 2014
The Syrian Human Rights Observatory (SOHR) claimed that there were over 2,100 deaths in Syrian detention facilities.
MOSCOW, January 8 (Sputnik) — Over 2,100 deaths in Syrian detention facilities have been documented in 2014, the Syrian Human Rights Observatory (SOHR) said Thursday.
“The number of the arrested persons who SOHR could document their death inside the regime’s cellars and intelligence branches reached to 2108 in 2014,” the UK-based monitoring group SOHR said in a statement posted on its website.
The organization claimed that the Syrian government was involved in mass arrests and the torture of people, including its political opponents and human rights activists, citing leaked data from undisclosed sources.
“Among the people who were killed inside the regime’s cellars, barracks and intelligence branches, there are 27 children under the age of 18 and 11 woman,” the statement read.
SOHR also urged the UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon and UN Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura to pressure the Syrian government to release about 200,000 detainees from penitentiaries in the country.
The ongoing civil war in Syria started as anti-government protests in the wake of the Arab Uprising in 2011. Since then, the Syrian government has been fighting several rebel groups and has been accused of unlawfully killing more than 11,000 detainees from March 2011 to August 2013, according to a report obtained by the media.