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The Hague, 8 December 2025 – One year ago, the fall of the Assad regime created the opportunity to pursue truth and accountability for hundreds of thousands of people who are missing in Syria. For families who have endured years of uncertainty, this past year has offered hope.
Syria has a historic opportunity to build a future grounded in truth, justice, and human dignity. Families of the missing have the right to reliable answers and meaningful accountability. The International Commission on Missing Persons (ICMP) supports the National Commission for Missing Persons (NCMP) and Syrian institutions as they establish a transparent, professional, and sustainable process to find the missing.
The fate of Syria’s missing is a national responsibility, and with collective support and close cooperation with the NCMP, Syria can build a credible, rights-based process that is worthy of the courage and resilience that has been shown by Syrian families of the missing.
Estimates of the number of people missing from Syria run as high as 300,000. This includes those who have gone missing as a result of summary execution, arbitrary and incommunicado detention, kidnapping and abduction, enslavement, sarin gas attacks, and other human rights abuses. The ongoing effects of war have also resulted in combatants and civilians of many nationalities going missing. Syrians have sought refuge in Jordan, Lebanon, and Turkey, or by following dangerous Mediterranean migration routes.
On 17 November 2025, ICMP and the NCMP signed a Memorandum of Understanding at Leiden University in The Hague. The MoU sets out measures to support the NCMP in developing and leading a sustainable national process to account for missing persons, irrespective of ethnicity, religion, nationality, political affiliation, or the circumstances of their disappearance.
Under the MoU, ICMP will work with the NCMP to strengthen Syria’s legislative framework to protect the rights of families of the missing, and to build the country’s scientific and technical capacities to locate, recover, and identify missing persons. ICMP will also support efforts to enhance Syria’s ability to conduct judicial investigations into missing persons cases.
On 5 November 2025 in Damascus, the NCMP signed a Declaration of Principles of Collaboration with ICMP, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), and the Independent Institution on Missing Persons in Syria (IIMP). The Declaration reaffirms the shared commitment of the three international organizations, each acting within its respective mandate, to support the Syrian authorities and the NCMP in implementing a national, inclusive, and rights-based effort to clarify the fate and whereabouts of all missing persons in Syria and to support their families.
About ICMP
ICMP is a treaty-based intergovernmental organization with Headquarters in The Hague, the Netherlands. Its mandate is to secure the cooperation of governments and others in locating missing persons from conflict, human rights abuses, disasters, organized crime, migration and other causes and to assist them in doing so. ICMP also supports the work of other organizations in their efforts, encourages public involvement in its activities, and contributes to the development of appropriate expressions of commemoration and tribute to the missing.
