Children among 547 detained Syrians declared dead - rights monitor

Ever since Yehya Hijazi and his two sons were detained in 2012 by the Syrian government, their relatives had clung onto the hope they were still alive and might be released one day.

But after a decade of silence from the authorities, their hopes were shattered when the independent Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR) monitoring group contacted the Hijazi family to tell them it had obtained death certificates for all three.

The 547 certificates included those for 15 children and 19 women, the SNHR said.

Some of the 80 certificates reviewed by Reuters listed the place of death as military hospitals or military tribunals. Others were vague about the place of death, with "Damascus" or a village on its outskirts. Some were left blank.

"You're hoping every second that you'll catch another glimpse of this person whom you love very much, that you'll hear any news of him," Yehya's brother Mohammad told Reuters by phone from northwestern Syria. "Then you hear he's dead."

The SNHR said the documents confirming the death of Yehya and his sons were among 547 detainee death certificates issued by the authorities since 2017 that it had obtained from whistleblowers within government departments.

The rights group said the documents provided answers to the fates of hundreds of missing people. Activists hope they will eventually be used in international proceedings against the government, which has been accused by a U.N. commission of inquiry of crimes against humanity for its detention policies.

The government did not respond to emailed questions about the death certificates obtained by SNHR. Syrian officials have in the past denied accusations of systemic torture and mass executions in jail.

Reuters reviewed 80 of the death certificates, including the three for the Hijazi family, as well as those for a three-year-old girl and her six-year-old sister.

A Syrian human rights lawyer, who declined to be named due to the sensitivity of the matter, reviewed a sample of the documents. He said the layout, language used and the elements of information included matched other Syrian death certificates.

Reuters was unable to independently confirm that the documents were authentic.

Reporting by Reuters