Justice for Syria's disappeared: When survivors take charge

By: Jessica LE MASURIER

(France24) – Yasmen Almashan lost five of her six brothers during the early years of the Syrian civil war, four of them in 2012 alone. Her brother Zouhair was killed during protests against Assad. Oqba was detained by security forces and disappeared. A few months later, Obaida was killed by a sniper while working as a medic, trying to rescue wounded civilians from the rubble of buildings destroyed by bombs. A sniper also killed her brother Tishreen.

Later, in mid-2014, her youngest brother Bashar was kidnapped by the Islamic State group. She never heard from him again.

“I’m the only girl among six brothers, and suddenly I lost five of them. All the time before I lost them, they surrounded me with all the love you can imagine,” Almashan explained, standing outside the UN headquarters in New York. “I feel that my duty now is to fight for justice for them.”

When a military defector code-named Caesar smuggled thousands of photos out of Syria, Almashan recognised her brother Oqba among the images of tortured corpses.

She co-founded the Caesar Families Association and worked with other groups of survivors and families to seek justice for those who disappeared in Syria.

From the start of the Syrian civil war in 2011 to the fall of the Assad regime, more than 180,000 people went missing, according to the Syrian Network for Human Rights.

FRANCE 24 met Almashan in 2023, when she came to lobby for the creation of an international foundation for the disappeared. Quiet and resolute, she stood outside the United Nations in protest, holding photos of civilians who went missing under the Assad regime.

Fifteen months after the fall of the regime, she is back at the United Nations – only this time in an official role as a commissioner for Syria’s National Commission for Transitional Justice.

At a side event called Advances in Transitional Justice and Access to Justice in Syria at German House in New York on Thursday, she spoke alongside two other Syrian human rights activists who are also part of the governmental body tasked with addressing past human rights violations, ensuring accountability and supporting national reconciliation in the aftermath of the Assad regime’s abuses.

“Ten years ago I was just a woman in a tent in a refugee camp in Turkey. We fought to reach a point where we are decision-makers in our beloved Syria,” she said.

The trajectory of Syria's Ambassador to the United Nations, Ibrahim Olabi, is not dissimilar to Yasmen’s. He, too, was a human rights defender. He founded the Syrian Legal Development Programme, which offers legal expertise to Syrian NGOs, advising them on issues related to forced displacement, torture, and the delivery of humanitarian aid. Now he represents his country at the United Nations.

“I feel that it’s part of all of our healing to be in the positions we’re in now – we’re able, we’re in the driving seat.”

A new Syria

Forces loyal to Syria’s transitional president Ahmed al-Sharaa overthrew Assad in December 2024. Once the head of an armed Islamist group known as Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, which was only removed from the US list of terrorist groups in July 2025, Sharaa has been at pains to project a more moderate image since he took the reins in Syria.

Although the war in Syria has ended, there have been sporadic incidents of sectarian violence, with hundreds killed in clashes between Druze and Sunni Bedouin communities and government forces. There has also been targeted violence against the Alawite community.

The Kurdish community has accused Sharaa of complicity in the genocide of Yazidi Kurds in 2014, filing a complaint with Germany's federal public prosecutor's office in October 2025. He denies the accusations.

“The president himself has made it clear that he was not involved and that this commission is independent and will investigate any crimes relevant to the Assad era,” Ambassador Olabi told FRANCE 24. “It is the [Sharaa] government that enabled this national commission and appointed people like Yasmen to work on accountability and human rights.”

Lessons from the past
Germany’s deputy ambassador to the UN, Dr Thomas Zahneisen, hosted the side event, which included experts on the rule of law and sexual violence. He spoke of the challenges of Germany’s own long journey of national reconciliation and reunification. “It is a difficult path by experience. Yes, there are successes, but also a lot of setbacks,” Zahneisen explained. “It takes a long time.”

Zahneisen said Syria’s National Commission for Transitional Justice had recently travelled to visit the archives of the Stasi, the feared security forces of former East Germany that were key to repressing and intimidating the population during the Cold War. He added that UN mechanisms were also playing an important role in supporting this process.

Colombia’s deputy ambassador, Raul Sanchez, also shared his country’s experience in addressing past crimes to establish accountability and social cohesion.

“It’s a remarkable time for transitional justice in Syria, because everything is possible and everything is at risk,” explained Crisis Action's UN Director, Gareth Sweeney. “The commissions are blessed to have people like Yasmen, who have phenomenal integrity. They speak a truth that Syrians can see and feel. But the challenges they face are obvious to us all, in terms of resourcing and having to operate and build justice and accountability in a country that is having, itself, to rebuild.”

After the meeting at German House, Almashan heads to Syria’s UN mission, a block from the main UN building, to meet the delegation ahead of iftar, the fast-breaking evening meal during Ramadan. There is no obvious marking on the building other than a sign reading “Diplomat Centre,” but for her the building symbolises the regime under which her brothers died.

She gets the shivers as she enters, but she remains hopeful that eventually, reconciliation is possible.