ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Nearly 200 Kurds have been abducted across Syria, including in the capital, since the beginning of 2025, a local watchdog reported on Saturday. The group attributed the surge in abductions to a lack of oversight by the interim government and called on the international community to apply serious pressure on Damascus. The Violations Documentation Center (VDC), an independent organization founded at the start of Syria’s civil war to document human rights violations, said it recorded “the abduction of at least 14 Kurdish citizens since the beginning of September 2025 in various parts of Syria, including Afrin and Aleppo [in northern Syria], as well as Damascus.” “The number of kidnapped Kurds from the beginning of 2025 until the end of August had reached 190 people, including two children under the age of 18, nine women, and 56 detainees with chronic illnesses,” the watchdog said. It added that the actual number of Kurds abducted “is likely higher” as some families refrain from reporting the missing “due to security concerns.” The abductions are carried out by “armed men” who “storm homes … without arrest warrants” and detain individuals “at checkpoints,” the VDC said, censuring Syrian authorities for their “silence and lack of legal oversight.” Afrin in focus The highest number of abductions occurred in Afrin, a Kurdish-majority city in Syria’s northern Aleppo province that is “under the rule of the [Syrian] National Army [SNA] militias,” according to the VDC. The SNA is an Turkey-backed umbrella organization that comprises militia groups opposed to ousted Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad. It is accused by international rights monitors of carrying out abuses against the Kurdish population in Afrin, which has been under SNA control since 2018. In an earlier report published in August, the VDC said that 87 civilians have been abducted in Afrin since the beginning of 2025. The watchdog also documented 700 kidnappings in 2024, and 461 in 2023, and said that while “more than 720 abductions were recorded in 2022” the real number is likely higher. For its part, the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) has also documented a large number of abductions and disappearances - 1,647 persons since the start of 2025. Rami Abdulrahman, head of SOHR, told Rudaw on Tuesday that “292 kidnappings were recorded in areas controlled by the Damascus government, while 63 occurred in territories held by the Turkish-backed Syrian National Army [SNA]." Minorities in the crosshairs Syria’s interim government has come under fire, accused of sidelining minority groups. The government is headed by interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa who led the now-dissolved Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) that was at the forefront of a coalition of opposition forces that toppled the regime of longtime Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad last December. When he was appointed interim president in late January, Sharaa promised an inclusive political process. In March, he signed a constitutional declaration that centers on Islamic jurisprudence and grants him exclusive executive power during the country’s five-year transitional period. The declaration added that “no authority will be able to dismiss or isolate another” and that the country’s legislature does not have “the authority to question the president.” Instead, the president can only be held accountable by a constitutional court, which he was granted the “right to assign the judges of.” The interim constitution has been rejected by Syria’s Christian, Druze, Kurdish, and Alawite communities, who view it as exclusionary and the new government as too centralized. In more violent events, clashes broke out in mid-July between Druze fighters and Sunni Bedouin tribes in southern Syria’s Suwayda province. The conflict escalated with the involvement of government forces before a ceasefire was announced on July 19. SOHR on Monday reported that 2,047 people have been killed in Suwayda - 979 of them Druze civilians. It added, “817 Druze citizens, including 77 women and 15 children, were field-executed by members from the defense and interior ministries.” Earlier, in March, violence broke out in Alawite-majority coastal regions after Assad loyalists attacked security forces aligned with the country’s interim leadership. According to SOHR, the clashes resulted in approximately 1,700 deaths, the majority of whom were Allawite civilians. Many casualties were attributed to government or pro-government forces.
