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Syrian security sources: 60,000 died in prisons

May 23, 2016 at 3:06 pm

At least 60,000 people have died as a result of torture and ill-treatment in Syrian prisons since the outbreak of the unrest in the country five years ago, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported, citing sources from the regime’s security services.

Those people were killed “as a result of direct physical torture or deprivation of food and medicine,” since March 2011, the group said.

The observatory’s director Rami Abdel Rahman told AFP that his organisation was able to document the names of 14,456 of those killed, including 110 children.

In the past five years, “about half a million people were arrested, some of whom were released, some killed, and others are still languishing in prisons,” he added.

The Syrian Observatory demanded the release of detainees, noting that “there are still more than 200,000 people in prison.”

The Syrian opposition demands the release of detainees as a humanitarian measure in order to facilitate the resumption of peace talks in Geneva, Switzerland.

In February, human rights investigators affiliated with the United Nations accused the Syrian government of implementing the policy of “genocide” toward prisoners.