Local sources documented that the public security forces affiliated with the de facto authority, “Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham,” arrested two minor young men from the town of Al-Muzayra’a, northwest Syria, without providing clear reasons or specific charges, and without announcing their place of detention.
The sources reported that the two young men are Ali Haitham Assaf and Hadi Nizar Assaf, both 17 years old, and that they were on their way to sell milk when they were arrested on Saturday, 13 December 2025. The families of the two young men indicated that they received a message from an unknown phone number stating, “The security took us,” before all contact with them was completely cut off.
This incident comes amid a rise in cases of loss of contact and enforced disappearance in the Latakia countryside and other areas of the Syrian coast, particularly targeting individuals belonging to the Alawite sect. In northern Latakia countryside, contact was lost with the young man Basel Nasr Saqour, 36 years old, on the morning of Friday, 12 December 2025, while he was working on his land in Jabal Al-Nouba village, Salnfeh subdistrict, with his whereabouts and fate remaining unknown until now.
Several other disappearance cases have also been recorded in the area, including Muhammad Samir Ajeeb, who went missing on the morning of Thursday, 11 December 2025, while heading from his village, Fadrah, toward the city of Latakia.
Ja’far Muhammad Mousa, 25 years old, disappeared on 7 December 2025 after leaving his home in Ayn Shaqaq village in Jableh countryside, heading to his workplace.
Ali Talal Al-Hasan was abducted on 12 December 2025 in the Kafr Sousa area of the capital, Damascus, according to surveillance camera recordings showing four individuals approaching him and taking him to an unknown location.
These incidents indicate an escalation of violations against civilians in different areas of Syria, with increasing targeting of individuals belonging to religious and sectarian minorities, and a lack of any official data regarding the fate of the victims or the parties responsible for these incidents. These conditions underscore the urgent need to provide effective protection guarantees for civilians and to uncover the fate of the missing.
