United Nations (EFE) interference in their internal affairs.
The creation of this new body has had the support of 83 countries, the rejection of 11 and the abstention of 62.
The resolution was rejected by Russia, China, Belarus, Bolivia, Cuba, North Korea, Eritrea, Iran, Nicaragua, Syria and Zimbabwe.
Numerous civil organizations have been calling for the creation of this body for years, which will bear the name of “Independent Institution on Missing Persons in the Syrian Arab Republic”.
“Given the complexity and magnitude of the issue of missing persons in Syria, existing actors lack the capacity to respond, for this reason the UN Secretary General recommended (…) that Member States consider establishing, through of the General Assembly, of a new international institution to shed light on the whereabouts of the disappeared,” said Luxembourg’s representative to the UN, Olivier Maes, one of the sponsors of the project.
UN initiative supported by Syrian and international organizations
Last week, a hundred Syrian and international organizations, including Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, the Association of Detainees and Missing Persons of Sednaya Prison, and the Coalition of Families of Persons Kidnapped by Islamic States wrote a joint statement to the UN to give the green light to its creation.
“Since 2011, more than 100,000 people have disappeared or been subjected to enforced disappearance by the Syrian authorities and other parties to the conflict, including armed groups such as the Islamic State,” they wrote in a note.
The signatories stressed that Syrian relatives and survivors called in 2021 for the creation of a new independent and humanitarian institution “that would focus on the inalienable right of victims to know the truth about their loved ones.”
“It was these families that asked the United Nations for help,” Maes stressed today before the UN General Assembly.
According to Human Rights Watch, its creation had the support of the UN Secretary General, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights and the International Committee of the Red Cross, among other institutions.
Seeking cooperation to achieve progress for Syrians
The UN General Assembly today asked the Secretary General, António Guterres, to prepare the mandate of the new institution within 80 days and urged “all States, as well as all parties to the conflict in the Arab Republic Syria, to fully cooperate with the Independent Institution, consistent with their obligations under international law.”
The resolution stresses that “after 12 years of conflict and violence in the Syrian Arab Republic, little progress has been made in alleviating the suffering of families with answers on the fate and whereabouts of all missing persons.”