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UN Human Rights Spokesperson Thameen Al Kheetan on Human rights violation in Syria
“Our colleagues in Syria have just concluded a visit to Al-Hassakeh Governorate in the northeast of the country, where they received firsthand testimonies and accounts of human rights violations and abuses. These include reports of significant numbers of killings, enforced disappearances, arbitrary detention, and deportation of detainees. During the 5-day visit, our colleagues were also informed that three mass graves had been uncovered in Al-Hassakeh last month, including one inside a former detention facility operated by Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF),” Thameen Al-Kheetan, a spokesperson for the Human Rights Office, told a bi-weekly press briefing in Geneva.
“Our team also heard testimonies from families of disappeared people, including children and women, who reported loved ones having disappeared while being detained by SDF or international coalition forces. The coalition says it transferred 7,000 detainees to Iraq, around half of them Syrians, in January 2026.”
The UN Human Rights Office fears that many of the detainees have no access to families or legal representation. Procedural guarantees, including regarding their transfer to another country or detaining authority, non-refoulement, and rights to fair trial for those suspected of criminal offences, must be fully respected, regardless of their nationality.
“We are receiving mounting protection concerns for civilians in southern Syria, where expanding operations by Israeli forces occupying these areas are placing lives at risk. Rights to family life and privacy are being curtailed, and livelihoods, particularly in agricultural communities, have been seriously impacted,” Al-Kheetan added.
“We have received reports of increased harassment and intimidation, detentions, interrogations, house searches and movement restrictions. In the Quneitra governorate, Israeli forces have reportedly erected checkpoints, searched residential properties, and arrested and detained civilians. In February, Israel reportedly sprayed chemical substances on agricultural lands, and restricted the access of Syrian farmers to their lands, in addition to shelling that hit agricultural land,” he said.
According to Syrian authorities, the Israeli military has arrested at least 250 people in the south of Syria, including children, since the fall of the former government – 50 remain detained and some have been taken to prisons in the Israeli-occupied Syrian Golan.
This raises concerns regarding arbitrary detention, as well as enforced disappearances in some cases, where there is still no confirmed information on their legal status or whereabouts, Al-Kheetan said.
UN Human Rights Chief Volker Türk calls on the Israeli authorities to bring an end to all violations of international humanitarian law and international human rights law in Syria, to conduct prompt and independent investigations of these alleged violations and bring those responsible to account.
The spokesperson said: “The settlement activities in the occupied Syrian Golan must also stop, and announced plans in this direction must be halted.”
“The opening in Damascus of the trial of former Syrian president Bashar Al-Assad and figures from his regime – mostly in absentia – is an important first step. Justice and redress for the hundreds of thousands of victims must be achieved, in accordance with international human rights standards,” Al-Kheetan added.
“The heartbreaking scenes of bereaved mothers in tears at the courtroom speak to the need for a victim-centred transitional justice process. Al-Assad, his brother Maher and all those tried in absentia should ultimately face court in person and be held accountable for the full scope of the crimes and violations they have committed,” he said.
“Accountability must also extend to all parties that have committed serious violations and abuses in Syria, prior to and during the war,” Al-Kheetan said.
STORY: UN Human Rights Spokesperson Thameen Al-Kheetan on human rights violations in Syria
TRT: 03:45
SOURCE: OHCHR / UNOG
RESTRICTIONS: NONE
LANGUAGE: English/NATS
ASPECT RATIO: 16:9
DATELINE: 28 April 2026, Geneva, Switzerland
SHOTLIST
- Exterior shots: Palais de Nations
- Interior shot : briefing room
- SOUNDBITE (English)—Thameen Al-Kheetan, Spokesperson for the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR): “Our colleagues in Syria have just concluded a visit to Al-Hassakeh Governorate in the northeast of the country, where they received firsthand testimonies and accounts of past and present human rights violations and abuses. These include reports of significant numbers of killings, enforced disappearances, arbitrary detention, and deportation of detainees.”
- Cutaway: briefing room
- SOUNDBITE (English)—Thameen Al-Kheetan, Spokesperson for the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR): “Our team also heard testimonies from families of disappeared people, including children and women, who reported loved ones having disappeared while being detained by SDF or international coalition forces. The coalition says it transferred 7,000 detainees to Iraq, around half of them Syrians, in January 2026.”
- Cutaway: briefing room
- SOUNDBITE (English)—Thameen Al-Kheetan, Spokesperson for the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR): “We are receiving mounting protection concerns for civilians in southern Syria, where expanding operations by Israeli forces occupying these areas are placing lives at risk. Rights to family life and privacy are being curtailed, and livelihoods, particularly in agricultural communities, have been seriously impacted.”
- Cutaway: briefing room
- SOUNDBITE (English)—Thameen Al-Kheetan, Spokesperson for the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR): “We have received reports of increased harassment and intimidation, detentions, interrogations, house searches and movement restrictions. In the Quneitra governorate, Israeli forces have reportedly erected checkpoints, searched residential properties, and arrested and detained civilians. In February, Israel reportedly sprayed chemical substances on agricultural lands, and restricted the access of Syrian farmers to their lands, in addition to shelling that hit agricultural land.”
- Cutaway: briefing room
- SOUNDBITE (English)—Thameen Al-Kheetan, Spokesperson for the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR): “The settlement activities in the occupied Syrian Golan must also stop, and announced plans in this direction must be halted”
- Cutaway: briefing room
- SOUNDBITE (English)—Thameen Al-Kheetan, Spokesperson for the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR): “The opening in Damascus of the trial of former Syrian president Bashar Al-Assad and figures from his regime – mostly in absentia – is an important first step. Justice and redress for the hundreds of thousands of victims must be achieved, in accordance with international human rights standards.”
- Cutaway: briefing room
- SOUNDBITE (English)—Thameen Al-Kheetan, Spokesperson for the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR): “The heartbreaking scenes of bereaved mothers in tears at the courtroom speak to the need for a victim-centred transitional justice process. Al-Assad, his brother Maher and all those tried in absentia should ultimately face court in person and be held accountable for the full scope of the crimes and violations they have committed.”
- Cutaway: briefing room
- SOUNDBITE (English)—Thameen Al-Kheetan, Spokesperson for the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR): “Accountability must also extend to all parties that have committed serious violations and abuses in Syria, prior to and during the war.”
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New data showing that rivers were at their lowest level for decades last year provides further evidence that the climate crisis is real and countries must act immediately to protect themselves from the increasing threat to communities and livelihoods, the UN World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said on Thursday.
The key findings from WMO’s State of Global Water Resources 2025 report covering the hydrological cycle and extreme events in the five-year period to last year:
- 2025 was one of driest years for river discharge in 35 years
- Past seven years have seen abnorfmal river flows
- Water storage on Earth’s land surface has decreased in past decade
- Widespread glacier loss across all regions for fourth consecutive year
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- Water data availability has improved, but gaps remain in hard-hit areas
Highlighting the long-term decline in the Earth’s freshwater storage and glacier melt, WMO Secretary-General Celeste Saulo explained that the planet’s water reserves used to act as a planetary “savings account” that absorbed the occasional dry season, avoiding a water crisis. “One of the central stories of the 2025 report is what is happening to that savings account? And the simple answer is that we are depleting it,” she told journalists in Geneva.
Groundwater reserves are equally stretched and have been in decline since 2014, WMO’s report states, with nearly two-thirds of monitored wells worldwide showing levels lower than the historical norm and indicating a shift “further toward deficit…not recovery”.
“At the same time, we are seeing more water-related disasters,” Ms. Saulo said, while also stressing that the currently strengthening El Niño “will increase the risk of drought in some areas, and flooding in others”.
Glaciers disappearing
In 2025, for the fourth consecutive year, every major glaciated region on Earth lost ice mass, leading to short-term hazards including floods and long-term water insecurity, according to WMO.
Responding to a question about whether the changing global water cycle might have contributed to the deadly Nepal-China flooding disaster, Ms. Saulo explained that melting ice and rock was just one factor in the chain of events that ultimately sent a massive and deadly wall of water and debris downstream on 26 August, killing at least 1,367 people.
“You asked if it could happen again? Absolutely; the problem in this region is that there’s 63,700 glaciers at the last count,” she told a Press Conference in Geneva. “Even if you’re looking with remote sensing with satellites at these glaciers, you might see some faults, you might see some slight shifting, that does not mean necessarily catastrophic collapse. So, in order to plan for this, it’s very, very difficult. But the international community is looking very hard at ways in which we can bring people together to solve some of these monitoring issues.”
Data indicates that glaciers shrank between 2023 and 2025 with cumulative losses of 1,400 gigatonnes of water – or about one third of annual fresh water needs.
Every major glacier region on Earth lost ice for the fourth consecutive year.
“All 19 glacier regions around the globe lost ice; in Central Asia, Iceland, the Russian Arctic and western Canada and the United States, it was among the three worst years on record,” said Wayne Jenkinson, WMO’s Director of Hydrology and Cryosphere.
Some regions with smaller glaciers such as Central Europe, the Caucasus, the western Canada and the United States may already have reached “peak water”, Mr. Jenkinson warned.
“After this point, the glacier gives less meltwater each year simply because there is less ice left to melt. That matters for every community downstream that relies on water during hot, dry summers,” he explained.
Narelle van der Wel, WMO’s Head of Cryosphere Monitoring, Predictions and Services, stressed that while some further glacier loss is unavoidable, the eventual scale of the decline is not predetermined.
“Some glacier loss is inevitable, but total loss of glaciers is not yet inevitable,” she said, pointing to emissions reductions as central to limiting future losses.
Preparing for moving baselines
The report does not attribute every observed change to climate change alone. WMO says pressure on water resources and natural variability also contribute.
Mr. Jenkinson said governments need to prepare for “moving baselines” as historical patterns become less reliable.
“The situation 30 years ago is not where we are today,” he said. Countries, he added, need to prepare “for those changes that have really already arrived”.
ends