Overview

• Head of the Independent Institution on Missing Persons in Syria Karla Quintana said she will travel to Damascus next week and hopes to sign a memorandum with the national commission.
• The IIMP, created by the UN General Assembly in 2023, began operating inside Syria in January following the overthrow of Bashar al-Assad.
• Quintana identified coordination with Syria’s Commission on Missing Persons as the primary operational challenge as the institution works to share data and secure access.
• Estimates of the missing range from about 130,000 to potentially more than 300,000, with uncertainty driven by inaccessible areas, incomplete records and ongoing instability.
• The IIMP has opened multiple lines of inquiry—including enforced disappearances, children sent to orphanages with altered identities, and ISIS cases—while building a detailed registry, data-analysis tools and a forensic network and engaging families and concerned governments.