DHAKA: A United Nations panel probing war crimes in Syria says people around the country are systematically vanishing without a trace as part of a widespread campaign of terror against civilians.

The expert panel says it found ‘a consistent country-wide pattern’ of Syrian security, armed forces and pro-government militia seizing people from mass arrests, house searches, checkpoints and hospitals, then making them disappear, and denying that they even exist.

The four experts reported on Thursday that rebel groups such as the Al-Qaeda-linked Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant that control large parts of northern Syria also have begun seizing people and running secret prisons.

But it says the opposition’s abductions usually differ because the victims tend to be taken as hostages for ransom or prisoner exchanges, and their existence isn`t concealed, reports The Straits Times.

BDST: 1839 HRS, DEC 19, 2013
Edited by Robab Rosan, Current Affairs Editor