Druze “abductees” from Suwayda returned to their villages after months of “detention” in Adra Central Prison, without knowing why the Damascus government had “abducted/detained/confiscated their freedom”. They received no “release document”, no official charges were filed against them, and no formal paperwork confirmed their imprisonment. All they were given was one million Syrian pounds and a new mobile phone.
Still unable to understand why they were held, they were moved through several official government institutions in Daraa and Damascus before finally returning home. There, their families and the relatives of those still imprisoned received them, pressing them with the Kafkaesque question the detainees themselves had asked officials earlier: “What crime did we commit that we are put in prison, then released without any official proof that we were even detained?”
How did the “abductees” crisis begin?
The official narrative adopted by Damascus to explain the Suwayda massacres of July 2025 was delivered by the Ministry of Interior, which announced that “units from its forces, in coordination with the Ministry of Defense, will begin direct intervention in the area to separate the parties, stop clashes, impose security, pursue those responsible for the events, and refer them to the competent judiciary”. The two sides of the conflict, according to that narrative, were armed fighters from Bedouin tribes and armed fighters from Suwayda.
The “bloody July” that Suwayda witnessed resulted in killings, displacement, and reciprocal abductions. Armed tribal groups and elements affiliated with Damascus authorities are accused of “abducting” Syrians from Suwayda and handing them to General Security, which “placed them” in Adra Central Prison. At the same time, armed groups in Suwayda “abducted” Syrians from the Bedouin community.
Later, “negotiations” opened to exchange the “abductees”. The term is avoided in official statements and news from Damascus. The state news agency SANA refers to those in Adra as “detainees”. In a visit to Damascus Central Prison, the National Committee for the Suwayda Events met the “arrestees”, according to SANA’s wording, to “review their health and humanitarian conditions, and it is currently coordinating with relevant bodies to settle the legal status of the prisoners”. In the same report, the term “detainees” was also used. The committee’s mandate, however, is to “investigate the attacks and violations citizens were subjected to” and to “refer anyone proven to have participated in attacks and violations to the judiciary”.
“Abductees”, “detainees”, “held”, “arrestees”. All these labels are used to describe a group of Druze Syrian citizens from Suwayda whom Damascus authorities “transferred” from Suwayda to Adra Central Prison. There is no official number, especially since Damascus has been releasing them in batches following negotiations with Suwayda’s armed groups, who also “abducted” other Syrians. To this day, unofficial pages circulate conflicting news about the failure of the “negotiations”.
Each of these labels carries legal implications, and Damascus plays a central role in shaping them, a role that can be summarized as “detention” and “exchange”. The head of Internal Security in Suwayda, Hussam Al-Tahhan, stated that “the Syrian state is proceeding to complete the exchange process in a full and fair manner”.
The “abductees” file became a pressure card. Each party holds Syrians to exchange them for other Syrians: the Damascus government, tribal armed groups, and Suwayda armed groups. The official entity presumed to hold sovereignty and decision-making is Damascus as “the government”. This brings us back to the question: what is the status of the Syrian citizens held in Adra? Are they “abductees” as part of hostage negotiations? Or “detainees”? Or “arrestees” held for investigation on suspicion of crimes?
There is ambiguity in the legal framework Damascus relies on when dealing with those “detained/abducted”, alongside the ambiguity of legal labels and their consequences for people who found themselves in prison without clear charges and without legal proof of the procedures applied to them, especially after collecting testimonies in which detainees said they were taken because they are Druze.
Reuters recently pointed to this legally vague formula of holding citizens without clear charges or procedures. In response to the agency, Syria’s Ministry of Information said: “The number of inmates in Damascus Central Prison is 3,599, including 439 detainees held for various crimes before the competent judiciary in terrorism cases, and 3,160 civilian inmates for criminal offenses”. It is not clear which category Suwayda’s “abductees” fall under, or whether they are included in this statistic.
Based on intersecting testimonies from people who spoke to Daraj about being “transferred” from Suwayda to Adra and then “returned” to Suwayda, we trace the legal, bureaucratic, and policing procedures from the moment of “detention” to “release”. This is not a survivors’ or victims’ testimony piece. Rather, it follows the human and legal infrastructure within which the abductees moved, as an attempt to understand the legal formula through which they were held. Some details about the place and date of abduction have been omitted to protect those who spoke with us from potential threats, and to protect those who remain in Adra.
“Arrest” during the clashes
During attacks on Suwayda, some residents took shelter in their homes or in empty houses out of fear of gunfire. Some were “taken” from those homes at gunpoint. The armed men were from tribal groups and from Syria’s Ministry of Defense forces. After their freedom was seized, they were crammed into pickup trucks and blindfolded.
During the ride, the abductees were insulted and cursed. At checkpoints, they were subjected to more insults and beatings, along with threats of execution. Eventually, they arrived at a house in Daraa.
They remained there for about 24 hours, without knowing which party was holding them. Then they were piled “on top of each other” into a pickup truck and driven at “insane speed” to be handed over to the Military Police in Daraa.
Before entering the Military Police building, the detainees passed through roughly 30 personnel. They were cursed and beaten as they passed. As the detainees told us: “This was torture”, describing the beatings and insults during entry. Once inside, it could be said they had come under the custody of an official institution affiliated with the Damascus government.
At the Military Police headquarters in Daraa, they stayed up to 10 days. They were not restrained when they arrived. They were photographed using a mobile phone, and their information was recorded (full name and date of birth). Their identification papers and belongings were taken and placed in “safekeeping”. During this period, they were forbidden from contacting anyone outside, and their families had no idea what had happened to them.
While held there, they received three meals a day and could use a bathroom outside the cell. Ventilation was poor because electricity was not consistently available, and there were no open windows. Each person had a mattress and a blanket.
In the “custody” of General Security
Later, without blindfolds or hand restraints, they were moved from the Military Police headquarters to the General Security headquarters in Daraa in a van. Their safekept belongings were handed over to General Security. There, they were placed in a small, highly humid cell full of insects. Each person was given a mattress, and the bathroom was inside the cell. They received three meals a day.
They remained with General Security for about 14 days, unable to contact the outside world. After that, they were allowed to call their families using a prison official’s phone approximately every three to five days. They said there was no specific schedule or fixed time.
Until this point, no clear charge had been brought against them, even though they were in the custody of an “official body”. The highest-ranking person visiting them, they said, was the “prison director”, though the term may not be accurate, since they did not know his rank. They described him as “very cooperative”. They addressed him as “sheikh”, a term that can be attached to anyone. One detainee said: “We did not know which ‘sheikh’ they meant, because they did not have names, only nicknames.”
Two days before they were transferred to Adra, they underwent an interrogation they described as merely “going through the motions”. It lasted no more than two minutes. They did not sign any papers. When they asked why they were being transferred to Adra, they were told it was “more suitable and safer”, and that they could be protected there because “the situation here is dangerous”.
In the central prison: inmates, abductees, or an “entrusted item”?
The “arrestees” were transported to Adra Central Prison in buses designed for prisoners, with windows protected by iron mesh. One bus carried 60 arrestees, because guards counted them repeatedly during the trip, according to one witness.
Upon arrival, they were subjected to a “grossly intrusive” full-body search, as one interviewee described it, declining to provide details. In Adra, they were stripped of everything they had. Unofficial sources put their number at around 110 “arrestees”. They then remained without contact with the outside world for about a month.
They were placed in a special wing far from other “inmates”. Electricity was available continuously. They were examined by doctors whom several detainees described as “inexperienced”. They were given only painkillers, plus medication for those with chronic illnesses. No prison uniforms were distributed, only “regular” clothes.
The cell had a bathroom but no mattresses. Each person received only two blankets. Later, after a batch was “released”, the remaining detainees were distributed into two cells. Each person received two meals a day (breakfast: labneh, cheese, zaatar, jam, olives. Lunch: rice or bulgur or canned food, and four loaves of bread per person). After lice spread, they were given skin ointments.
Treatment was described as generally good. Some guards were friendly, while others deliberately insulted them. Every five days, they were allowed an hour and a half outside for air.
Some of the “abducted/detained” in Adra were brought before the investigation committee established by the Ministry of Justice, and were promised release within days. Those who appeared before the committee were questioned about the treatment they received and the party that had “arrested” them. They signed and fingerprinted the investigation records, and some were then released.
As for the rest, they said a “person” visited them and had them fill out documents confirming they had not carried weapons. They were shown an “order to release” from the Public Prosecutor in Damascus. Some detainees saw this paper, others did not. Then, one by one, they signed the documents stating they had not carried weapons.
During this period, the detainees went on hunger strike several times to pressure authorities to allow contact with their families. For a month, their relatives knew nothing. After repeated hunger strikes, they were permitted a five-minute call every ten days.
They had no information about what was happening outside their cell. No news, no communication tools. They could not identify ranks: “All of them were ‘sheikhs’ with nicknames.” Even during meal distribution, ranks were unclear.
They did not know their legal status or the legal justification for holding them. The answer was always: “You are here for your protection”, “You have done nothing”, and “There is a delay in the exchange process. You and your families should pressure to complete the deal.”
Detainees said a delegation from the International Committee of the Red Cross visited, met them, and filled out forms about personal information and how the “arrest/abduction/detention” happened. The purpose was to check on their conditions and help them contact their families.
“Under entrusted safekeeping”
We are looking at a group of Syrians whose freedom was seized by the authorities without clear charges, while the “government” used them as pressure to complete an exchange deal with armed Bedouin and Druze groups.
We are also looking at a chain of violations that includes arbitrary detention, enforced disappearance, deprivation of liberty, and detention without a warrant. It is also unclear what legal status applies to an authority that holds its own citizens in order to exchange them for other citizens. When some detainees asked about their legal status, the answer was: “You are under entrusted safekeeping.”
Several pages, not official ones, published the names of some detainees. It also emerged that minors were among them, and sometimes young men from the same family. There were no women among them in Adra.
The Kafkaesque twist is that some were held for months without a legal reference point. Then some were suddenly released, given new civilian clothing, transported on a regular civilian coach bus, and handed to committees in Suwayda’s villages along with one million Syrian pounds and a new mobile phone.
Those released received no proof they had been “imprisoned” or “arrested”. They passed through prison and security institutions and left without any legal document confirming their detention, and no “official” proof they had been inside Adra, except the testimonies gathered by the Red Cross, which visited the prison.
In the early days, some families tried to contact authorities, who denied holding any detainees. Families remained without knowledge of their relatives’ fate twice: first in Daraa, then in Adra before contact was allowed. In effect, there were two periods in which the detainees disappeared and no one knew what had happened to them.
Who is responsible?
We spoke to Suwayda-based lawyer Ayman Shaib Al-Din, who confirmed that under Syrian law this is a series of violations including “abduction, detention without a judicial warrant (arbitrary), deprivation of liberty without a judicial warrant (enforced disappearance is not present in Syrian law), and denial of legal representation”.
He said: “These crimes were committed with the knowledge of the Damascus authorities and under the supervision of General Security. The investigation committee that visited the abductees in Adra should have immediately released them all, since no charges were brought, they were not presented to the judiciary, and their detention and extended imprisonment were not based on a court order. This is added to the series of violations Druze Syrians were subjected to.”
Shaib Al-Din argues that the abductors themselves, whether civilians or affiliated with the authorities, have not been charged, despite depriving unarmed Syrian citizens of their liberty, which is “a criminal offense”. He added: “I receive dozens of calls from families of abductees to find out their fate, but there is no official response from the authorities. Not to mention using abductees as a bargaining chip. There is an authority that employs state institutions and violates the laws it claims to apply, in order to cover up war crimes.”
He continued: “We hear that there are detainees in security branches that have been reactivated, but there is no way to verify this, because the authorities have not clearly announced the fate of the abductees and their places of detention. When we tried to contact the Red Cross that visited the abductees in Adra, we received no response.”
We contacted media spokespeople for the Ministry of Justice, the Ministry of Interior, and the “Suwayda Events Investigation Committee” without receiving a reply. The International Committee of the Red Cross responded as follows: “In line with its mandate, the ICRC maintains an ongoing bilateral dialogue with all relevant parties in Syria, seeking access to all persons deprived of their liberty in situations of armed conflict and violence, regardless of the reason for their detention, the place of detention, or the detaining authority.”
The ICRC added: “The ICRC is currently carrying out visits to persons deprived of their liberty in various places of detention across the country, including persons held by different parties in connection with the events that occurred in southern Syria and Suwayda. Its purely humanitarian objective includes monitoring the treatment of detainees and their detention conditions, reminding detaining authorities of their duty to ensure humane treatment, and restoring and maintaining contact between detainees and their families.”
As for information on those deprived of their liberty, the ICRC said: “While the ICRC does not intervene in judicial proceedings, its observations and recommendations, including those related to the legal status of persons deprived of their liberty, are shared exclusively with detaining authorities through bilateral and non-public dialogue, in accordance with the ICRC’s working methodologies worldwide.”
