The UN's Independent Institution for Missing Persons in Syria has said it is now closely reviewing what's called the Damascus Dossier, the international investigative project that leaked new details about a systematic killing apparatus run by the fallen Assad regime against detainees in its prisons.
Drawing on more than 134,000 leaked intelligence documents, the UN body said the findings are deeply sensitive for families of the missing and stressed that directly informing relatives remains its “highest priority”.
The dossier, released this week by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), contains more than 134,000 security files and over 10,000 images identifying individual detainees killed in Syrian intelligence facilities, many of them catalogued, numbered and photographed after death.
The publication’s timing, coinciding with national celebrations marking Syria’s commemoration of its liberation from Assad, has added political urgency to a leak already causing deep anguish among families searching for answers.
ICIJ said the records were obtained by the German broadcaster NDR before being shared with its partners, though the scale of the archive raises questions about how so much classified material left Syrian state custody.
Syrian civil society groups documented extensive looting and destruction of state archives in Damascus and its suburbs after the fall of the Assad regime, raising questions about how thousands of intelligence files left official custody and ultimately surfaced in the ICIJ investigation.
The Independent Institution for Missing Persons said it had received "extensive" contact from families in recent days, many fearing that the fate of their relatives could be revealed online without warning. It warned that families risk learning the most painful details of their loved ones’ disappearance "in a manner that does not respect their dignity or their right to make decisions".
The organisation noted that information submitted by families, civil society and media sources undergoes strict verification before any conclusions are drawn and said that directly and privately informing families remains the "top priority".
The Syrian Ministry of Justice said that the "random publication" of information harms victims and is incompatible with the rights of their families, adding that the release of unverified material risks causing further trauma. While the ministry did not address how the documents left regime control, it said disclosure must take place in a manner that "preserves dignity and protects families".
Reacting on Instagram, Syrian activist Wafa Mustafa, whose father was detained and disappeared by the Assad regime in 2013, said the leak has reopened long-standing wounds for families of the missing.
She criticised the fact that the files were not delivered to Syrian-led bodies or directly to relatives, saying families were being told that the files had been handed to several institutions and that they should approach those bodies on their own.
She said the documents "belong to the Syrian people and to the independent organisations working on the issue of the missing".
Mustafa said she will continue demanding answers about her father’s fate.
"As for me, I will not be silent. I want to know what happened to my father, and I want to know everything in these documents. How are they handling this with me?"
She also said the government bore responsibility for failing to protect detainees and their records: "The government was responsible from the beginning because it was capable of protecting the detainees and did not do so - and this is the result."
A positive development?
On the other hand, Syrian researcher Ahmad Abazid said the files did not display photos or names, except for a small number whose families were contacted, which he considered to be a positive aspect.
He told The New Arab’s sister site Al-Araby Al-Jadeed that publishing investigative reports based on documents obtained by journalistic and human rights institutions - without revealing photos or names - does not constitute a violation of detainees’ privacy.
Abazid considered that responsibility lies with the official bodies that have held these files, photos, and other materials since the fall of the regime or shortly after, to advance the process of uncovering the truth and at least inform families of the initial facts regarding the deaths of their relatives before investigating all remaining details.
He said that a full year had gone by without the publication of information, during which private institutions achieved in uncovering mass graves and investigating documents what official bodies failed to achieve.
The Damascus Dossier includes thousands of photographs taken by military photographers at hospitals such as Tishreen and Harasta, showing bodies of detainees who died under torture, starvation or disease.
The images - many of them graphic - document how security agencies catalogued the dead as part of a systematic process that spanned years and involved multiple branches of the intelligence apparatus.
Neither the Independent Institution for Missing Persons nor national authorities have confirmed whether the images in the archive correspond to specific missing persons, stressing that verification will take time.
According to the Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR), as of 2025 there are at least 181,312 individuals recorded as forcibly disappeared or missing since 2011.