UN: Arbitrary detentions in Syria conflict may be war crimes

FILE - In this July 15, 2018 file photo, a calendar is drawn by a prisoner on a wall of an underground cell in the abandoned Tawbeh Prison, where over the years the Army of Islam detained hundreds of people, in Douma, near Damascus, Syria. The U.N. Commission of Inquiry on Syria said in a report released Monday, March, 1, 2021, that tens of thousands of civilians were arbitrarily detained in enforced disappearances during the country's 10-year conflict. The commission’s report said the Syrian government and other parties in the conflict committed crimes in the context of detention. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar, File)

FILE - In this Oct. 31, 2019 file photo, candles adorn the graves of people killed during Syrian war, in the town of Qamishli, north Syria. The U.N. Commission of Inquiry on Syria said in a report released Monday, March, 1, 2021, that tens of thousands of civilians were arbitrarily detained in enforced disappearances during the country's 10-year conflict. The conflict has killed nearly half a million people, displaced half the country’s pre-war population of 23 million, including 5 million who are refugees abroad. (AP Photo/Baderkhan Ahmad, File)