A video circulated on social media showed a kidnapped Syrian youth in Lebanon, pleading and appealing for a ransom to be paid for his release, while the Lebanese authorities did not comment on the video.
The video shows the kidnapped young man being tortured by a gang after being kidnapped in the Hermel area in the Beqaa Valley of Lebanon.
The young man, “Ahmed Mutlaq,” called on his friends and acquaintances to pay a ransom of $50,000 for his release, within a week from the date the video was published.
In the video, the young man said that he was being severely beaten and subjected to all kinds of torture (beating, whipping, electric shocks), stating that he is living only on water without food.
It turned out that the kidnapped young man is named Ahmed Mutlaq, a Syrian born in the city of Homs in 2003, who works in the Hermel area in Lebanon. He is an orphan, and his fate was unknown at the time of publishing the news.
The Lebanese authorities or the Internal Security Forces did not comment on the circulated video, at a time when Syrians in Lebanon are facing an unprecedented campaign of attacks.
Hermel is located in northeastern Lebanon, 143 km from the Lebanese capital Beirut. It is predominantly inhabited by supporters of the Lebanese Hezbollah party. On May 13, 2024, Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah called for opening the sea route to Europe for Syrian refugees as a solution to the refugee crisis.
Same Justice organization strongly condemns the abduction of Syrians residing or Syrian refugees in Lebanon for ransom, as well as the torture that kidnapped individuals are subjected to. The organization calls on the Lebanese authorities to take immediate and urgent action to locate the Syrian youth and rescue him from his captors, arrest the gang, and properly hand them over to the competent authorities.
Same Justice organization also calls on international human rights organizations and donor countries to the host communities of Syrian refugees to pressure the Lebanese authorities to take decisive actions to end the suffering of Syrian refugees in Lebanon and the ongoing kidnappings and assaults against them.
