The whereabouts of 99,479 Syrians, who have been forcibly disappeared since the start of the civil war back in 2011, are still unknown, the Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR) said yesterday.

According to a report from SNHR released in line with Aug. 30 International Day of the Disappeared, 84,371 of these vanished persons were known to have been detained by the Bashar Assad regime.

Since their forcible disappearance by the regime, no news from them has been received, the report highlighted.

A previous report from the group said Assad's forces have tortured around 1.2 million Syrians detained during the civil war, most of whom are still being held by the regime.

Opposition sources claim that at least 500,000 people are currently detained in the regime's prisons and interrogation centers.

Already in 2012, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said Syria was holding tens of thousands of detainees in a "torture archipelago."

It documented 27 detention facilities nationwide used to hold people swept up in the government's crackdown on protesters.

Witnesses have described torture, including beatings, the use of electricity or car battery acid, sexual assault and mock executions.

The report further states that more than 8,000 of these people had been detained by the Daesh terrorist group while more than 2,000 had been abducted by the YPG/PKK terrorists. The rest is mostly being held on by the various other smaller-scaled groups that were involved in the war, the report states.

With the support of its backers, the Syrian regime has seized control of almost two-thirds of the country and is still aiming to inch further by attacking the northwestern Idlib province, which is situated at a geopolitically significant juncture.

The Syrian conflict is estimated to have set back the country's economy by three decades, destroying infrastructure, institutions and paralyzing the production of electricity and oil.

UN peace talks end

Still, the United Nations is ramping up efforts to put an end to the nine-year-old war as peace talks in Geneva ended Saturday on a reportedly "respectful tone." The next meeting is expected to take place later this year.

"When we have an agreement on the agenda, we will also then set an exact date for when we meet again," said Geir Pedersen, the U.N. special envoy on Syria, speaking to journalists at the U.N. in Geneva.

Opposition co-chair of the talks Hadi al-Bahra said he hoped they would be in late September or early October.

His news conference followed four-days of talks delayed by some delegates testing positive for the COVID-19 virus on the first day, Monday.

The previous round of talks in Geneva late last year had failed due to a failure to agree on the agenda between the Syrian regime side and the opposition.

Pedersen said that he is still trying to build trust between the sides after nearly 10 years of war.

"I was extremely pleased to hear the two co-chairs saying very clearly that they thought also there were quite a few areas of commonalities.

"And what I'm looking forward to is hopefully then when we meet again, that we will be able to build on those commonalities and bring the process, further forward," said Pedersen.

The main opposition leader al-Bahra, former head of the Syrian National Coalition for Opposition and Revolutionary Forces and the meeting's co-chair, also addressed journalists at the U.N. in Geneva.

"Currently, there is no permanent cease-fire in Syria," he observed.

So as long as there is violence and remains repeated military clashes, "we will not see the political process moving fast," said al-Bahra saying the responsibly lies with the international community.

"Their duty is to push for a full cease-fire in Syria, a permanent one," al-Bahri said, noting the forces from Russia and the U.S., as well as regional players such as Turkey and Iran, were currently inside the country.

"When we see that happen, we will see the whole process moving faster because all of a sudden, they will know that there is no way for them to achieve a final victory in military terms," he said, referring to the regime forces.

Pedersen said that as he addressed the U.N. Security Council recently in New York, he saw that "there is strong and united support from the Security Council" on the current peace round.

"All 50 members have expressed strong support to the work of the constitutional committee, and also to the fact that we would be convening here again in Geneva on the work that started on Monday. This support, I think, is extremely important," said the U.N. envoy.

Ahmad Kuzbari, representing the regime as a co-chair, was not available for comment after the talks halted.

The U.N. did not say which delegation among the 45 participants was found to have the virus, but opposition sources told Anadolu Agency they believed those who tested positive had come from Damascus, Syria's capital.