Summary:
This article reviews the Atlantic Council’s report on the need to establish a “Syria Victims Fund” to redirect funds seized from the Bashar al-Assad regime to support victims, one year after the regime’s fall in December 2024. The research focuses on the historical background of the violations, the scale of the seized funds (more than $600 million in cases related to supporting terrorism, in addition to hundreds of millions more in frozen assets), the needs of the victims (more than 177,000 missing persons and 500,000 former detainees, according to reports by Amnesty International and the Syrian Network for Human Rights), and proposals for the fund as an international mechanism for direct support.
The article draws on reports from the Atlantic Council, Human Rights Watch, and the United Nations, as well as historical examples such as the US State-Supported Victims of Terrorism Compensation Fund, and proposes recommendations for strengthening transitional justice in Syria.
The article emphasizes that this fund represents a historic opportunity for reform, but faces logistical and political challenges, including the partial lifting of sanctions in 2025, which could hinder asset tracking.
Introduction:
The fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime on December 8, 2024, ended decades of repression and gross human rights violations in Syria.
This event opened a unique opportunity for transitional justice, especially with the release of thousands of detainees from prisons like Saydnaya, described as a “human slaughterhouse,” and the discovery of thousands of bodies in mass graves. However, hundreds of thousands of victims remain in dire need of medical, psychological, and legal support, especially given UN reports of continued enforced disappearances as of November 2025.
This article focuses on a report issued by the Atlantic Council in December 2025, which calls for the redirection of funds confiscated from the former regime to an international victims’ fund, rather than their being held in Western coffers.
The article aims to analyze this proposal, drawing on data from the report and additional sources from Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and the United Nations, while also providing a deeper analysis of the challenges, comparative models, and recommendations for its implementation.
Historical Background:
The Syrian conflict began in 2011 as a response to the suppression of peaceful protests, leading to a military war that has resulted in over 500,000 deaths, millions of displaced persons, and widespread arbitrary arrests.
Under the Assad family’s rule for over 53 years, the regime committed war crimes and crimes against humanity, including torture in prisons (where more than 177,057 cases of enforced disappearance were recorded as of August 2025, according to the Syrian Network for Human Rights), and chemical attacks.
After the regime’s fall, Assad fled to Russia, and other officials escaped to the UAE and elsewhere, carrying with them fortunes amassed through corruption, drug trafficking (such as Captagon), and market manipulation.
Successive leaks of documents have revealed multi-million dollar deals between businessmen and the Syrian military, particularly the Fourth Division. Since 2011, Western countries have imposed sanctions on Syria, leading to the seizure of funds from companies involved in supporting terrorism or violating sanctions. However, a partial lifting of sanctions in June 2015 by the United States and the United Kingdom resulted in the removal of sanctions on 518 individuals and entities, complicating the tracking of remaining assets.
Seized Funds and Victims:
Countries such as the United States and the European Union have collected hundreds of millions of dollars in fines since 2011, including more than $600 million in a case related to support for the Islamic State (ISIS), and £161 million frozen in the UK linked to the former regime.
Assets belonging to the Assad family have also been seized, such as those of Rifaat al-Assad in Spain in 2017, and other assets worth billions of dollars are frozen in the UAE.
The victims include more than 500,000 former detainees and 177,000 missing persons, in addition to survivors of torture and mass graves. The UN has recorded nearly 100 new cases of enforced disappearance since January 2025. These individuals require specialized medical and psychological care, especially given the discovery of mass graves and the identification of missing persons through the “Damascus File,” which documented thousands of photographs of victims.
General humanitarian needs (such as the removal of unexploded ordnance, estimated to cost billions of dollars) and the provision of legal and social support are further compounded by a reduction of approximately $237 million in US aid in 2025 and the cessation of humanitarian funding.
Proposed Syria Victims Fund:
The Atlantic Council proposes the creation of a “Syria Victims Fund” as an intergovernmental mechanism to redirect confiscated funds directly to victims. This would be inspired by previous models such as Kazakhstan’s BOTA Fund (which compensated victims of the Soviet Union), the transfer of frozen Russian assets to Ukraine, and the US State-Supported Victims of Terrorism Fund (USVSST), which has compensated thousands of victims with over $10 billion.
The fund would operate through coordination among states (the United States, the European Union, the United Nations, and the Gulf Cooperation Council) and Syrian civil society organizations, such as the Strategic Litigation Working Group, to distribute support for immediate needs such as medical and psychological care, the establishment of victim registries, and support for transitional justice. This is not a substitute for official reparations but rather a temporary measure to promote healing, with a focus on tracking illicit assets through organizations like the ICIJ.
In Syria, the transitional government has established a National Commission for Transitional Justice and a Commission for the Missing, but these are limited in scope and require international support. Amnesty International has also emphasized the need for survivors’ rights to be central to the transition.
Challenges and Recommendations:
The idea faces challenges such as implementation delays due to regional tensions (such as Russia’s role in hosting refugees from the former regime), the flight of officials with their wealth (estimated at billions), and the decline in international aid.
Rebuilding the Syrian judicial system, which was an instrument of repression, will take years, with Human Rights Watch reporting the National Commission’s failure to investigate the regime’s crimes.
Furthermore, lifting sanctions in 2025 exposes assets to dispersal, requiring immediate international cooperation.
Therefore, we in the Syrian Future Movement recommend the following:
- Redirect fines immediately to the fund, focusing on the second year after the regime’s fall, and allocate $600 million of the funds recovered from ISIS to Syrian victims.
- Allocate resources to track assets in tax havens, in cooperation with intelligence firms and the ICIJ.
- Strengthen the role of Syrian civil society in managing the fund to ensure transparency, with UN support for records of missing persons.
- Support legal reforms in Syria, such as dropping vague charges and joining the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, while drawing on the Iraqi model for compensating victims.
- Encourage international cooperation to gradually lift sanctions in exchange for progress on justice, while monitoring the transition to prevent a recurrence of violations. Conclusion: The Syrian Victims Fund represents a crucial step toward recovery from decades of repression by transforming confiscated funds from punishment into compensation, as models like the USVSST (US State-Sponsored Victims of Terrorism Compensation Fund) have successfully done to support victims.
However, its success depends on international coordination and a Syrian commitment to comprehensive justice, especially in light of UN reports of ongoing disappearances.
Given the current historic opportunity, the international community must not squander this window of opportunity to ensure a stable and prosperous future for Syria, where the fund can compensate not only for material losses but also for the psychological wounds inflicted on entire generations.
References:
- Amnesty International. (2025). A year after Assad’s fall, rights of survivors, families must guide transition. Amnesty.
- Atlantic Council. (2025). Syria Victims Fund. Strategic Litigation Project.
- Baker, E., & Helmi, A. (2025). One year after Assad’s fall, here’s what’s needed to advance justice for Syrians. Atlantic Council.
- Global Survivors Fund. (2023). Syria study on opportunities for reparations. GSF.
- Human Rights Watch. (2025). Syria: One year since Assad’s fall. HRW.
- Just Security. (2024). The US recovered over $600 million in ISIS-linked funds. Just Security.
- Springs, K., & Kmiotek, C. (2025). States shouldn’t waste the chance to establish a Syria Victims Fund. Atlantic Council.
- Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR). (2025). Fourteenth annual report on enforced disappearances in Syria. SNHR.
- The Washington Institute. (2025). Models for transitional justice in Syria. Washington Institute.
- United Nations OHCHR. (2025). Syria: Continued worrying reports about abductions and enforced disappearances. UN.
- U.S. Department of the Treasury. (2025). Termination of Syria sanctions. OFAC.
