Syrian families embark on agonising hunt for clues about missing relatives

For the past week, Mohamed Khalil Yahya has been glued to his phone. From his house in Berlin, his eyes thoroughly studied every image he comes across online of Syrian prisoners released from the harrowing detention centres created by the regime of Bashar Al-Assad.

Yahya desperately searches for a familiar face, one that resembles his brother Mosallam whom he has not heard from in 12 years.

Since then, Yahya said he has come to terms with the belief that his brother, who was arrested at the height of Syrian uprising at a checkpoint in the Damascene suburb of Darayya in 2012, was likely dead.

Yet, a grainy photo recently shared on social media rekindled a fragile hope. The man in the picture was gaunt and unrecognisable in many ways, but there was something hauntingly familiar about his face. Could it be Mosallam, alive after all these years?

This flicker of possibility has brought Yahya as much pain as hope. He quickly shared the image with his siblings in Syria, who launched a frantic search in Damascus hospitals, hoping to confirm the unimaginable. But days of combing through wards and questioning staff have brought no answers—only more uncertainty.

"I don't know what to believe. That photo made me feel like he could still be out there, but with no confirmation, it's unbearable," Yahya told TRT World.

Thousands still missing

Since the swift collapse of Al-Assad's regime, multiple prisons across the country have been opened and countless prisoners - many of whom were rounded up during the mass peaceful anti-government protests of 2011 and 2012 - were set free.

The inhumane state of the confinement cells, the length of people's imprisonment, and the conditions of those who emerged from behind bars put a spotlight on the brutality practiced in these labyrinths of prisons.

According to testimonies, rape, torture, and abuse were ongoing, and dozens of rotting corpses were found.

Mosallam was detained at 38 years old. That day, he got onto his work bus to go to his office. Because he was coming from Darraya, where anti-government protests had been taking place, soldiers removed him from the bus and took him away. His children - aged 6, 10 and 13 years old at the time - never heard from him again.

"I had accepted that Mosallam was probably dead. The regime showed no mercy to Darayya," Yahya said, adding that his family didn't ask authorities about their brother's whereabouts out of fear that they too would be arrested.

Since that day, the family has received no word of his fate, not even confirmation of his detention or death. "But when I saw that photo, I had to believe, even if just for a moment, that he could still be out there," Yahya said.

Unending agony

The story of the Yahya family is one of countless tragedies in Syria, where the shadow of Assad's detention network looms large.

For years, human rights organisations have documented the brutalities of Syria's prison system. Detainees are often subjected to extreme torture, starvation, and in many cases, execution. Families of the missing face a cruel uncertainty—neither death certificates nor official information are provided, leaving them in an agonising limbo.

The plight of families like that of Fadwa Mahmoud exemplifies this. Mahmoud, a prominent activist and former political prisoner herself, has spent over a decade seeking information about her husband, Abdulaziz al-Kheir, and her son, Maher Tahan.

Both men were arrested in 2012, and since then, Mahmoud has converted her grief into activism, founding the "Families for Freedom" movement to advocate for Syria's disappeared.

But so far, her search for her husband and son has yielded no answers.

"I've spent years chasing false leads. The regime deliberately obscures the fate of detainees, especially prominent figures like Abdulaziz (al-Kheir). It's a tragedy shared by thousands of Syrian families," she told TRT World.

Since the regime was deposed, multiple Facebook groups have been created where families post outdated images of their loved ones in hopes that they were spotted by someone.

Among the shared posts are endless lists of names of prisoners set free to help their families identify them, as many have emerged in ragged conditions, forgetful of who they are.

Mahmoud said she believes her husband's prominence within the opposition—he was a senior member of the Communist Labour Party—may have made him a target of particular cruelty.

Despite hailing from Qardaha, the hometown of Assad's family, Abdulaziz's principled opposition to the regime sealed his fate. His family now clings to the hope that the truth about his whereabouts, dead or alive, will someday come to light.

Chaotic freedom

In the days following Assad's downfall, as rebel groups began opening prisons and detention centres, freedom came to some, while others were plunged into turmoil.

Social media was quickly flooded with grainy images of emaciated survivors and skeletal remains, spurring desperate searches by families across the country.

At hospitals like those in Barzeh, walls were plastered with photographs of released detainees, while crowds gathered at transport hubs, scanning the faces of those arriving from notorious prisons like Sednaya - locally known as the "human slaughterhouse."

"Parents, siblings, and spouses came from across Syria to these sites," recounted Mahmoud Hamwi, a journalist and human rights activist. "Some found closure, but for most, the search only deepened their despair."

Hamwi, now the executive director of the General Union of Detainees, an amalgamation of various societies that merged together in June 2023, highlights the chaos that ensued.

Documents containing vital information about detainees were scattered or destroyed. "The disorganisation was heartbreaking. Had international organisations been consulted, these moments of liberation could have also been moments of accountability," he lamented.

Hamwi also voiced fears about the treatment of mass graves that dot Syria's war-torn landscape. Improper handling of these sites—where many detainees are believed to have been executed—could erase critical evidence.

"Excavations need to be handled with care. The work of forensic teams will be essential to preserving justice," he said.

A legacy of horror

According to Amnesty International estimates, between 2011 and 2015 alone, up to 13,000 people were secretly hanged at Sednaya, the most infamous prison facility in the Assad regime, while thousands more perished from starvation, beatings, and neglect.

The sheer scale of the detention system—thousands of facilities, some still undiscovered—complicates the task of identifying detainees and holding perpetrators accountable.

Human rights organisations have also documented clandestine detention centres hidden within military compounds and intelligence branches, their locations known only to a handful of regime insiders.

The Syrian Network for Rights reports that, as of August 2022, at least 111,000 people remain forcibly disappeared, underscoring the immense challenge of achieving justice.

As Syrian transitional government authorities consolidate control, some hope exists for systematic efforts to locate the disappeared. Families and advocacy groups are calling for international support to establish centralised databases and forensic missions to uncover the truth.

For families, each day without answers deepens the trauma.

Hamwi recalls a mother's heartbreaking testimony during one of his livestreams: "She was looking for her five sons, all taken by the regime. She had no news of them, but the odds are grim…mass executions were common."

This piece was published in collaboration with Egab.