The children’s school uniforms hung on the door. His academic work books are in his desks. The dust -covered toys were still sitting on the floor.
This is how Naila al-Abbasi found his sister Rania’s apartment in Syria, almost 12 years after she was detained next to her six children and sank on the secret network of prisons and detention facilities in the Old Regime.
Al-Abbasi had traveled from Saudi Arabia to visit the house of Dummar Project, a tributary district in the northwest of the Syrian capital, Damascus, on February 25.
« The smell of murder fills the house. Sad walls and curtains as if it were in mourning its separation, » Al-Abbasi published on Instagram.
Found every corner covered with dirt. The birds that flew to the house were scattered on the floor.
It was once a bright house and occupied by six children: Dima, 13; Understand, 12; Najah, 11; Alaa, 8; Ahmed, 6; and Layan, 1.
For years, Hassan al-Abbasi, Rania’s brother, makes information on his whereabouts.
He has actively sought children after a decrease in Bashar al-Assad’s government last December. But his calls have not been answered, without any words about the fate of the family since March 2013.
« The situation is very difficult, because none of the children has appeared and it was the first time our family has entered home in 12 years, » Hassan told CBC News in Ottawa, where he lives with his wife and children.
« It was very painful. »
The children probably moved to the orphanages
On March 9, 2013, Assad’s military intelligence members detained Rania al-Abbasi’s husband, Abdul Rahman Yasin, in his home, before re-plundering all gold and money, took three cars, computers and cell phones, along with passports and ownership documents from their properties and the Dental Clinic of Ar-Abbbasi.
Two days later, members of the intelligence again arrested Al-Abbasi, along with their six children and the Majoline Al-Qady secretary, who was with them at that time.
Parents were accused of providing humanitarian assistance to needs during the Syrian Revolution, which broke out in March 2011.
Al-Abbasi’s case quickly became one of the most prominent in Syria, emphasizing the issue of missing detainees, both parents and children.
Hassan believes that children probably remained with Rania at arrest facilities, according to reports from other detainees, before being transferred to orphanages or child care facilities, and stripped of their family identities and origins. But it has been impossible to verify without access to the documents of the organizations.
The disappearance of complete families is one of the widespread atrocities committed during the Brutal Government of Assad.
The Syria Human Rights Network said he received reports from this practice a few years ago and supposedly involved institutions like the villages of SOS Children Syria.
In a statement In the CBC news on February 25, the organization said that « it recognizes the concern for children placed in healthcare organizations, including the villages of SOS Children Syria, by the old government. »
« During the war, many children were unnecessarily separated from their families and were in alternative care services by authorities without proper documentation of their origins. »
Arrest children, « systematic » families
Hassan said that his family paid thousands of dollars to prisons and members involved in these operations for any information on Rania and his family, but they would be left with non -verifiable information and without real knowledge of his whereabouts.
He said that the children’s paternal aunt visited a Syria detention installation in 2013 to request the release of children during the months following their arrest. The aunt was later detained for three months.
« Arresting children and families was systematic. The regime could have returned the children to their relatives, but they also threatened them to stop them if they speak, » Hassan said.
He said that the family hired a lawyer to examine orphanages in 2022 after learning that the regime placed children of the detainees or murders in their prisons. This also did not provide answers either.
In the following years, a worker told Hassan in one of the orphanages who recognized four of the six children Although their names had changed. Despite attempts to arrive, Hassan could not verify it.
« These children grew up in our house … If you killed them, send us a photo, at least we will know that they were killed, » Hassan, appealing to those involved in the operations of the previous regime.
At least 3,700 children disappeared
The Syrians for Human Rights Syrians says that verified lists show that approximately 3,700 children were forced by the ASSAD regime since 2011, although many suggest that the number is much higher, more than 10,000.
At the end of January SNHR called The Transition Syrian government to carry out an « immediate and complete » investigation into all the organizations received by children from the Old Regime.
« Many relatives think that detained families, the child, the mother and the father, who killed (all) … but there are so many children in these organizations, » Hassan said.
After the exile of former Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, Hosni Korno says he has no hope that his four children, who were arrested at the height of Arab Spring in 2013, are still alive.
The SOS Children’s Towns said that, under new management changes, only children with documentation began to be accepted in 2018.
« We regret the unsustainable situation we encountered when receiving the children and unequivocally disapproved of these practices, as children should never be separated from their families unless they are of interest to them, » the organization said in a statement.
The fate of Rania al-Abbasi is still unknown, along with hundreds of thousands of others detained in Assad’s prisons. The massive pits were discovered after the fall of the Assad regime, but it could take years to identify the remains.
Dad believed murdered after the month in pre -trial detention
Hassan said the family believes that his brother -in -law was tortured and killed about a month after being detained. They came to this conclusion after acknowledging Abdul Rahman Yasin in one of the 53,000 photos shared by a Syrian military police defender called « Caesar » by smuggling Syria’s photos to try to document torture and brutal deaths in Assad’s prisons.
In the following years, Hassan said that relatives would ask the people to visit the house of Al-Abbasi and Yasin to record and see what was behind. But they were too afraid that it would still be controlled or inhabited by intelligence agents.
Hassan said that the greatest concern for his family is that children cannot be in orphaned even in the country.
« We have faith. If they died, they are martyrs. And if they did not die, we continue to look for them, » he said.
« This is a catastrophe of many. So far, we have not reached the real extension of these crimes; we have only reached a part. »
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