Loss, hope: stories of disappeared reveal the dark side of Syrian prisons

At dawn on December 8, 2024, the Ba'ath regime collapsed in Syria, and the prison doors were opened and thousands of prisoners were released from prisons spread throughout the country, including prisons known for their bad reputation such as Adra, Sednaya and the intelligence branches. Opening the prison doors restored hope to tens of thousands of Syrian families who had lost news of their sons for many years, but it also unleashed widespread chaos in the country.

Jal Agha City: Stories of Hope and Pain

In the city of Jal Agha in al-Jazira canton, after the fall of the regime, the fates of some detainees began to emerge. While evidence emerged that some of them were executed in the field or died under torture, the fate of others remains unknown, including Faisal Ahmed Omar and Hazem Ahmed Ali.

Faisal Ahmed Omar: A father who spent his dream under the burden of prisons

Faisal Ahmed Omar, born in 1982, is a father of three children from the village of Nabi Sadi in the countryside of the city of Jal Agha in the Jazira canton, and is one of the disappeared to date.

In 2002, Faisal traveled to Damascus to work as a guard on a farm in the Khan al-Shih area in order to support his family. At the beginning of the Syrian crisis in 2012, Faisal returned to his village due to the deteriorating security situation in Damascus, where chaos had spread in the city, in addition to the increase in killings and looting on farms. Faisal decided to return to his hometown with his family after the situation became more dangerous for his life.

But in 2013, after a period of relative calm in Damascus, Faisal decided to return to his work on his farm in Khan al-Shih.

In the same year, while his family was at home in Damascus, a patrol from the “Military Security” raided the neighborhood where they lived and arrested all the men in the area, including Faisal.

Faisal was taken to the "Military Security" branch in Quneitra. Three days later, some of the detainees were released, but Faisal was not among them.

His daughter Nour Faisal, who was 6 years old at the time, said: “When we returned to Damascus in 2013, the forces raided our house and arrested my father with other men.”

Since then, Faisal has been out of the news, and his fate has remained unknown, which prompted his brother Shaalan Ahmed Omar, who lives in the village of Nabi Sadi, to begin a journey to find him since then, as he traveled to Damascus many times to no avail.

Shaalan paid huge sums of money to mediators and officials in the Ba'ath regime, in an attempt to obtain information about his brother’s fate, but all his attempts failed.

With the fall of the regime on December 8, 2024, Shaalan’s hopes of knowing his brother’s fate were renewed, as he began searching in prisons and hospitals for any trace of him, but he did not find any information about his location or condition.

Hazem Ahmed Ali: A young man who disappeared in the corridors of intelligence

Hazem Ahmed Ali, born in 1993, is a young man from the village of Musa Koura in the Al-Yan area in the countryside of Jal Agha. He was arrested on July 20, 2012 at the Al-Dumayr checkpoint in the Damascus countryside, where he was with his brothers when the "Air Force Security" forces arrested them. They were transferred to the al-Dumayr airport, where they were tortured on charges of Hazem evading compulsory military service.

Hazem's brothers were released several days later, but Hazem remained in detention under the pretext of sending him to compulsory military service.

In 2013, one of the detainees who was released told Hazem's family that he had been detained in the Mezzeh prison, Branch 215, affiliated with the "Air Force Security".

His father traveled to Damascus in the hope of finding his son, where he tried through intermediaries close to the Baathist regime to pay money to obtain a visit to his son, but they exploited him and he did not obtain any information about him. Since then, contact with Hazem has been lost, and his family has remained without any details about his fate.

After the fall of the Ba'ath regime, Hazem's father traveled to Damascus again, and visited all the prisons and relevant authorities in search of any trace of his son. He hung pictures of him in the squares of Marjeh, Umayyad and other squares in Damascus, but he did not reach any results.

Now, Hazem's family is demanding that the relevant authorities reveal his fate after more than 13 years have passed since his disappearance.

Shocking numbers of detainees and missing persons

According to the Association of Detainees and Missing Persons in Sednaya Prison, more than 30,000 people are believed to have died under torture or were field executed in prisons between 2011 and 2018. Reports also indicate that there are thousands of others whose fates remain unknown.

Urgent demands from the families of the missing

With the fall of the Ba'ath regime, the demands of the families of the missing and human rights organizations are increasing for the necessity of preserving the records of detainees, to prevent the loss or destruction of documents that may reveal the fate of the missing, in addition to their demands to establish independent investigation committees to investigate the fate of detainees and collect testimonies from released prisoners, as well as to bring those responsible for violations and crimes against humanity to justice.

Despite the hopes raised by the fall of the regime, the continued security chaos and the destruction or concealment of many documents complicate efforts to uncover the fates of the missing. The random opening of prisons has also made it more difficult to collect information and locate survivors.

T/ Satt.

ANHA