ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - In a Kurdish neighborhood of Damascus, a 70-year-old father waits every day for the return of his two sons who he has not seen or heard from in 13 years, since they were arrested during the rule of former dictator Bashar al-Assad.
Ridwan Mohammed Ibrahim, born in 1985, and his brother Ahmed, born in 1991, were detained following a dispute with a neighbor who was a government soldier. Their father recalls that security forces raided their home at midnight and took his sons away.
“In 2012, they took my children, four of my children, and a friend of theirs. Two of my children returned after 15 days, but the other two and their friend have not come until now. We don’t know where they are. We went to Sednaya several times and to other places, even hospitals, but not once did they appear,” Mohammed Ibrahim told Rudaw, referring to Sednaya prison that is famed for the torture and killing of prisoners.
Ibrahim said his sons’ mother died from grief and longing.
His story is one of thousands of Kurds and hundreds of thousands of Syrians detained under Assad’s regime on various charges, including treason and opposition to government policies. Many were arrested during the uprising and the fate of a large number of them remains unknown.
In May, Syria’s interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa signed a decree establishing an independent International Commission for the Missing Persons that hopes to provide answers for tens of thousands of families of the missing.
Head of the commission, Mohammad Reda Jalkhi, said during a recent press conference that a main goal of the organization “is to strengthen coordination between international and local efforts in the field of the missing in Syria and to provide technical assistance and consultation to support the national team and its capabilities.”
“The numbers we understand are between 150,000 and 300,000, if not more, missing over a protracted period of time, over 54 years,” director general of the commission Kathryne Bomberger also told reporters.
“Only in Syria during the past 14 years, there are over 38,000 families who individually approached us to report someone missing, sometimes on the battlefield, sometimes in prison, sometimes on the routes to another country while fleeing violence,” said Stephan Sakalian, head of the International Committee of the Red Cross delegation in Syria.
In May, Syrian Interior Ministry spokesperson Nouraldeen Albaba said that over eight million Syrians were wanted by Assad’s intelligence and security services.