Syrian families’ ‘unbearable’ wait to know fate of detainee relatives

Families of Syrian detainees have been looking for their lacking family members since 1000’s of prisoners had been launched after the autumn of the Assad regime on Sunday.

The household of a Syrian dentist who was arrested alongside along with her six kids has informed the BBC they’re nonetheless hoping to search out them.

Meanwhile, the daughter of a US-based psychotherapist who was snatched in 2017 and is considered lifeless says she has been buoyed by movies of people that had been declared lifeless being discovered alive.

As insurgent forces swept throughout the nation in current weeks, they freed 1000’s of political prisoners held in authorities jails – together with the notorious Saydnaya prison near the capital, Damascus.

But with torture and executions commonplace in these locations underneath Bashar al-Assad’s authorities, many are nonetheless ready to see if their kinfolk are amongst these freed.

Rania Al-Abassi was arrested from her dwelling in Damascus in March 2013 by Syrian navy intelligence officers. Her kids, aged between two and 14 years outdated, had been taken to jail along with her.

Her husband, Abdul Rahman Yasin, was arrested the day earlier than.

Rania’s sister, Naila Al-Abassi, a physician residing in Saudi Arabia, informed the BBC “we cannot accept that Rania was killed”.

“Since the fall of the regime, we really hope we can see Rania and her kids again. Especially, we want to see her six children.”

At the time of their arrest, Abassi’s kids – Dima, Entisar, Najah, Alaa, Ahmed and Layan – had been 14, 13, 11, eight, six and two respectively.

“They took Rania with her kids and since that day we don’t know anything about them,” Naila stated.

The household have solely acquired one piece of details about their detainment, which got here shortly after the arrest. They consider the household was held at a jail in Damascus, often called the Palestine department, which was operated by Syrian intelligence.

A feminine inmate who was launched informed the household in 2013 that she heard the voices of kids within the jail, two weeks after the arrest.

Now that prisoners have been launched, members of the family on the bottom have visited the prisons to attempt to discover them.

“We are watching the news and seeing people released from the prisons and looking at the videos to see if we can see them,” Naila stated.

“But the prisons have been opened and we haven’t seen Rania yet. It is unbearable.”

“We were waiting for this day for 13 years,” she added. “But our wounds are still fresh now as if it happened yesterday.”

Majd Kamalmaz, a psychotherapist from Texas, disappeared in Syria in 2017. His daughter, Maryam, informed the BBC she remains to be looking for out what occurred to him.

Kamalmaz had travelled to Damascus to go to an aged member of the family.

On the second day of his journey, Mr Kamalmaz – who was born in Syria however grew up and lived within the US – was stopped at a Syrian authorities checkpoint in Damascus, and has not been seen or heard from since that day.

Earlier this 12 months, US intelligence officers informed his household that they had credible, categorized info that he died in jail.

But Maryam Kamalmaz refuses to surrender on the concept her father should be alive.

“The FBI told us he was dead – but they did not have a body or any concrete information,” she stated.

“We are seeing stories of people [who] were declared dead and given death certificates and then they actually turned out to be alive.

“It renews our hope to search out him alive. But if we do not, then a minimum of we need to discover his stays and have some form of closure.”

Maryam added: “We have folks inside Syria going to the hospitals with excessive hopes, in addition to to Saydnaya jail.

“I keep looking at the pictures and videos of people coming out of the Saydnaya prison, and thinking maybe I will see him there.”

Maryam stated she doesn’t know why her father was kidnapped. Her household consider he might have been being held as leverage by the Assad household as a result of he was American.