Jordan is searching for two of its citizens who went missing inside Syrian territory last Monday.
A statement from the Jordanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs today, Wednesday, August 28, mentioned that the Directorate of Operations and Consular Affairs in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates is following up on the information received regarding the disappearance of citizens inside Syrian territory.
The Director of the Directorate of Operations and Consular Affairs, Ambassador Sufyan Al-Qudah, stated there is communication with the Syrian regime authorities to search for the missing citizens.
The Directorate also coordinates with “all concerned authorities to find them and ensure their safe return to the Jordanian Kingdom as soon as possible,” according to the statement.
The Jordanian citizens are Maher al-Soufi and Mohammad Owaida, both drivers, who went missing after delivering goods from Amman to Damascus and were on their way back, according to the Jordanian website “Roya News.”
Basheer, Maher al-Soufi’s father, said according to the information he received that his son and his friend were kidnapped while heading towards the Daraa bridge on the way to the Jordanian border.
Basheer sent one of his sons to Syria, who reported to him that he found the car his brother and friend were using with people who claimed they bought it, adding that the kidnappers had placed the hostages in one of the caves.
Repeated kidnappings
Cases of kidnapping, disappearance, and arrest of Jordanians in Syria have been active since the opening of the border crossing between Syria and Jordan and the resumption of relations between the two parties in October 2018, followed by the entry of Jordanians into Syria for various reasons, including tourism and shopping.
The Jordanian and Syrian sides officially reopened the Nassib border crossing on October 15, 2018, after three years of closure due to military events, allowing Jordanian citizens to visit Syria.
In July 2023, young Ali al-Fityani and his friend disappeared in Damascus, and his father pleaded with the concerned authorities in Syria and Jordan to provide assistance and find out his son’s fate.
Jordan retrieved one of its citizens kidnapped by unknown individuals in As-Suwayda province in southern Syria in August 2019.
In May of the same year, Jordan retrieved two kidnapped citizens after the security services of the regime released them.
The Syrian regime released seven detained Jordanians in April 2020, after a request from the Jordanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
The release came months after the Syrian embassy in Jordan received a list of the names of Jordanian detainees in the regime’s prisons, from which some were later released.
Some Jordanians detained by the regime’s apparatuses are wanted by the Syrian intelligence on various charges, which the Jordanian authorities have repeatedly confirmed, calling for the disclosure of their citizens’ fate and their release.