Enab Baladi – Jana al-Issa

Haya al-Issa lost her firstborn son, who was 22 years old, along with a group of civilians numbering around 2,500 people who were evacuated from areas besieged by the regime for several consecutive months in the Damascus countryside, without being able to ascertain his fate to this day.

Mrs. Haya’s situation is like that of tens of thousands of Syrian mothers who do not know the fate of their children who were arbitrarily detained and disappeared in the prisons of the ousted Syrian regime.

Despite the Syrian opposition emptying the prisons and detention centers after the escape of the ousted president, Bashar al-Assad, thousands of families were unable to learn the fate of their forcibly disappeared sons, despite what happened being their only hope of seeing them free after years of detention.

11 years with no news

Haya (54 years old) spent 11 years continuously searching for the fate of her son, Mohammad Ghassan al-Issa, who disappeared in late 2013 after being besieged for months in the Yarmouk camp area in Damascus.

At that time, Mohammad Ghassan wanted to leave the area with a group of families, which his mother estimated to be about 2,500 people, according to accounts from those who were besieged in the area.

Haya recounts to Enab Baladi the details of her son’s detention and his last news before reaching the detention center without hesitation, as she has memorized these details by heart.

Mohammad Ghassan exited the area with the families through a regime checkpoint in the Damascus countryside known as the Barda checkpoint, located after the Qadam-Asali area. This checkpoint had previously promised security for the families, and when they exited from the checkpoint, they all disappeared, being estimated at around 2,500 people from the Yarmouk camp, al-Hajar al-Aswad, and al-Qadam, who exited in three batches, according to Haya’s narration.

Upon hearing the news of the families’ exit, their relatives residing in regime-controlled areas sought to determine their fate, learning that the military checkpoint elements had taken them to the Kablatte (cables) checkpoint in the Sayyeda Zainab area in the Damascus countryside, according to eyewitnesses who were in that area, and then they all disappeared.

Despite the families beginning to search for their loved ones, it was said that they were transferred to a prison called “Maysaloun,” but so far there have been no confirmed updates regarding the fate of Mohammad Ghassan and those who left with him, according to the families of the missing, with whom the young man’s mother continuously communicates.

Haya did not spare any opportunity over all these years to find out about her son and did not leave any means of inquiring about him in the branches or prisons affiliated with the Syrian regime, yet she received no confirmed or reliable response to soothe her heart.

Whenever she heard about the release of any detainee, she would try to ask them about her son, hoping to hear the news she longed for.

Despite the Syrian opposition emptying the detention centers and prisons related to the security branches of detainees and forcibly disappeared individuals, Haya has not been able to obtain information or see Mohammad Ghassan al-Issa’s name among the lists that circulated widely on social media.

The waiting continues… No international involvement

Haya al-Issa, the mother of the detainee Mohammad Ghassan al-Issa, believes that human rights organizations specializing in the file of detainees should take action through several measures that consist of forming independent international investigation committees to investigate the fate of the detainees and forcibly disappeared individuals.

The lady calls for pressuring the controlling parties to provide lists of detainees and their places of detention, in addition to documenting the testimonies of survivors and those released to obtain evidence.

The demand for international action has become the only option for the families of the detainees, a point emphasized by Kholoud Helmi, in the context of her discussion about not knowing the fate of her brother Ahmed, who was arrested from his home more than 12 years ago.

Ahmed disappeared in May 2012 after the raid by the Air Force Intelligence – Mezzeh Airport on his home after midnight, according to what his sister Kholoud told Enab Baladi.

The young man’s family has not been able to obtain any information about him during his years of absence; no one saw him in any of the detention centers, except for a young man who was with him in Mezzeh military prison during the first weeks of his detention.

Kholoud could not get any news about Ahmed since the prisons were opened by the opposition, despite her attempts to contact all international parties since 2013. However, information circulated on social media claimed to have been leaked from the Air Force Intelligence branch, which contained Ahmed’s name among the fatalities, an information which the family could not confirm until now.

Kholoud Helmi, a Syrian activist in the detainees’ file, pointed out that it should be noted that international bodies have not yet taken action on the detainees’ file, leaving the families of the detainees wandering to obtain proof or evidence from among millions of rumors on social media.

No teams from the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) or the United Nations have entered the prisons since, and no statement has been issued by the caretaker government regarding the detainees, and the file remained forgotten even after the fall of Bashar al-Assad, according to Kholoud.

The activist emphasized that pressure must be exerted on the ICRC and the United Nations to activate the Independent Mechanism for Investigating the Fate of Missing Persons in Syria urgently and without delay, to begin the documentation process and search for bodies and mass graves.

Kholoud considered that the destruction of evidence and the arbitrary handling of prisons, evidence, and corpses represents an additional violation of the rights of detainees and their families, who are still searching for certain news about their situation, left with wounds that have reopened while searching through millions of files and thousands of distorted images, as she expressed.

A photo on Facebook announces the death

Like tens of thousands of young people, Wael al-Mugheer was arrested along with his cousin at a military checkpoint in the Jaramana area of the Damascus countryside in 2014, months after the death of his father and sole brother in Deir Ezzor, according to what his sister Nour al-Mugheer (28 years old) told Enab Baladi.

The young man’s arrest left Nour alone in her stepfather’s house at the age of 18, and at that time, she could not even go to the security branches to inquire about her brother, a task that her stepfather took over for several months after his arrest.

What helped Nour to reach preliminary information about her detained brother’s fate was her aunt’s movements in the security branches to inquire about her son, and her paying millions of Syrian pounds to transfer him to Adra central prison, where the treatment of prisoners is better than that in the security branch detention centers.

After the young man’s aunt succeeded in transferring her son to Adra and was allowed to visit him, she inquired about the fate of Wael al-Mugheer, who then said that they had been together the entire time, but he had fallen seriously ill during his detention due to severe torture, and after a particularly unbearable torture session, Wael was rushed to the hospital and never returned afterward, according to his cousin, and this was the last time he was seen.

Amidst an incomplete account of details, the family treated this news as if Wael al-Mugheer died in the hospital, as this was the only reason he didn’t return to prison again, something his sister Nour could not believe, as long as she had not received his body or at least a death certificate.

For all these years, Nour tried to find out her brother’s fate and the last remaining connection to her family, and hope blossomed anew when the opposition began to take control of the prisons and empty them of detainees, but she did not see her brother among the crowds.

Since the moment the prisons and detention centers were announced to be emptied, Nour has not left her phone and has been browsing dozens of lists, pictures, and documents that emerged containing the names and photos of detainees in the regime’s prisons.

During her browsing, she noticed a photo of a deceased person from 2017 whom she suspected was her brother Wael, even though there was not a lot of resemblance, as the deceased man’s nose was broken, his teeth were missing, and his face was smeared with wounds and scars, so she sent it to her cousin, the last person to see him before he left prison, who confirmed that it was indeed her brother Wael.

The confirmation from the detainee friend who was freed by the opposition forces from Adra prison after Bashar al-Assad’s escape on December 8, made Nour certain of her brother’s death, yet she never received his body or had the chance to say goodbye, which saddens her a lot, as she expressed.

4,300 detainees in Sednaya prison

The Association of Detainees and the Missing in Saydnaya Prison (ADMSP) obtained an official document indicating that the number of prisoners, as of November 28, 2024, reached 4,300 people.

According to the document that Enab Baladi obtained a copy of through the association, the daily inspection of the number of prisoners was 4,300, distributed as follows:

• Military Field Court: 1,231 detainees, one of whom was transferred to the hospital.
• Terrorism Court: 252 detainees.
• Judicial Court (misdemeanors and criminal offenses with one of the parties being a military): 2,817 detainees, three of whom were transferred to the hospital.
• Escaped Detainees Trials: No prisoners.

The recorded count on this date, according to the document, did not mention any cases of death.

The director of the association, Diab Serriya, confirmed in a video recording that there are no secret dungeons in Sednaya prison and clarified that all detainees were evacuated from the prison on Sunday morning, December 8.

The association and its team present inside the prison had previously confirmed the absence of detainees from all its buildings (white and red).

Mass executions in the “human slaughterhouse”

Amnesty International documented in a report entitled “Syria: Human slaughterhouse: Mass hangings and extermination at Saydnaya Prison, Syria,” published in February 2017, mass executions carried out by the Syrian regime against 13,000 detainees in Sednaya prison, the majority of whom were civilian opponents, between 2011 and 2015.

The organization explained that executions occurred weekly or possibly twice a week, secretly, during which groups sometimes comprising 50 individuals were taken outside their cells and hanged to death.

Since 2011, more than 231,000 people have been killed in Syria according to the Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR), with the Syrian regime being responsible for over 86% of them.

157,000 people were listed as forcibly disappeared, while more than 15,000 were killed under torture, according to documentation from the network.