A year after the overthrow of dictator Bashar al-Assad in Syria, little has changed in Amina Bekai's desperate search. She is typing her missing husband's name into an Internet search engine again, hoping for answers to a 13-year-old question. To no avail, Reuters reports today.
Bekai has no one else to turn to.
The National Commission for Missing Persons, established in May, is collecting evidence of enforced disappearances during Assad's rule, but has yet to offer families any clues about the fate of the estimated 150.000 people who disappeared in his notorious prisons.
Among them are Amina Bekai's husband, Mahmoud, who was arrested by Syrian security forces at their home near Damascus on April 17, 2012, and her brother Ahmed, arrested in August of the same year.
Assad's overthrow initially raised hopes that prison records could show families if, when, and how their loved ones died. Mass graves dug by Assad's forces across Syria could be exhumed. Victims could be given a dignified burial.
None of that happened.
"A year has passed. They haven't done anything... Is it possible that they haven't even gotten the documents about these people? To show us the truth — that's what we want," Bekai told Reuters.
Hope is fading.
As rebels swept through Syrian cities last year on their way to capturing Damascus, they rushed to prisons first, opening the doors and freeing thousands of confused prisoners.
On December 8, 2024, just hours after Assad fled to Russia, rebels freed dozens of prisoners from Sednaya prison, which Amnesty International has called a "human slaughterhouse" for its systematic torture and executions.
Among those released were not even Amina Bekai's loved ones.
"When the prisons were opened and they didn't come back - it was a shock. That's when hope disappeared, it was completely extinguished," Bekai said. But she still demands to know how, when and where her husband and brother could have been killed.
Without any information from the national commission, Bekai said she became "obsessed" with internet searches, reviewing photos of dead prisoners and scanned prison documents published by Syrian media outlets that have entered prisons and security centers since Assad's fall.
"All we have left to do is sit and search," she said.
Such documents revealed crucial information.
Sara al-Khattab last saw her husband enter a police station in southern Syria on February 9, 2019, to "reconcile" with the Assad government after years spent among the rebels.
She hasn't received any news about him since then.
His name, Ali Mohsen al-Baridi, was listed in a table of prisoner deaths at Sednaya, which Reuters saw after Assad's fall. The date of death was listed as October 22, 2019, with a description of "cardiac and respiratory arrest" and an order not to release the body to the family.
Reuters forwarded its findings to the Syrian Center for Justice and Accountability, an organization that works with the families of the missing, and they informed Sarah al-Khattab.
The Commission is seeking assistance and oversight
The national commission was established by Syria's new president, Ahmed al-Shara, a former rebel leader. The commission's media adviser, Zeina Shahla, told Reuters that its mandate covers every missing person in Syria, regardless of their circumstances.
"When it comes to the pain of families, we may indeed be acting slowly. But this work must progress carefully, scientifically and systematically, not hastily," she said.
Next year, the commission hopes to launch a database of all missing persons using documents from prisons and other locations. Exhuming mass graves requires technical expertise and will likely not be possible before 2027, Shahla said.
The commission has held meetings with Syrian activist groups and individual families. In November, it signed a cooperation agreement with the International Committee of the Red Cross in Geneva and the International Commission on Missing Persons, which have global experience in these issues.
The Syrian Commission hopes this will lead to more training for staff and access to missing equipment, including laboratories for DNA analysis of exhumed remains.
"We welcome any form of cooperation and support, as long as the issue remains within the jurisdiction of our commission," said Shahla.
Relatives and activists demand better
The government's approach has disappointed organizations that developed expertise in exile on enforced disappearances during the Assad era, six human rights groups said.
Many had hoped to be able to apply that knowledge on the ground now that Assad has fallen, but they say the government's centralized approach has excluded them, slowed progress and left families in limbo.
"When you have as many as a quarter of a million missing people, you can't work like that. You have to decentralize the work," said Ahmad Helmi, a Syrian activist who leads the Ta'afi initiative, dedicated to missing prisoners and survivors.
Activists also accuse the commission of "monopolizing" documents related to detentions.
In September, Syrian authorities briefly arrested Amer Matar, an activist who founded a virtual museum dedicated to the experiences of prisoners, accusing him of illegally accessing official documents for personal purposes.
In November, the commission warned families not to trust detention documents published on unofficial online platforms, such as those searched by Bekai, and threatened legal action against those media outlets.
"The commission wants a monopoly on this issue, but it has no tools, no competence, no transparency. It seeks the trust of families, but it does not deliver results," Matar said.
Shahla responded that the commission is "a central, official body authorized to reveal the fate" of missing persons and that families need one place where they can get accurate information.
Agnes Calamar, director of Amnesty International, said the commission should regularly publish information on progress and consider providing financial assistance to the families of the missing.
"The most important thing the national commission can do right now is to make families feel heard and supported," she told Reuters.
As Syria marks a year since Assad's fall, many still carry the same burden that weighed on them during his rule: the absence of answers.
Alija Daraji last saw her son Yazen on November 1, 2014, when he left home to meet friends near Damascus. He never returned.
For the past year, the elderly woman has spent time in "truth tents" - protest gatherings demanding information about missing Syrians, something that was unthinkable under Assad. While the solidarity meant something to her, it didn't bring her what her heart most yearned for.
"We were hoping to find their bodies, to bury them, or to find out where they were," Daradji said.
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