Months after Assad’s fall, the families of the missing are still seeking justice

A large bearded man in a blue tunic moved quickly through grassy stubble on a windswept road in rural Damascus, picking up bones with his bare hands.

He added a jaw to the pile before carefully picking up the skull. Briefly, he kissed him – a moment of tenderness for one of Bashar al-Assad’s many victims. Ten months after Assad was ousted last December in a lightning offensive by rebels, mass graves are still being uncovered.

The legacy of the Syrian dictator is embedded in the soil here – skeletal remains where crops should be. There are now more than 60 burial sites and counting.

One of the latest came to light in the village of Al-Otaiba, in the Eastern Ghouta region, where a shepherd came across clothes and human remains after burning straw.

Authorities believe around 175 bodies were bulldozed into a mass grave in this former opposition stronghold.

They are among the legions of the missing.

More than 181,000 people have been forcibly disappeared or arbitrarily detained in Syria’s 14 years of civil war, according to the Syrian Network for Human Rights monitoring group. It says 90% was taken by the Assad regime.

The families of the disappeared are now demanding answers and justice from the new Syria, which held its first parliamentary elections earlier this month.

A “People’s Assembly” was elected, but not directly by the people. A third of the seats remain to be filled. The appointees will be handpicked by Syria’s interim leader Ahmed al-Sharaa.

Depending on your perspective in this broken country and perhaps your religion or sect, the elections were either a sham or a first step on the road to democracy.

As Syria looks ahead, President Sharaa – a jihadist-turned-head-of-state – says the missing will remain a “national priority”.

Grieving relatives like Kasim Hamami rely on this. They can’t do anything else.

We found him digging by the side of the road at the site of the mass grave and digging up secrets from the dirt.

As we watched, he revealed a frayed, brownish sweater covered in dirt. It was the last trace of Samer, his brother, who disappeared at the age of 21.

“Samer was a civilian,” Qasim said softly, “and newly married, just 15 days after his marriage. He had nothing to do with armed groups. He was not fighting anyone,” he said.

“Ghouta was under blockade. The regime did not allow any food. He left because of hunger.”

Qasim’s three nephews also leave with Samer and share his fate.

They were among about 400 people who set out from Eastern Ghouta on February 27, 2014, hoping to reach another rebel stronghold. Along the way, they were attacked by the regime and its allies in Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed Lebanese Shiite militia.

We know this because they filmed the massacre and released the footage. The video – widely shared online – is difficult to watch.

It shows a column of people walking down the road, straight into an ambush.

Anti-personnel mines were detonated along a 300 m (985 ft) section. The explosions were followed by a hail of bullets.

The convoy was mostly men but included women and children, according to Mohammed Omar Hajjar, the newly appointed prosecutor for Damascus province. He thinks they were civilians. The regime then claimed that the dead were fighters.

We met with one of the survivors who gave us a first-hand account of the attack.

Bilal, a nurse, returned to the site of the mass grave, surveying the sunlit landscape, reliving his darkest night.

“We left around midnight,” he told us. “I was walking behind my colleague 30 meters apart. After the mines exploded, the wounded were screaming. They were killed in cold blood. I heard two voices and could not help.”

Bilal says he survived by hiding in a bush until the next day and is now speaking out for those who can’t.

“I lost my nephew, friends and relatives. Those who set up the ambush must be brought to justice,” he said.

will this happen

Many senior figures from the former regime are in hiding, and Hezbollah is devastated by Israeli attacks and Israel’s 2024 war against Lebanon.

A Syrian judge issued an arrest warrant in absentia for Bashar al-Assad in connection with other killings. But the former president found refuge in Russia, which supported him during the civil war.

It is not known if his fate was discussed when President Sharaa held talks with President Putin in Moscow on Wednesday, as the former foes shook hands in the Kremlin and discussed how to strengthen relations. If Assad was watching, watching would not be easy.

At home, there is one big change for the families he destroyed. They can now share their torment without risking their lives.

About an hour from the mass grave, we joined a gathering of wives, mothers and daughters of the disappeared.

They met at the Truth Tent, a community-led forum where Syrians reveal the horrors of the past. In this case, the “tent” was a village hall.

More than a hundred women crammed in – so many that there weren’t enough chairs – many wearing black abayas and headscarves.

They gathered around us, holding out pictures of husbands, fathers or sons – men who now perhaps live only in their memory. More pictures were hung in rows on the wall.

A woman stopped in front of the display and raised her hand to stroke an image.

A soft-spoken 18-year-old girl named Bisan recalls how her father was taken away at gunpoint when she was just four years old.

“They grabbed my dad, handcuffed him and put him in the van,” she said. “He asked them why they were arresting him. One of them pointed a gun at his head. We were so scared. We couldn’t do anything then. I was young and my mother kept crying.”

Her cousin stood by her side as she spoke. Her father was also taken away.

Around the room, voices rose and fell in a chorus of harrowing accounts of loved ones uprooted from work or home and engulfed in the regime’s notorious prison system.

“The prisons were full of blood and innocent lives,” a woman shouted from the back of the hall. “We spent a lot… sometimes even selling our houses to pay some regime dog for information on our brothers, sons or husbands.”

Another woman described being asked to choose between freedom for her son or her husband.

“They took me and my son to the security branch,” she said. “We were both beaten. They showed me my son on camera and asked me if I wanted my husband or my son. I said I wanted my son.”

The authorities asked her to sign a document that her husband was a terrorist, but she refused. “I never saw him carry a weapon,” she said. “He came out to demonstrate because he was hungry.

Another veiled woman shouted her demand: execute Bashar al-Assad.

“We will get our rights when he is hanged,” she said. “He is to blame for everything. By cutting off the serpent’s head, we shall be healed and reconciled.”

Naiva, one of the organizers, took the stage to urge families to be patient.

Her husband, Mohammed al-Halaq, was taken in January 2014. She received his death certificate later that year, but never found his body.

“The son of a pig, Bashar, has been crushing us for 14 years,” Najwa said, his voice filled with anger. “The only thing I’m asking you: don’t give up, don’t stop pushing. It won’t happen overnight.”

Some wonder if it will ever happen, including a grieving father named Mohammed, one of the few men at the meeting. His son Mazen, who worked at the electricity company, was taken away by State Security in 2013.

“All this talk is of no use if we don’t take action,” he said through tears. “What we need is for the people who took our sons to be brought to justice.

There is now a National Commission on Missing Persons, but it is in its infancy and struggles with a lack of resources – including DNA testing facilities. Syria has only one DNA laboratory.

Ten months after Assad’s ouster, the ranks of the missing continue to grow.

Some families are only now coming forward with stories about loved ones who have been gone for a long time.

“We’re trying to manage expectations,” says Zeina Shahla, a spokeswoman for the commission. “We are telling the families we have created, but unfortunately it will take years. There could be missing people in every Syrian village.”

At best, their loved ones can expect years of waiting for the truth, or justice, or the bones to bury.

Additional reporting by Wietske Burema, Goktay Koraltan, Lana Antaki and Aref Alkrez.