- Title: Families search for answers on fate of missing sons at Syria's Sednaya prison
- Date: 5th January 2025
- Summary: VIENNA, AUSTRIA (JANUARY 5, 2025) (REUTERS) AUSTRIAN PRESIDENT ALEXANDER VAN DER BELLEN WALKING TO LECTERN (SOUNDBITE) (German) AUSTRIAN PRESIDENT, ALEXANDER VAN DER BELLEN, SAYING: "I would like to take this opportunity to thank Mr Nehammer for his service as Federal Chancellor of the Republic of Austria. The times in which he served our country at the helm were really no
- Embargoed: 19th January 2025 12:56
- Keywords: Assad Prison Prisoners Sednaya Syria
- Location: DAMASCUS, SYRIA
- City: DAMASCUS, SYRIA
- Country: Syria
- Topics: Conflicts/War/Peace,Middle East
- Reuters ID: LVA004093905012025RP1
- Aspect Ratio: 16:9
- Story Text: In the wake of the collapse of President Bashar al-Assad’s regime, families across Syria are sifting through the wreckage of years-long conflict, searching for loved ones lost to war, detention, or displacement.
For survivors like Ibtisam Al-Naddef and Ibrahim Darradji, the end of Assad's reign has brought neither solace nor resolution—only lingering grief and unanswered questions.
Al-Naddef, a mother from Damascus, mourns two sons lost during the war. One was shot by a sniper during the siege of Al-Assali, while the other disappeared into Sednaya Prison in 2018, one of Assad's most notorious detention centers.
Darradji, a father from Al-Yarmouk camp, continues his desperate search for his son Omar, who was arrested in 2018.
After Assad's ousting in December during a swift rebel advance that ended five decades of family rule, the regime's detention centers opened their gates, spilling thousands of prisoners back into the world.
Tearful reunions filled the streets as detainees long thought dead were reunited with their families.
Yet for some, the nightmare persists.
Darradji also bears the pain of losing another son to a mortar strike in Al-Yarmouk camp, a tragedy compounded by the continued absence of Omar.
The collapse of Assad's regime has brought a grim reckoning for families like Al-Naddef’s and Darradji’s, as mass graves are uncovered and prisons are emptied, the nation is haunted by questions of justice and accountability.
For the bereaved, however, the immediate priority is closure. “In Sednaya, they give prisoners numbers, there are no names. My son's number is 10912 in the cell. I took a picture of it and I did a memorial service for him,” Darradji said.
(Production: Firas Makdesi, Ayman Sahili) - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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