Syrian activist Yahia Hakoum wrote on X that after nearly a decade, his family was finally informed that his brother Mahmoud had been executed on the day of his arrest by the Syrian regime in 2015. For years, the family remained in the dark about his fate, uncertain if he was alive or dead.
Since the Syrian revolution started in March 2011, over 135,000 people have been detained and/or forcibly disappeared by the Assad regime, according to the Syrian Network for Human Rights. Of those, around 112,000 people remain forcibly disappeared, meaning their loved ones have no information about their fate or whereabouts.
Yahia Hakoum wrote on June 4, 2024:
“In 2015, my brother Mahmoud was arrested along with several young people from my village. At that time, a video was circulating, accusing Mahmoud and his friends of being terrorists. A few months later, we learned, after paying a lot of money, that Mahmoud had been killed.
However, we had no proof of this claim. In 2016, we tried to obtain documents for Mahmoud as well as for my brothers Zakaria and Youssef. But at that moment, the civil status official informed us that they were erased, meaning there was no trace of them.
Thus, for years, we were unsure of their fate. We accepted that they were dead, although without any proof that they were still alive.
Two weeks ago, an intelligence officer came to our village to ask for news and information about Mahmoud, what is called in Syria a police or security study.
When people tried to understand why this security study was being conducted for someone who had disappeared for nine years, the security officer replied that an amnesty was soon to be proclaimed and that they were conducting security studies on all persons likely to be released.
However, yesterday, my sister was called and informed that Mahmoud was dead, just as other families in the village were informed that their children were dead on April 8, 2015, the very day of their arrest.
This is Mahmoud’s story. We relive the pain of his death for the second, even third, time. Each time, we are given hope, then that hope disappears. We relive hope, then it disappears again.
Yesterday, we received official confirmation and were asked to complete all the steps to declare him dead in the civil status. This morning, my sister discovered that this had already been done. They had already written on the papers that he was dead without even informing us. This is the story of my family, and of thousands of Syrians who still live in uncertainty about the fate of their loved ones.”