Syrian Families ‘Suspended Between Hope and Despair’ Over Missing Loved Ones

A Syrian woman, whose grandfather, father, and two brothers were apprehended by the military nearly 12 years ago, has conveyed to the BBC her profound distress that her family members remain unaccounted for, even after the country’s most infamous prison was cleared. Hiba Abdulhakim Qasawaad, a 24-year-old from Homs, shared her family’s emotional state with BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, stating, “Now, miles away from that most brutal prison, we are huddling around screens, our hearts suspended between hope and despair.” She further added, “We are scanning every face in the footage, searching for traces of our loved ones. This is the only thing that we can do.” On Sunday, following the entry of rebel forces into the nation’s capital and the proclamation of an end to Bashar al-Assad’s governance, numerous families converged on Saydnaya Prison outside Damascus, a facility where political opponents were reportedly subjected to detention, torture, and execution. However, as rescue teams conclude their search for potential detainees within the prison, some families are experiencing renewed distress. Ms Qasawaad remarked, “Now freedom rings like a bell too loud for ears accustomed to silence.” She elaborated on their current feelings: “Now, our hearts racing, we have this anticipation, joy and pain as we await the moment when we can finally embrace them, free at last, but I don’t know if we can see them again, because now we are torn between finding answers or never knowing at all.” Ms Qasawaad was 12 years old when she witnessed soldiers forcibly remove the male members of her family from their residence in the middle of the night on 28 January 2013. She reported that they were among 48 family members apprehended during a raid. She also mentioned that another of her brothers had been killed in 2012 while combating Assad’s army, during the civil conflict that erupted following the Arab Spring protests in 2011. “No words can describe the overwhelming anguish that consumed us at that time,” she recalled. She has not seen her male relatives since then, though she noted that former detainees reported hearing their names mentioned from inside Saydnaya. Her grandfather, born in 1939, would now be an elderly man; her father was born in 1962, and her brothers in 1989 and 1994. Ms Qasawaad described her family’s emotional state after the collapse of Assad’s governance and the release of detainees as “a mixture between laughter and tears.” She concluded, “We don’t know what will happen next, all we can do is keep searching. We hope we have this spark of happiness again in our lives, because it was swept away with the day that they have taken them.”