Syrians Seek Deceased Loved Ones and Resolution After Five Decades of Assad Rule

Outside Damascus’s Mustahed Hospital, a painted wall displays photographs of deceased men’s faces. A continuous flow of individuals scrutinizes these images, shielding their eyes from the low winter sun, observing men whose appearances suggest they endured severe suffering. Their noses, mouths, and eye sockets exhibit twisting, damage, and compression. The bodies of these men are located within the hospital, having been transported to the city center from another facility situated on the outskirts of Damascus. Medical personnel indicate that all the deceased were prisoners. Relatives, including wives, brothers, sisters, and fathers, arrive at the hospital seeking details. Their primary hope is to locate a body for burial. They approach the photographs closely, meticulously searching for any recognizable features on the faces. Some individuals record each image on video to consult others at home. This task is arduous. Based on the decomposition of their faces, some of the men appeared to have been deceased for several weeks. Following their examination of the photo wall, relatives proceed to the mortuary. Mustahed Hospital took in 35 bodies, a quantity that has filled the mortuary and packed its overflow room with trolleys carrying body bags. Within the mortuary, bodies were arranged on a bare concrete floor beneath a row of refrigerated trays. Body bags had been unzipped as families looked inside, and refrigerators were opened. Some cadavers were loosely enveloped in shrouds that had shifted, revealing faces, tattoos, or scars that might aid identification. One deceased man wore a diaper. Another had adhesive tape across his chest, marked with a number. Even in death, his captors deprived him of the dignity of his name. All the bodies exhibited emaciation. Doctors who examined them reported indications of beatings, including severe bruising and multiple fractures. Dr. Raghad Attar, a forensic dentist, was reviewing dental records provided by families in an effort to identify the bodies. She calmly described her process of compiling a collection of evidence for potential DNA tests, then became emotional when questioned about her emotional state. “You hear always that prisoners are lost for a long time, but seeing it is very painful. I came here yesterday. It was very difficult for me. We hope the future will be better but this is very hard. I am really sorry for these families. I am very sorry for them.” Tears streamed down her face when asked if Syria could recover from 50 years of the Assads. “I don’t know. I hope so. I have the feeling that good days are coming but I want to ask all countries to help us. Anything to help us. Anything, anything…” Arriving families and friends moved quietly among the bodies, seeking a conclusion to the suffering that began when their loved ones were apprehended at a regime checkpoint or during a home raid and subsequently imprisoned in the Assads’ gulag. A woman named Noor, wearing a facemask, stated that her brother was seized in 2012 at the age of 28. Since then, their only information was a Facebook post indicating his presence in the infamous Sednaya prison, where the regime allowed prisoners to languish for decades. “It is painful,” Noor remarked. “At the same time, we have hope. Even if we find him between the bodies. Anything so long as he’s not missing. We want to find something of him. We want to know what happened to him. We need an end to this.” A couple informed a doctor that their son was taken away 12 years prior for declining to open his laptop for inspection, and he has not been heard from since. Throughout my years reporting from Syria, I have encountered numerous comparable accounts. My phone contains an image of a woman’s distressed face whom I met in July 2018 at a displacement camp, shortly after the rebel stronghold of Douma in the Damascus suburbs was compelled to surrender. Her son, a young teenager, vanished after being apprehended at a checkpoint by an intelligence agency. Over 50 years of the Assads’ rule signifies five decades of disappearances, imprisonment, and killings. It represents relentless cruelty inflicted upon prisoners, their searching families, and the Syrian populace outside the Assads’ trusted circle. At the photo wall and in the Mustahed Hospital mortuary, individuals sought to uncover what had occurred, obtain information, and, if fortunate, locate a body. They desired accountability, and many wished for retribution. Above all, they envisioned and yearned for a life free from fear. A woman at the hospital expressed that despite knowing Bashar al-Assad was in Russia, the regime had instilled such profound fear in her that she remained terrified of its potential actions. Perhaps every Syrian sharing her sentiment should visit the cliff overlooking Damascus where Hafez al-Assad, Bashar’s father, commanded the building of a presidential palace, to confirm the monumental, marble structure is vacant. Our driver collected his own video evidence. He began filming with his phone as the car entered the palace’s lengthy ceremonial driveway. Throughout the regime’s tenure, ordinary Syrians ensured they did not reduce speed near the palace gates, fearing arrest and imprisonment for posing a threat to the president. Mobile phones ceased functioning upon nearing the palace’s security zone. The palace overlooks Damascus, visible from most areas of the city. It conveyed to the populace that the Assads maintained constant presence and surveillance through the regime’s network of intelligence agencies. This system was conceived by Hafez, the initial Assad president. His secret police monitored each other and the general population. A Homs businessman I knew once recounted that an intelligence branch contacted him during a hotel development, requesting early access to the designs to integrate all necessary listening devices into the rooms. They stated this was simpler than installing them after construction completion. The Assad family never resided at the palace. Its purpose was for ceremonial events, and the upper floors contained everyday offices. I visited frequently in 2015 to arrange the conditions for an interview with Bashar al-Assad. I had previously interviewed him twice, several years before the 2011 uprising against him commenced. At that time, he was still enticing Syrians with discussions of reform, which ultimately proved to be false. He also sought to convince Western leaders that he might distance himself from Iran and, if not fully align with the Western bloc, then at least be persuaded that it was advantageous not to oppose it. The US, Israel, and the UAE continued their efforts to convince him to abandon Iran in the weeks preceding his forced departure to Moscow. With Assad’s departure, my focus at the palace shifted to an opulent villa within its grounds. My intention was to visit this location, as it was where I had conducted interviews with Assad. The villa, reportedly constructed as a private residence for the Assad family, is considerably more luxurious than the palace’s state rooms. Its floors and tables are marble, the wood is polished walnut, and the chandeliers are crystal. The Assads reportedly disliked it, leading to its use as a guest house and for Bashar’s infrequent interviews. I understood why they might have favored their current residence, an elegant French colonial mansion situated behind a screen of pine trees, which evokes the impression of an aristocratic Riviera retreat. Until less than two weeks prior, in the souk of old Damascus, one could purchase fridge magnets depicting Bashar al-Assad and his siblings as children, cycling in a garden while their doting parents observed. It is presumed this photograph was taken on the villa’s expansive, pristine lawns. The broader Assad family regarded Syria as their personal property, accumulating wealth and securing loyalty from their supporters, often at the detriment of Syrians who faced imprisonment or death for perceived transgressions, or even without cause. Ahmed, a fighter who joined the armed opposition against the regime in 2011, survived the rebel defeat in Damascus and returned from Idlib with Hayat Tahrir al Sham rebels, was observing the Assads’ living conditions alongside his three brothers, all fellow rebel fighters. “People were living in hell and he was in his palace,” Ahmed calmly stated. “He didn’t care about what they were going through. He made them live in fear, hunger and humiliation. Even after we entered Damascus people would only whisper to us, because they were still afraid.” I located the marble guesthouse and proceeded through the walnut-paneled, marble-floored library, where I had interviewed Assad in February 2015 when the regime was struggling for survival. A notable aspect of the interview was his denials that his forces were targeting civilians. He even attempted to make light of the situation. Currently, rebel fighters were positioned at the entrance and patrolling the hallways. While some books had fallen from the library shelves, the structure remained undamaged. I crossed to an antechamber where Assad typically held 10 or 15 minutes of private discussion prior to interviews. He consistently displayed politeness, even solicitousness, inquiring about my family and the journey to Syria. Bashar al-Assad’s somewhat awkward manner led some Western observers to perceive him as a lightweight who might yield to pressure. Privately, I found him self-assured to the extent of arrogance, convinced he was the omniscient orchestrator at the core of the Middle East’s intricate network, monitoring his adversaries’ malevolent intentions and prepared to act. His father, Hafez al-Assad, was a dominant figure in the Middle East. He was a ruthless individual who established a police state that endured for over five decades, employing fear, cunning, and a readiness to eliminate any threat to enforce stability in Syria, a nation previously synonymous with violent governmental transitions until his assumption of sole power in 1970. I perceived that Bashar aspired to emulate his father, possibly even to surpass him. He was responsible for the deaths of significantly more Syrians than Hafez and fractured the nation in an attempt to preserve the regime. However, Bashar’s obstinacy, his unwillingness to implement reforms or engage in negotiations, and his