Vanished Syrian Siblings Presumed Dead After 13-Year Search
Damascus – Syria’s National Commission for Missing Persons said on Saturday it had concluded with a high degree of certainty that the six children of Syrian dentist and former chess champion Rania Al-Abbasi, who disappeared with their parents in 2013 after being detained by government forces under former president Bashar al-Assad, are dead.
The commission said its findings followed multiple verification and analysis procedures conducted in coordination with Syrian authorities, marking a significant development in one of the country’s most prominent unresolved disappearance cases.
Al-Abbasi, her husband Abdul Rahman Yasin, and their six children, who were between three and 15 years old at the time, vanished in March 2013 after security forces raided their home in Damascus, according to rights organizations.
Their disappearance became a symbol of the broader issue of missing detainees and forcibly disappeared civilians during Assad’s rule.”We have reached reliable and corroborating results that allow us to conclude with a high degree of professional certainty that Dr. Rania Al-Abbasi’s children are deceased,” the commission said in a statement.
It added that efforts to locate the children’s remains were continuing.The commission was established by Syria’s new authorities in May 2025 to investigate cases involving missing and forcibly disappeared persons following Assad’s ouster in 2024.Hassan Al-Abbasi, Rania’s brother, confirmed the children’s deaths in a video posted on Facebook.
He said family members had viewed video recordings linked to a suspect accused of involvement in a 2013 massacre in a Damascus district.According to Hassan Al-Abbasi, one recording showed children being accused of financing terrorism.
He said the children in the footage were identified as members of the Al-Abbasi family.The fate of Rania Al-Abbasi and her husband remains officially unresolved. Contact with both was lost after their arrest, and while rights groups and media reports have suggested they may have died, no official confirmation or recovery of their remains has been reported.
The case underscores the scale of Syria’s missing persons crisis, which includes detainees who disappeared in government prisons, civilians who went missing during years of conflict, and individuals who vanished at checkpoints or while fleeing violence.The Syrian conflict began in 2011 after a government crackdown on anti-government protests and evolved into a prolonged civil war.
Tens of thousands of people were detained or disappeared during the conflict.The commission said last year that the number of people who went missing over decades of Assad family rule could exceed 300,000.
