Post by : Naveen Mittal

Photo: X / VikingFBR

Syria’s Stolen Children: How Families Still Search for the Missing

In Syria, thousands of parents are still looking for their missing children. These children disappeared during the country’s long civil war under the rule of Bashar al-Assad. Many families believe their sons and daughters were taken from them and placed in orphanages, where their names and identities were changed. Now, even though the Assad government has fallen, the search for these children continues, full of pain, anger, and unanswered questions.

A Mother’s Endless Search

Reem al-Kari is one of many mothers who refuse to give up hope. Her son, Karim, was only two-and-a-half years old when he disappeared with his father in 2013. They were running an errand when both vanished. More than ten years later, Reem is still searching. Today, Karim would be 15.

Reem and her cousin look through piles of photos of children in orphanages, hoping to find someone who looks like him. Each photo brings a flicker of hope, but also heartbreak when there is no match.

“Are his eyes green?” asks one orphanage manager. “There is a similarity but…” His voice trails off. For Reem, every lead ends with silence.

Orphanages Turned Into Prisons for Children

During Syria’s war, orphanages were supposed to help abandoned children. But instead, some were used as secret centers to hold the children of detainees.

Children whose parents were jailed or killed were sometimes falsely registered as orphans. Their names were changed, and visits from relatives were banned. Families who tried to trace them were blocked by security services.

One such network included shelters linked to Lahan Al Hayat and SOS Children’s Villages International, a global charity based in Austria. SOS operates in more than 130 countries and raises nearly €1.6 billion a year. Documents and whistleblowers now suggest that SOS Syria may have accepted children from the Assad regime without proper checks.

Allegations Against a Global Charity

Investigators have collected documents and testimonies from former SOS staff and whistleblowers. They claim:

• Some children were admitted without papers, or with false names.

• When Syrian intelligence asked for children to be returned, SOS complied without questioning where they would go.

• Families asking about their children were denied access or information.

• In some cases, children were told not to speak about their parents and were given new names.

SOS admits that at least 140 children without documents were taken in between 2013 and 2018. Many of them were later removed by Syrian intelligence, and their fate remains unknown.

The charity says it deeply regrets what happened and blames the Assad government, which it described as a “terror system.” But families say SOS should have resisted and protected their children.

Stories of Pain and Lost Childhoods

Omama Ghbeis, another Syrian mother, knows this pain well. She was jailed for three years because of her brother’s humanitarian work. During that time, she had no idea where her two young daughters were.

Her girls, Layla and Layan, were placed in SOS Syria. They later told their mother that their names were changed. Layan was forced to use the name “Layal Mossab,” and even forgot what her mother looked like.

When Omama was finally reunited with them, she described the reunion as bittersweet:
“Each one of us was coming from a different world.”

She blames SOS for following regime orders and breaking the bond between families.

Bureaucracy and Dead Ends

For mothers like Reem, the search is filled with endless obstacles. At Syria’s Social Affairs Ministry, she was told the minister was away, the manager was on holiday, and finally that missing children’s files had been sent to security services. When she went upstairs to ask, she was refused answers.

Even now, with Assad gone, many documents are lost, destroyed, or falsified. A new government committee has been set up to investigate, but it has little staff or resources. Families fear the truth may never come out.

Denials and Investigations

SOS International says it never offered financial rewards for increasing the number of children and denies any formal connection with the Assad family. But whistleblowers insist that Asma al-Assad, the former first lady, had strong influence.

The charity’s interim CEO, Benoît Piot, admitted that SOS had followed Syrian government orders but promised to learn from its mistakes. He said: “This should never have happened.”

Still, families say SOS has been slow to respond to their requests, sometimes taking months or giving no reply at all.

A Global Concern

The scandal has shocked donors worldwide. Many governments and private supporters have cut funding to SOS Syria. Yet, the charity continues to operate in the country, saying it must care for the children still living in its shelters.

Critics argue that unless SOS is transparent about its past role, it cannot rebuild trust. The case also raises larger questions: How many other children around the world are at risk when charities operate in countries controlled by abusive regimes?

A Dark Legacy

For more than a decade, Syria’s war has destroyed millions of lives. Now, even after the fall of the dictatorship, families are left piecing together the truth about their missing children.

For Reem, the struggle is personal and unending. She still holds on to a small photo of Karim as a toddler, his bright eyes filled with innocence. Every orphanage she visits, every folder of photos she scans, she hopes to find those same eyes again.

“It’s been six months since liberation,” she says. “And yet, there’s still no clear path for mothers looking for their children.”

Until that path is built, Syria’s stolen children remain a wound that refuses to heal.