'Assad wants them to die of coronavirus,' say families of Syria's missing

 'The families of people missing in Syria’s notorious prison system say they fear they will never see their loved ones again due to the spread of coronavirus, as a landmark trial over state-sponsored torture gets under way.

 It is estimated that anywhere between 75,000 and over 200,000 people are missing in Syria, with many thought to be either dead or forcibly detained.

 Families say little is being done to hold the regime to account and that the international community has failed to protect the Syrian people.

 It comes as two alleged former Syrian intelligence officers appeared in a German court on Thursday, charged with crimes against humanity for the treatment of detainees in their care in the first court case over state-sponsored torture by Bashar al-Assad's regime.

 While the case offers some hope, it is being held on the principle of universal jurisdiction, which allows a foreign country to prosecute crimes against humanity, as the International Criminal Court is hamstrung by vetoes from Russia and China. Defendants Anwar Raslan and Eyad al-Gharib are accused of multiple counts of murder, rape and torture.

 “It is not just [our family members] who are being tortured, we are being tortured, too,” said Garam Zarim, whose four uncles have been missing since they were detained by the regime in 2013.

 “Where are my loved ones? Just give us information, you don’t even need to let them go.”

 The project manager, 30, originally from the north-eastern city of Latakia but now living in southern Turkey, said that with no news of her uncles’ whereabouts and unable to confirm their deaths to hold a funeral, the lack of closure casts a long shadow over everyone in the family.

 The wife of one uncle attempted to sell her home for the US$2,000 needed to bribe prison guards for information. Paying for news of a friend or relative is a common occurrence among those who can scrape together the cash, said Ms Zarim, but that is not easy in a country stricken by almost a decade of war and the economic problems that go with it.

 “I have now heard rumours that coronavirus is in Daraa jail. There are as many as 50 people per cell there and he (Assad) wants them to die.”

 Umm Muhammad, 45, a farmer who now also lives in Turkey’s Hatay province, was detained for six months in 2013 alongside two of her sons, and has not seen or heard news from them since.

 “I underwent the most severe torture, causing anxiety and extreme fear. I was subjected to beatings that led to a severe nervous breakdown and was locked up in a prison cell with 60 other women,” she said.

 “We shared one bathroom in the cell and drank polluted water from the toilet. The food they gave us was rotten and spoiled. There was no soap in the bathroom. Cleansing hygiene was very poor. It was indescribable.”

 She said she is now especially worried about her sons and other detainees because not only is coronavirus highly contagious and conditions in prison dire, the measures in place to combat the spread of the disease means that it is almost impossible to continue her search for them.

 “Prisoners where I was held had head lice. No medication was available and people suffered from diarrhoea until they died,” she said.

 “If one inmate gets infected, it will be passed on to all the others and cause a humanitarian disaster.”



 For some families, the pain of not knowing is worsened by inaccurate information. Ms Zarim said that although the Syrian government has pronounced one of her uncle’s dead, the family do not believe it was true.

 “Parents do not trust the information handed to them by civil departments, which should be a trustworthy source. Some people are being released alive when their civil documents say they are dead,” said Amal al-Nassim, chief executive of Amal’s Healing and Advocacy Centre, which represents the families of Syria’s missing people.

 Ms al-Nassim said that one family found their son to be alive two years after they were told he was dead, had been presented with a death certificate and held a funeral for him.

 “Survivors of torture have spoken about the lack of health and food care and the most important life necessities in prison, and now families have to add to that the threat that their relatives may die from coronavirus.”

 Several Syrians said that the recorded number of deaths from heart attacks, even in teenagers, and pneumonia has grown at an unusually high rate in the last few months, while the official number of deaths and cases of Covid-19 in the country remain relatively low.

 Families say they not only worry the regime will not protect their loved ones – who are mostly held under loosely defined and politically motivated charges – from the pandemic, but that it is a convenient ‘get out of jail free’ card for a regime with many unexplained deaths to account for.

 “Our objective is that it is important the regime reveal the state of our missing persons and allow international commissions and medical commissions to offer health care in detention centres, that families be allowed to see their children, and that dead bodies are surrendered,” said Ms al-Nassim.

 “The mothers of the martyrs can sleep while the mothers of the detained and the missing cannot.” '

Russia needs to reconsider its Syria policy

 'There has been much talk about Russia’s supposed intent to abandon Syrian President Bashar Assad. This theory was backed by Russian media reports of Moscow being disappointed by Assad and his entourage’s inability to maintain control of areas that the régime had regained thanks to the Russian military effort beginning in September 2015.

 The Syrian war went through several stages, including a crucial juncture in 2012 and another in 2015.

 The near collapse of the Syrian régime began in 2012 when major cities, one by one, started rejecting the régime. The revolution started with the south-western city of Daraa rebelling after a group of its youth were killed in retaliation by the régime’s security forces. And yet, Daraa was always pro-régime, even though it is a Sunni city with some Christian and Druze presence. It is more of a rural town than anything else and quite different from Damascus, Homs, Hama and Aleppo. Daraa was home to a real bourgeoisie, for which Hafez Assad always had a strong dislike. But, Hafez Assad was very skilled at establishing internal alliances in order to surround the Sunni communities of the large cities. He also began to remove senior Sunni officers from the army quite early in his reign, as the Alawites marched on Latakia from the countryside and mountains in order to change the demographic and cultural character of the city, which was originally Sunni-Christian.

 In 2012, Damascus was in serious danger of falling to the revolution. The alternative Alawite project based on the concept of the “Useful Syria” was not a viable one, despite the efforts made since 1970 to surround the city with Alawite neighbourhoods. That’s when Iran intervened after discovering that the régime forces were not skilled at urban warfare. Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), with its experience in suppressing popular movements in Iranian cities in 2009, did not stop at just training Syrian forces to suppress the turmoil in Syrian cities. It took the extra step of sending its forces to Syria, while Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei asked Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah to send forces into the Syrian interior.

 Arab diplomatic circles recount that Nasrallah told Khamenei that the price of such an intervention would be enormous, to which the supreme leader responded that this was required of Hezbollah regardless of the price it would have to pay.

 Enter Qassem Soleimani, commander of the IRGC’s Quds Force. His assignment was to save Bashar Assad and his régime. He succeeded to a great extent but, in 2015, it became clear that he and Assad needed Russia’s help. Russia submitted to them its conditions and Soleimani immediately flew to Moscow to meet with Russian officials. Likewise, Assad flew to Moscow and met with President Vladimir Putin.

 Russia’s direct military intervention quickly changed the rules of the game in Syria. The Assad régime regained the initiative militarily. It regained full control of Damascus and surrounding areas, recaptured Aleppo and Hama, and destroyed a good part of Homs, arriving finally at Daraa.

 The Russians resorted mainly to air strikes, using modern Sukhoi bombers to hit both civilian and military targets. On the ground, however, they had to rely on the régime’s forces, which had no qualms about using explosive barrels against civilians, and on the Iranians and their various sectarian militias.

 In the meantime, the US administration was willing, since the summer of 2013, to overlook any violations in Syria in order to accommodate Iran. In August 2013, the Syrian régime used chemical weapons in Ghouta, despite previous warnings against crossing any such “red lines” by then US President Barack Obama. But in the end, the Americans did nothing.

 It is undeniable that, before 2015, the Syrian régime had benefited tremendously from the secret US-Iranian negotiations under Obama in order to reach an agreement regarding its nuclear programme. Throughout these negotiations, which later became public, the Obama administration had been careful not to anger Iran, especially in Syria.

 Russia went on to consolidate its presence in Syria. It neutralised Turkey and reached some understandings with Israel. But now, fewer than five years after its direct intervention to save the Syrian régime, the Russians are showing signs that they are fed up with it. They have realised that there are limits to Iran’s ability to continue assisting this régime in light of its own economic hardships at home, suffered at the hands of US economic sanctions and the decline of oil and gas prices. Russia is not doing great economically itself either after engaging in an oil-price war with Saudi Arabia. Despite agreements reached recently between both sides following an American request, there are no indications that oil prices are likely to recover in the foreseeable future. This explains to a large extent why Russia has had to find understandings with Turkey in Syria. On top of all of that, the COVID-19 pandemic has revealed that Russia is not immune to a major crisis coming its way – one that has already caused devastating blows to more developed countries with better infrastructure.

 Iran’s intervention in Syria was contrary to common sense and nature. It was bound to be rejected by the majority of Syrians. No matter how much land it buys or how many demographic changes it carries out, Iran will not change the profound character of Syrian society. As for Russia, there are limits to what it can accomplish in Syria, especially in the absence of the tools that it can rely on to build a new professional army possessing a mental orientation that will be completely different from the one instilled in Assad’s army.

 Several factors will push Russia to seriously consider a change of strategy in Syria: First, the fact that it no longer shares a common objective with Iran, and second, that it can no longer rely on a régime that does not possess a viable political project for Syria.

 Moscow discovered rather late that the régime it was protecting needed to have some kind of legitimacy while the Damascus rulers were only interested in remaining in power at any cost.

 At some stage, the régime decided to play the Iranian card, then at another, it played the Russian card. It even managed to play both cards at the same time. But, in the end, there is a price for any military intervention. With the drastic changes in the oil market, and in light of a looming COVID-19 pandemic, Russia needs to reconsider its Syrian policy.'

Fearing attacks, Syrian children live stunted lives in caves

 'Syrian children taking shelter in caves with their families to protect themselves from Assad régime attacks are growing up without the benefit of daylight, fresh air, or playing games.


 The Assad régime and its supporters are ignoring international agreements which were reached to protect some 4 million civilians in Idlib, northwestern Syria.

 Cease-fires reached in Idlib since fall 2018, spearheaded by Turkey, have been plagued by the attacks of the Assad régime and its allies, flouting the cease-fire rules.

 Civilians targeted in Idlib since the civil war erupted took shelter in caves in order to survive.

 Although this has not protected them from heavy airstrikes, it does protect them from régime artillery fire.

 Using this method, they have chosen darkness in order to stay alive.



 This situation has a huge effect on children. Children are suffering from physical deficiencies and mental disorders due to a lack of sunshine, fresh air, and the chance to socialize.

 Speaking from his cave, Muhammed Hudeyri, who has five children, said he lost two of his sons in artillery attacks and in an airstrike.

 After two attacks which wounded his two sons and destroyed his home, they had to resort to taking shelter in a cave.

 Saying they went into a cave to “protect my family,” he added: “We live here. They carry out artillery, mortar and ground attacks more than 50 times a day. I can’t live anywhere else. I can’t trust anyone. I tried to live in camps but couldn’t stand it there. There are no jobs. You may die of starvation.”



 Hudeyri said when they hear sounds from an explosion, they flee into the caves.

 “The caves can protect us from bullets or artillery attacks but they can’t protect us from bombardment by Russian jets. My neighbors died in their caves and they were buried there. This cave could become my family’s grave,” he added.

 Stating that children want to play outside, Hudeyri said: “The kid in my arms wants to play outside but once he hears the sound of an attack he runs back into the cave. He has no friends to play with.

 "He should have spoken by now but he has a speaking deficiency. He lives 13 hours a day inside the cave. Is this his fault?”



 Mustafa Hadari, 42, also said they had to take shelter in a cave after régime attacks destroyed their homes.

 “My life is here. I haven’t gone to camps, I won’t,” he said.

 “I lost a daughter in a drone attack. My wife was wounded. The cave can protect us from artillery and mortar attacks but can’t protect from airstrikes.”

 Rene Hadari, a 7-year-old girl, said that her mother doesn’t let her go out due to the threat of bombardment.

 “My friends are far away from here. I only have a cousin in the cave and I can only play with him,” she said.

 Hayyan Hattab, just 6 years old, said everyone left the village due to bombardment where he used to live.

 “I study in the cave because schools are suspended due to attacks. When the situation gets back to normal I can play with my friends,” he said.

 Sara Hattab, 7 years old, also said she used to play with her friends, but now her mother does not allow her to go out of the cave.



 Idlib, which is home to over 3 million people and falls in a de-escalation zone, has been the subject of multiple cease-fire agreements over the years but the deals have been frequently violated by Syrian regime forces and their allies.'