‘Don’t give up’: Syrian women’s ongoing search for the missing

This article is published in association with United Nations.

Yasmin Al-Mashaan lost five brothers during more than a decade of conflict in Syria. Two were forcibly disappeared. Three were killed during peaceful demonstrations or by snipers loyal to the Bashar Al-Assad regime.

She found a picture of her brother, Uqba, among the “Caesar photos”, a cache of images smuggled out of Syria in 2013 documenting the deaths of thousands in government custody. That discovery, she said, is what pushed her to act.

“I took it upon myself to seek the truth for all the victims who do not know the fate of their loved ones,” said Ms. Al-Mashaan, who serves with Syria’s National Commission for Transitional Justice.

That drive has made her one of the country’s leading voices in the search for truth on Syria’s missing persons file.

She was among those at UN Headquarters on Monday when the General Assembly adopted a resolution designating 19 December the International Day of Recognition for Women Searchers of Missing Persons.

Read the full General Assembly resolution here.

‘Tribute to courage’

Estimates suggest that the number of the missing ranges between 130,000 and 300,000, according to the Independent Foundation for Missing Persons in Syria.

“Women searching for their missing loved ones bear the burden of uncertainty for years, often decades, as they refuse to let those who have disappeared be forgotten,” Carla Quintana, president of the foundation, told UN News.

She said the General Assembly resolution reflects “this international recognition is a tribute to the courage, perseverance and exceptional contribution of these women in the search for truth.”

Resilience and sacrifice

Ms. Al-Mashaan told UN News that the new General Assembly resolution means “all the resilience and sacrifices made have been honored by recognising the right of women to search for their loved ones.” 

She described her long journey searching for the truth and rallying support for a resolution that honours the women who search for the missing around the world.

She also founded the Caesar Families Association with families of victims of enforced disappearance in Syria: she has a message to all female fighters and those searching for their loved ones.

“Don’t give up.”

‘Truly active role’

Amina Khoulani, a member of the Syrian National Commission for Missing Persons, never gave up following her arrest and detention – along with family members – by the now deposed Bashar Al-Assad regime in 2003.

“At the beginning of the Syrian revolution, I became involved in the human rights struggle, and as a result of this involvement, my husband, my four brothers and I were arrested and imprisoned in the regime’s prisons,” she said.

While she, her husband and one of her brothers were released from detention, the other three family members were executed in Sednaya prison, she recalled, explaining her journey fleeing Syria and settling in Lebanon and then the United Kingdom.

Ms. Khoulani, who helped create the first association of Syrian women to search for missing persons in Syria, said the new Assembly decision reflects “an affirmation that the role of women was not a secondary role, but rather a truly active role”.

Power of hope

For Debra Tice, the mother of missing US journalist Austin Tice, the General Assembly’s decision was both important and courageous.

Describing the particular pain mothers experience when they lose their loved ones, she told all those searching to “hold onto your desire to find them and to know exactly where they are.”

“The best thing one could hope for is to embrace them [the missing] again, if that is possible, if they are found, if they can get out of somewhere and return to the arms of their loved ones,” she told UN News.

Highlighting the power of hope, Ambassador Ibrahim Al-Ulabi, the Permanent Representative of Syria to the UN, said many Syrian women involved in searching for the missing and disappeared have borne enormous burdens and taken on a tremendous task.

“We do not just want to remember the suffering, we also want to recall the resilience and efforts made,” he said. “And we hope, as we move forward in this new chapter of Syria’s history, to also recall hope.”