Syria’s Stolen Children

This investigation follows the trail of Syria’s missing children. The team spoke to families in Damascus, Daraa and southern Germany who are looking for their children or have managed to reunite with them. They also met with lawyers, activists and former orphanage employees and analysed official government documents that had emerged following the fall of the regime.  Although the investigation failed to locate the missing children, it revealed the following:

• Many children were arrested alongside their parents, primarily mothers, at checkpoints established by the regime or foreign militias supporting Assad.
• In many cases, the children of political detainees were systematically separated from their parents and taken to orphanages, including the facilities of the international organisation SOS Children’s Villages.
• Orphanages cooperated with the regime to keep the children's identities and whereabouts secret.
• Even babies born in prison were separated from their mothers, and since their parents were never heard from again, They must have been either killed or given up for adoption.
• Orphanages are not the only answer to the issue of missing children, since different checkpoints and secret services acted independently, especially in rural areas and during the later years of the war.

Photo credit: Nicolas Cortes