By Fattah Issa
KOBANI, Syria (North Press) – Mrs. Nouriya al-Haj Ahmad Uday, 47, still hopes her husband, Muhammad Ismail, who was abducted by the Islamic State (ISIS) ten years ago might return one day.
ISIS kidnapped more than 550 individuals from Kobani and its countryside, northern Syria, between 2013 and 2014, as documented by human rights organizations. Nearly five years after the military defeat of ISIS in its last stronghold in the town of Baghuz in Deir ez-Zor Governorate, eastern Syria, the fate of these individuals remains unknown.
Uday told North Press that her husband traveled to the city of Raqqa, northern Syria, in August 2014 to buy electric wires but never returned. They do not know what happened to him since then, she said.
Actions required
Uday urges the United Nations (UN), which established an institution to investigate missing persons in Syria, to expedite its work. “Families of the missing need to know the fate of their loved ones. We have been waiting for years,” she said.
In June 2023, the UN General Assembly adopted a resolution to establish the Independent Institution on Missing Persons in Syria to reveal the fate of forcibly disappeared individuals.
According to various UN estimates the number of missing persons in Syria has amounted to approximately 100,000 people since 2011. The actual numbers, however, are believed to be higher as there were cases of missing people prior to the Syrian crisis.
The General Assembly called on all parties to the Syrian conflict to fully cooperate with the newly established institution.
Darwish Kar’o, 50, whose relatives were kidnapped by ISIS, expressed his joy at the creation of the institute in 2023, but he also pointed out that it has not accomplished anything on the ground yet.
Kar’o has a more tragic story than Uday as he knows nothing about the fate of 13 family members, including his brother and five of his cousins.
Kar’o said that his relatives were all abducted on Sept. 20, 2014, by ISIS when its militants attacked the city of Kobani.
He added that he used to be informed about his relatives’ whereabouts before ISIS was expelled from Raqqa and Baghuz. However, since the liberation of Raqqa by the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), he has received no information about his relatives.
Kar’o hopes that the UN resolution will be implemented on the ground and that the new institution will be directly under its supervision rather than other entities.
Over 550 missing
Kar’o works in the Committee of the Missing of the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES). He said that the committee documented the names of over 550 individuals who were kidnapped by ISIS. He stressed that humanitarian organizations show no interest in the issue of the missing individuals in Kobani.
The families of the missing individuals hope that the new institution will have an active role and reveal the fate of their loved ones, Kar’o said. However, if it remains inactive and is just a symbolic gesture, it will result in another six years passing without obtaining any information about the fate of the missing.
Kar’o pointed out that the majority of the missing individuals from Kobani were abducted by ISIS between 2013 and 2014. Some were kidnapped on the Kobani-Manbij road, while others were taken captive on the Kobani-Hasakah Road near the town of Al-Aliyah. Some were kidnapped in the city of Tabqa and others were abducted from their villages during ISIS’s attack on Kobani.
Kar’o hopes that the SDF will share the results of their investigations with ISIS leaders, including ISIS’ minister of the affairs of captives’, regarding the fate of the missing individuals if they have such files.
Hopes
Fadel Mahmoud Jawish eagerly waits for the day he finally receives any news about his father’s fate, who went missing more than ten years ago in the city of Tel Abyad, northern Syria.
Jawish, 35, said that his father was kidnapped on July 21, 2013, in Tel Abyad when Ahrar al-Sham, a faction affiliated with the Turkish-backed armed opposition, aka the Syrian National Army (SNA) and al-Nusra Front, now known as Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), were in control of the city.
Jawish himself was previously abducted by Ahrar al-Sham, along with other Kurds from the area. His father, however, was taken by al-Nusra Front and transferred to a prison in Raqqa.
During clashes and fighting between ISIS and al-Nusra Front, detainees escaped the prison, he said. Unfortunately, ISIS controlled the prison where his father was held. To this day, he does not know anything about his whereabouts, Jawish pointed out.
Jawish believes that human rights organizations and the United Nations should work together to uncover the fate of the missing individuals.
He recently learned about the establishment of a U.N.-affiliated institution on missing people in Syria, which gave him hope that it will operate swiftly to uncover the fate of the missing individuals, given the significant number of missing persons in Kobani, Manbij, and Tel Abyad.