Orphanage in Syria is accused of receiving children to imprisoned parents • several children disappeared
According to the new board in Syria, there is information that thousands of children were reported disappeared after their parents were arrested by the former regime. One of them is Hadi Farrah, whose wife and three children were arrested nine years ago.
– I’ve been looking for nine years without results. When I wrote letters and appealed to Asma Al Assad, I was arrested and imprisoned for three years because I criticized the regime, says Hadi that TV4 meets in Damascus.
When Bashar Al Assad’s regime fell in early December, a jump was aroused again.
– I went directly to the orphanages to look and the authorities. But so far it has not produced any results, says Hadi Farrah.
May have been born in captivity
In recent weeks, a number of orphanages have been identified for receiving children from the authorities without sufficient documentation.
At the orphanage Lahnu Al Haya, many children have been received without a clear family picture, especially babies. Now a new representative has been appointed who will try to investigate whose children really are.
– Some of the cases are only babies, which have been brought here directly from the prisons. They can’t tell who they are, but sometimes the staff can remember, says Muatasam, new director of Lahnu Al Haya.
He says that some children may have been born in captivity, or come to the orphanage after their mothers were abused.
“Will never forget them”
Among international organizations, SOS Children’s Villages receives Syria most strongly criticism, partly because the dictator Bashar Al Assad’s wife Asma Al Assad came to the children’s villages from time to take pictures – something that was difficult to deny as long as the dictator ruled the country.
SOS Children’s Villages Syria lets TV4 the news visit the children’s villages and meet the children, but cannot put up an interview because SOS has launched several investigations into the charges together with the new board in Syria.
In a press release, SOS Children’s Villages writes Syria that in 2014-2019 they received 139 children from the regime without documents. Through various investigations, they are now trying to check, among other things, that the documents sent with other children are correct.
Hadi Farrah desperately hopes that there will be a clue after his three children and wife somewhere.
– I will never forget them, there is always with me. But I feel so helpless, he says.