DAMASCUS: Hassan Mahmoud is once again confronting the question that has shaped his family for more than 14 years: Where is his brother, Dr. Hayan Mahmoud?
Hayan, a cardiologist at Al-Mujtahid Hospital in Damascus, was arrested by intelligence officers of the ousted Syrian regime in July 2012, after a dispute with another doctor.
Former detainees later said they had seen Hayan in detention and that he had been tortured. In 2022, an official civil registry document listed him as deceased.
The family has plenty of information about Hayan’s fate, but they still do not know where his remains are.
“There is no grave,” Hassan told SANA. “As long as we do not know where he is, our search continues.”
Hayan’s story reflects one of Syria’s deepest unresolved wounds: families who may have learned that their relatives died but do not know where their bodies are.
At least 177,021 people have been disappeared by the regime in Syria since March 2011, according to the Syrian Network for Human Rights.
Hayan’s family was left scrabbling for credible information. Hassan said intermediaries repeatedly approached them, claiming they had news about him in exchange for money.
“Most of it turned out to be false,” Hassan added.
One of his cousins, Basel Mahmoud, went missing while performing national service after asking his commanding officer for personal leave when he believed Hayan would have a funeral. He was never seen again.
Hassan began documenting cases of enforced disappearance and speaking with survivors of Syria’s detention system before later testifying in Germany in one of the landmark criminal proceedings involving officials of the ousted regime.
Former intelligence officer Anwar Raslan was convicted of crimes against humanity and sentenced to life imprisonment.
The scale of enforced disappearance in Syria means the Mahmoud family’s unanswered questions are shared by tens of thousands of others.
Each unresolved case represents not only a missing person, but a family still waiting for information, remains, or a place to grieve.
