Missing Syrian chess champion’s children likely dead, authorities say

Syrian committee confirms the deaths of Rania al-Abbasi’s six children, missing since 2013 nether Bashar al-Assad’s rule.

Syria’s National Commission for Missing Persons (NCMP) says the children of dentist and erstwhile chess champion Rania al‑Abbasi, who disappeared with their parents much than a decennary agone nether then-President Bashar al-Assad, are apt dead.

“We person reached reliable and corroborating results that let america to reason with a precocious grade of nonrecreational certainty that Dr Rania al-Abbasi’s children are deceased,” the NCMP said successful a connection connected Saturday.

Recommended Stories

• list 1 of 3Syria puts archetypal Assad-era authoritative connected proceedings successful Damascus
• list 2 of 3Down but not out: In warfare with Israel, Hezbollah shows it is inactive powerful
• list 3 of 3From exile to judge: Symbolism successful Syria’s proceedings of Assad, erstwhile officials

The destiny of the children, chartless for years, became a awesome of the plight of different missing children of detainees and those forcibly disappeared during al-Assad’s rule, which ended with his ouster successful 2024.

Al-Abbasi went missing on with her husband, Abdul Rahman Yasin, and their six children, aged 3 to 15, successful March 2013 aft authorities forces raided their location successful Damascus, according to rights groups.

The commission, acceptable up by the country’s caller rulers successful May 2025 to analyse missing and forcibly disappeared people, said its findings were “based connected aggregate verification and investigation procedures” conducted successful coordination with nationalist authorities.

“Efforts to find the remains … are inactive ongoing,” it added.

Hassan al-Abbasi, Rania’s brother, confirmed the children’s deaths successful a video posted connected Facebook.

He said the household had been capable to presumption video recordings linked to the main fishy successful a 2013 massacre successful a Damascus district, including 1 showing him accusing children successful a acheronian country of being “major financiers of terrorism”.

“They turned retired to beryllium our children,” Hassan al-Abbasi said. “We yet saw them … but they were martyred.”

The destiny of Rania and her hubby remains officially chartless aft each interaction with them was mislaid pursuing their apprehension connected accusations linked to absorption to the Assad government.

Rights groups and media reports suggest they whitethorn person died, though their bodies were ne'er found.

The contented of missing radical remains 1 of the astir pressing successful Syria. They see detainees who vanished successful authorities prisons arsenic good arsenic radical who went missing during fighting, astatine checkpoints oregon portion fleeing their homes implicit the years of civilian war.

Tens of thousands of radical were detained oregon disappeared during the war, which erupted successful 2011 aft a brutal crackdown connected antigovernment protests by al-Assad.

The NCMP said past twelvemonth that the fig of radical who went missing implicit decades of al-Assad household regularisation whitethorn transcend 300,000.

Notorious al-Assad authorities fig linked to killings

Separately connected Saturday, the Syrian Ministry of Interior said its probe into the disappearance of al-Abbasi’s children had uncovered grounds linking Amjad Youssef – a notorious fig during al-Assad’s regularisation and the perpetrator of the 2013 Tadamon massacre – to their killing.

In a statement, it said interrogations of detainees, unneurotic with videos and accusation shared by the NCMP, had helped fortify the case.

Youssef was arrested successful April, prompting galore Syrians to request “just punishment” for a antheral they accidental carried retired the massacre successful acold blood.

The Tadamon lawsuit drew planetary attraction aft footage surfaced documenting the killings.

In 2022, The Guardian paper successful the United Kingdom published footage it said had been leaked by a conscript successful a pro-government militia showing members of the Assad-era Military Intelligence Branch 227 sidesplitting astatine slightest 41 radical and burning their bodies.

The video showed an quality officer, identified arsenic Youssef, shooting blindfolded and bound detainees.