Syria, Jan 30, (V7N) – Weeks after Bashar al-Assad’s ouster, Syrians like Fairuz Shalish are still searching for the fate of their missing loved ones, many of whom vanished into the regime’s vast prison network.

Shalish, 59, believes her son Mohammed, who was taken by military security in November, may be buried in an unmarked grave at the Tal al-Naser cemetery near Homs.

"I tell his son that his father will be back tomorrow," she said, weeping at the site where construction blocks serve as makeshift headstones.

Mohammed was accused of ties to revolutionaries in the north. Her other son, arrested at the same time, was later released, but unofficial sources claimed Mohammed had died. Shalish has been unable to obtain permission to exhume the body she suspects is his.

“If I have to go to the end of the Earth, I will go. I need to be certain, so my heart can be at rest,” she said.

Adnan Deeb, responsible for burials at Tal al-Naser, recalls how bodies—some with names, others only marked by codes—were delivered by military vehicles over the years.

“Sometimes ten at a time, sometimes five… Some showed signs of torture,” he said. "It was an atrocious sight."

Deeb estimates several thousand former detainees are buried in the cemetery and hopes military hospital records will eventually reveal their identities.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights estimates over 100,000 detainees have died in Syrian prisons since 2011 due to torture or inhumane conditions.

For some, the search has spanned years. Rafic al-Mohbani has spent more than a decade looking for his brother and brother-in-law, who disappeared in 2013.

“We were told they were transferred to Damascus. After that, we don’t know what happened,” he said.

Despite hiring lawyers and paying bribes, his family never received answers. Now, after Assad’s downfall, he is combing through hospitals and cemeteries, hoping for news.

“We posted their photos again,” Mohbani said. “God willing, justice will prevail for us and everyone in Syria.”

END/WD/RH/