This report sheds light on the suffering endured by the family of Ibrahim Hameh, a resident of Amuda in northeast Syria; it has been searching for its missing son for over 11 years. Despite facing extortion and receiving misleading information, the family remains hopeful and determines to uncover the truth.
Is the family’s situation considered a human rights violation, and are there any ways and resources to find out what really happened?
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Lazgin Ibrahim Hameh, born in Amuda in 1992, has been missing since Oct.9, 2012, when Syrian opposition factions took control of Maarat al-Numan in the countryside of Idlib, northwest Syria.
Despite their efforts, Lazgin’s family, who live in Amuda, northeast Syria has been unable to find out what happened to its son. The family has received unconfirmed information suggesting that he might be held in one of the prisons of the Syrian government.
Lazgin was serving in mandatory military service and is now 32 years old. He has a mole beneath his right eye.
The conflict in Syria, which began with protests in 2011, has brought unexpected devastation and resulted in the disappearance of Lazgin. Ibrahim Hameh, 70, could not have anticipated that the conflict would engulf the country and lead to his son’s disappearance.
In response to the intensifying clashes between armed opposition factions and the Syrian government forces in northwest Syria during the autumn of 2012, Lazgin’s parents traveled to the countryside of Maarat al-Numan in an attempt to see their son.
His father said that he told his son in a phone call that he and his mother had arrived in the countryside of Maarat al-Numan to visit him. He replayed “Give me half an hour, there is an explosion here. I will call you back later.”
Unfortunately, that was the last contact with Lazgin. He disappeared after the opposition factions took control of the city, and there has been no information about his fate since the government forces regained control of the city in late January 2020.
In an area subjected to ongoing shelling by both conflicting parties, and with rural residents under siege due to, the parents
In an area exposed to shelling from both sides of the conflict and with the rural population under siege due to the shifting control positions, Lazgin’s parents waited for 22 days in the hope that Lazgin would contact them or they would know any information regarding his whereabouts.
Deception and extortion
The parents eventually returned to Amuda, and Lazgin’s father and uncle made more than ten trips to Damascus and Maarat al-Numan in search of confirmed information about him. Despite their efforts, they were unable to obtain any concrete information.
After months, one of Lazgin’s comrades called to inquire if he had returned home, mentioning that he was with Lazkin on that day and that Lazkin had been injured in the shoulder, but he didn’t know what happened afterward.
The family searched for his other comrades, including those who fled due to the ongoing battles and conflict, and they followed the lists of released prisoners and the names of those who died in prisons, but without any results.
Non-governmental organizations estimate that the number of missing individuals in Syria since the beginning of the war is around 100,000, though the actual number might be much higher.
In June 2023, a resolution was passed by the United Nations General Assembly to create an institution dedicated to investigating the fate of missing individuals in Syria, locating their whereabouts, and offering assistance to both the victims and their families.
The family later resorted to lawyers and mediators who claimed that Lazgin was imprisoned by the government, but they failed to secure any contact, photo, voice recording, or any evidence to verify the accuracy of the information provided.
Four years ago, one of the lawyers informed the family that Lazgin could be released in exchange for four million Syrian pounds and received a payment. However, the family lost faith in the lawyer when he failed to provide any proof of his knowledge regarding their son’s fate.
Hayat, Lazgin’s sister, said that the lawyer always sets a date to inform them of something certain, but then he would make excuses, claiming an anticipated amnesty is forthcoming.
Where is the truth?
Lazgin’s father still feels hopeful whenever someone knocks on the door, wishing it could be him. Hayat, his sister, gets anxious whenever the phone rings unexpectedly.
Hayat insists, “We will not give up searching, no matter how much effort or money it takes.”
The Syrian government has yet to sign the international convention on the protection of persons from enforced disappearances. However, it is committed to the Universal Declaration on the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance, adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in 1992 (Resolution 133/47). Article 2 paragraph 1 of the declaration states that “No State shall practise, permit or tolerate enforced disappearances.”
This places the responsibility on the Syrian government to reveal the fate and whereabouts of the disappeared, including Lazgin, regardless of the direct party involved in their disappearance, the presumed location, or the potential reasons for their vanishing.
Enforced disappearance is considered a war crime under Article 8 and a crime against humanity under Article 7 of the Rome Statute, establishing the International Criminal Court. The United Nations General Assembly, in its resolution 162/44 issued in December 1989, endorsed the recommendations outlined in Annex II of the resolution of the Economic and Social Council, number 65 for the year 1989. These recommendations “prohibit extrajudicial executions and arbitrary killings,” which could be a potential fate for some of the forcibly disappeared individuals.
If opposition factions are responsible for someone’s disappearance, they are also bound by customary international humanitarian law and the Geneva Conventions of 1949 to disclose their fate and cooperate with the International Mechanism for the Search for Missing Persons in this regard.
Despite the painful feelings of grief and frustration, the families of the missing victims are subjected to fraud by brokers and intermediaries, some of whom may be lawyers. Complaints must be filed against them, besides the importance of including programs to support the families of presumed victims according to the International Mechanism for the Search for Missing Persons in Syria, with a database for the missing and means of compensating the damage, such as providing financial compensation to the families of the victims and promptly informing them of any mass graves found and the results of judicial investigations with former officials of governing factions or the Syrian government.
