Forgotten families wait in hope for Isil’s missing thousands
She had expected to feel some sense of relief when her hometown of Raqqa was liberated from Isil last week. But 23-year-old Leila al-khalek was just left feeling empty.
She thought that with the fall of the northern Syrian city would come the answer to a question that has consumed her for almost four years: Where was her father?
On the afternoon of Nov 2 2013, Aziz al-khalek was kidnapped by Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isil) militants. The 50-year-old doctor had been driving home from his clinic in the centre of Raqqa when they stopped his car and dragged him out.
Miss Khalek says the family has not heard anything since.
“The only reason we even know he was taken was because he shouted his name as the men took him away so those watching could inform us of what happened,” she says.
Dr Khalek was just one of more than 7,400 people abducted by the jihadist group during its brutal reign in northern Syria.
When the Us-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) offensive started in June the families of the missing were hopeful they would finally learn of their fate. But not a single Isil prisoner was found.
Miss Khalek had always feared for the safety of her father, who had long been a part of the resistance. He had been an active member of the political opposition to Bashar al-assad, the Syrian president, and his father Hafez before him. He became known as the “Revolutionary Doctor”, treating the victims of the government’s crackdown on demonstrations at the beginning of the conflict in secret.
At first Dr Khalek was protesting against Assad, then when al-qaedalinked jihadists overran Raqqa in 2013, he protested against them.
Al-qaeda morphed into Isil, which began to systematically intimidate the population; executing people in the public square and lashing them for minor infractions such as smoking. Less visible, but no less terrifying, were the near-daily kidnappings.
Days after organising a sit-in at Raqqa’s main Naim Square to demonstrate against his city’s new rulers, Dr Khalek was abducted.
“He knew it was dangerous, but he stayed anyway because he believed in what he was doing and was courageous,” Miss Khalek told The Daily Telegraph from France, where her family is claiming asylum.
The family begged the jihadists for answers, but they never admitted to holding him. After 10 months of waiting the family decided – with a heavy heart – to leave Syria.
“Almost everyone who lived under Isil knows someone taken by them. I know 25 people myself,” says Mazen Hassoun, a 22-year-old student from Raqqa. The day after the city fell he launched a social media campaign, @kidnapped_isis, to try to raise awareness of their plight.
Every day since he has posted the photographs of the missing alongside notes from their loved ones. “A letter to my husband Haitham, from Hala al-haj Saleh,” reads one. “We wish you the best on your birthday. You will remain in our hearts no matter the distance and no matter the time we are apart. I will keep waiting for you, darling.”
Mr Hassoun says he has been sent more than 100 more photographs in just a few days from relatives desperate for answers. Some are of boys as young as 15.
“At the moment there is nothing to do with them but make a collage to try to make sure the world doesn’t forget,” he told The Daily Telegraph from Germany. His cousin, 16-year-old Mazen al-khalaf, was kidnapped on March 14 2014. Mr Hassoun says Mazen had had a trivial dispute with his neighbour, a member of Isil, that morning. Two hours later five men arrived at his door and dragged him from his house.
When his parents asked after their son they were told his detention was “normal” and that he would be released after a brief investigation. They never heard anything more.
A short time after Isil came for Mr Hassoun, but he was out at the time. The next day he fled for Turkey, where he stayed for several months before travelling to Germany in 2015.
“Some of my activist friends decided to stay in the city and continue to speak out against Isis. They did not understand how bad these people were. That was the last time I saw them,” says Mr Hassoun.
He says the jihadists ran a prison under Raqqa Municipal Football Stadium, where they could hold hundreds. “But they ran many jails, some far away in other towns like Tabqa, so no one knew exactly where their family members were.”
The SDF discovered the names of prisoners scratched on the walls of dank underground cells next to marks indicating how long they had been there. “We had hoped to find some prisoners alive,” Talal Silo, spokesman for the SDF said. “We found many prisons and prison cells, but all of them were sadly empty. I’m certain that we will find many mass graves ... in different locations.”
He said SDF forces were scanning and cleaning the whole city, and that they may soon have answers. It will not be an easy task as much of Raqqa was destroyed by months of coalition air strikes, potentially burying with it evidence of Isil’s crimes.
But Miss Khalek and Mr Hassoun refuse to give up hope.
“I have to be hopeful, I am nothing without hope,” said Miss Khalek. “I can’t imagine for one minute that I will not see my father again.”
Mr Hassoun has been told that Isil may have moved some of the detainees from Raqqa to its territory in Deir Ezzor to use as human shields. He believes the group kept meticulous records on its prisoners. “It’s impossible they all just vanished without a trace,” he says.
He hopes that collating testimonies will aid any future investigations, but he and Miss Khalek know the chances of them getting justice are slim.
“The SDF doesn’t care about our loved ones, their job is done as far as they are concerned,” Miss Khalek says. “We’re going to have to fight to find them.”