Syria authorities trying to find identities of hundreds of children of disappeared parents, as ex-ministers arrested

Two former Syrian ministers of social affairs were arrested in Damascus last Saturday over their alleged involvement in the disappearance of hundreds of children of people detained by the regime of deposed dictator Bashar al-Assad.

The children were placed in orphanages while their parents were detained or forcibly disappeared. An investigation by the US’s National Public Radio revealed last March that the regime’s notorious Air Force Intelligence placed over 300 children into orphanages, with orphanage staff having no choice but to comply.

Samer Qurabi, a spokesperson for Syria’s Committee for Monitoring the Fate of Children of Detainees and the Disappeared, said on Satured that the two former ministers who served under the Assad regime, Kinda Shammat and Rima al-Qadiri, had been arrested for "legal violations" and that the committee had "evidence proving their involvement" in cases relating to the running of orphanages before the fall of the regime.

Kinda Shammat was the social affairs minister under Assad between 2013 and 2015, while Rima al-Qadiri held the same post between 2015 and 2020. The Syrian conflict broke out in 2011 following the brutal suppression of anti-Assad protests. Over 500,000 people were killed, while hundreds of thousands were detained or forcibly disappeared.

Following the fall of the Assad regime in December 2024, the Syrian Network for Human Rights said that over 112,000 people forcibly disappeared by the regime were most likely dead, after desperate attempts by their relatives to find them in prisons like Sednaya failed.

Qurabi said that the committee had obtained documents carrying the names of 413 children placed in orphanages, but these did not provide adequate data to identify or reach their parents. He added that the committee was now working on “research and fact-finding about the situation of the children” and that it was looking into carrying out DNA tests to find out who the parents of the children were.

Qurabi blamed the "horrific administrative backwardness of the former regime" for the situation.

“The deposed regime left us a heavy and frightening legacy of administrative dysfunction, which makes our task in this complex humanitarian issue much more difficult,” he added.

Besides Shammat and al-Qadiri, the Syrian government has arrested several people involved in hiding the children in orphanages against the will of their detained parents in recent days. Syria's Ministry of Social Affairs said that this was part of efforts to uncover the truth about the children and achieve "justice", while calling on anyone with relevant information to cooperate with the investigation.