Syria: Searching for Idlib’s losers

When the Syrian uprising began in 2011, one would have guessed that it would be one of the bloodiest conflicts of our time. Ten years later, our reporters returned to the northeastern city of Idlib. It is the only Syrian city that is not yet under government control, but where thousands of families are eagerly awaiting to know the fate of loved ones who have disappeared. By cross-checking photographs with testimonies, a help group tries to help them identify their missing family members.

After more than a decade of conflict, the number of deaths in Syria is now approaching 400,000 and tens of thousands of people are missing. While about six million Syrians have sought refuge abroad, another six million have been internally displaced. President Bashar al-Assad, meanwhile, is the only Arab dictator still in power. And his army still applies ruthless tactics to all who oppose him and uses arbitrary detentions, torture and summary executions to silence them.

In Idlib, one of the last outposts of the Syrian opposition, whole families are desperately looking for answers to what has happened to missing family members – many of whom have been thrown into regime prisons, where many die of either hunger, disease or torture.

A relief group is helping these Idlib families identify their relatives using the more than 55,000 photographs of the Syrian deserter “César”, who took the pictures while working at a military hospital in Damascus.

Report by Édith Bouvier, James de Caupenne, Céline Martelet and Hussam Hamoud.