Syria says missing chess champion’s six children likely killed during Assad-era detention

Syria says missing chess champion’s six children likely killed under Assad Submitted by Reem Aouir on Sun, 05/31/2026 - 11:11 Preliminary findings implicate ex-intelligence officer Amjad Youssef in deaths of the children missing since 2013 Rania al-Abbasi and her family became a symbol of Syria's thousands of missing persons cases (media outlets/social media) Off Syria's commission for missing persons said on Saturday that the six children of chess champion and dentist Rania al-Abbasi were killed after disappearing with their parents more than a decade ago under former President Bashar al-Assad. In a post on X, the interior ministry said: “Through investigations conducted with several detainees, information and evidence indicate that the children were killed by groups and militias affiliated with the former regime.” It added that “efforts to find the remains... are still ongoing”. According to the statement, video footage and information related to the case, provided by the National Commission for the Missing, have strengthened the evidence collected. The family was informed of the findings before any public announcement, in line with a protocol intended to protect their right to know while safeguarding their dignity, according to the interior ministry's statement. Abbasi was a well-known figure in Syria as a dentist and chess player who held both Syrian and Arab championship titles, and was an outspoken opponent of the Assad government. In March 2013, Assad forces raided the family home in Damascus and detained her along with her husband, Abdul-Rahman Yasin, and their six children, aged between 2 and 14 years old at the time of their arrest. For more than a decade, human rights groups and surviving relatives campaigned for information about their fate. The family's disappearance came to symbolise the suffering of detainees' children and others forcibly disappeared under Assad's rule. Tadamon perpetrator linked to killings The Syrian interior ministry announced that “preliminary investigations had revealed the direct involvement of Amjad Youssef”, one of the main perpetrators of the 2013 Tadamon massacre in Damascus, in the killing of the children. Footage of the massacre was leaked in 2022, showing civilians blindfolded and with their hands tied being led to a pit in Tadamon, a neighbourhood in southern Damascus, where they were shot. Seven women and 15 children were among the victims. The footage, filmed by the perpetrators, has become detailed documentary evidence of war crimes committed under Assad. How Assad's Syria moved the bodies of its victims Read More » Youssef, an intelligence officer, was captured by Syrian government forces in April in the Ghab Plain in rural Hama during a security operation. In a recorded confession released afterwards by the interior ministry, Youssef admitted taking part in the killing of around 40 people, saying he had acted on his own initiative. Hassan al-Abbasi, Rania's brother, said in a video shared on social media: “We finally saw them... but they were martyred.” He added that the family was able to identify the children through a video showing Youssef entering a darkened room and accusing several children of being “major financiers of terrorism”. In a recent interview with Al Arabiya, he also said the children were killed on the same day they were detained, with most of the killings carried out by strangulation using plastic cables. The fate of Rania al-Abbasi and her husband remains officially unconfirmed. Rights groups say they may have died, although their bodies have never been found. Tens of thousands of Syrians were detained or disappeared between the 2011 revolution and the fall of the Assad government in December 2024. According to the Syrian Network for Human Rights, more than 177,057 people were forcibly disappeared in Syria between March 2011 and August 2025, including 4,536 children and 8,984 women. Syria after Assad News Post Date Override 0 Update Date Mon, 05/04/2020 - 21:19 Update Date Override 0

Syrian commission confirms deaths of Rania al-Abbasi's six children, missing since 2013 under Bashar al-Assad's rule.