Missing Syrian chess master’s children may be dead, officials say | Children’s Rights Issues

The Syrian Committee confirms the death of six children of Rania al-Abbasi, who disappeared since 2013 under the regime of Bashar al-Assad.

Syria’s National Commission for Missing Persons (NCMP) says the children of dentist and former chess champion Rania al-Abbasi, who disappeared with their parents more than a decade ago under President Bashar al-Assad, have died.

“We have obtained reliable and valid results that allow us to conclude with certainty that the children of Dr Rania al-Abbasi are dead,” the NCMP said on Saturday.

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The fate of the children, unknown for many years, became a symbol of the plight of other missing children who were arrested and who were forcibly disappeared during al-Assad’s regime, which ended with his ouster in 2024.

Al-Abbasi disappeared along with her husband, Abdul Rahman Yasin, and their six children, aged between 3 and 15, in March 2013 after government forces attacked their home in Damascus, according to rights groups.

The agency, which was established by the country’s new administration in May 2025 to investigate missing and enforced disappearances, said its findings “were based on several verification and analysis methods” carried out in collaboration with national authorities.

“Efforts to locate the remains … are ongoing,” it added.

Hassan al-Abbasi, Rania’s brother, confirmed the children’s deaths in a video posted on Facebook.

He said the family had been able to view videos of the main suspect in the 2013 massacre in Damascus, including one showing him accusing children in a dark room of being “terrorist funders”.

“They became our children,” said Hassan al-Abbasi. “We saw them… but they were killed.”

The future of Rania and her husband is still unclear after their entire relationship ended after he was arrested for opposing the Assad regime.

Rights groups and media reports suggest they may have died, although their bodies have not been found.

The issue of missing people is one of the most pressing issues in Syria. Some of these people are prisoners who went missing in state prisons and people who went missing during the war, at the camp site or when fleeing their homes during the years of the civil war.

Thousands of people have been arrested or disappeared during the war, which began in 2011 after protests against al-Assad’s government.

The NCMP said last year that the number of people who have disappeared over the years of the al-Assad family’s rule could exceed 300,000.

The al-Assad regime’s notorious figure is linked to murder

Separately on Saturday, the Syrian Interior Ministry said its investigation into the disappearance of al-Abbasi’s children found evidence linking Amjad Youssef – a prominent figure in al-Assad’s regime and the mastermind behind the Tadamon massacre in 2013 – to their murder.

In a statement, it said the interrogation of the detainees, along with videos and information shared by the NCMP, helped to strengthen the case.

Youssef was arrested in April, prompting many Syrians to call for “only punishment” for the man they say was responsible for the cold-blooded murder.

Tadamon’s case attracted international attention after photographs were taken of the killings.

In 2022, The Guardian newspaper in the United Kingdom published photos it said had been taken down by a pro-government militia showing members of the Assad Military Intelligence Branch 227 killing at least 41 people and burning their bodies.

The video showed an intelligence officer, identified as Youssef, shooting detainees in the eye and arresting them.