As conflict in Syria fades from the headlines, Jan-Peter Westad reports on the dogged international efforts to find missing persons, spearheaded by the families of the disappeared.
The day began like any other. Mohamad al-Sheikh, then aged 14, walked to school with his father in their home town of Moudamiah al-Sham, near Damascus. He had his lessons, chatted with friends, went home and watched some television while his mother prepared dinner. When Mohamad’s father, Ahmad, didn’t come home from his work as a business relationship manager for a local branch of the Swiss transnational Nestlé, they began to worry. Ahmad would always ring if he was running late, but that evening the family heard nothing. ‘Both my mother and I had a terrible feeling,’ remembers Mohamad. ‘We went outside and saw two cars at the end of our road. Then we heard gunshots and I was sent inside the house.’ Neighbours later told them they had seen security agents bundle Ahmad into one of the cars. It was 7 May 2012 and the last time Mohamad saw his father alive.
