Six months after he was snatched from a ro in central Syria, Iy Suleiman was allowed by his kidnappers to make a Skype video call home. His children were startled at how he looked — skinny and exhausted, with a long beard. He told his wife to keep talking with his captors and Syrian officials to win his freedom. That two-minute call in September 2013 was last time Suleiman’s family saw him. Soon after, his captors ended contact. Ever since, his wife and children have lived in agonizing limbo, t kwing if he is alive or de.

“I think of him all day. I wake up and cry in middle of night. I don’t kw what happens to me,” Suleiman’s 11-year-old son, Yacoub, said, bursting into tears.

Suleiman, a member of Syria’s parliament at time, was kidnapped by militants from al-Qaida-linked Nusra Front and vanished into opposition-held territories in rthwest Syria.

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Conditions in Syria

In Syria’s 8-year-old civil war, more than 100,000 people have been detained, abducted, or gone missing, according to U.N. large majority of those people were “forcibly disappeared” by government, who targeted opponents for arrest throughout war, starting with its crackdown on protests that erupted in 2011. Many are believed to have gone into government prisons where rights groups say torture is pervasive.

A smaller number from government side, like Suleiman, were taken captive by opposition forces in a war that became brutally sectarian over time. And tens of thousands more have likely vanished into mass graves, most of victims of Islamic State group during its 2014-2018 rule over rrn and eastern Syria. Those victims come from all sides in conflict, including government soldiers, opposition fighters, Kurdish militiamen and civilians.

“All Syrians, matter ir affiliations, are touched by this issue,” said U.N. special envoy for Syria Geir Pedersen.

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story of Suleiman

In her home city of Homs, Suleiman’s wife, Suzan, choked back tears as she recounted her husband’s abduction. On March 11, 2013, he was returning home from town of Palmyra, where he h gone to try and broker a local reconciliation; he passed nearby vill of Furqlus and disappeared. Suleiman and his family belong to Syria’s Alawite mirity, a bedrock of support for President Bashar Ass, also an Alawite. Suzan, a schoolteacher, was pregnant at time. Three days later, Suleiman’s kidnappers, from Nusra Front, called his family. y put him on phone and demanded a ransom. Suleiman’s brors and brors-in-law went to hand overpayment at a site near Palmyra. But when militants wouldn’t let m talk to Suleiman first, y turned around, fearing it was a trap to kidnap m as well.

Over next months, kidnappers sent names of militants held by government, demanding a swap. Each time, government refused. Once, authorities did seem rey for a tre, even telling Suzan that her husband would be back with her within days. But in end thing happened, and officials gave explanation.

American freelance photojournalist Matw Schrier, who was snatched by al-Qaida militants on last day of 2012, crossed paths with Suleiman during this time. Schrier told Associated Press that y were toger for more than two months and became friends, held first in basement of a villa, n in a children’s hospital in Aleppo used as a prison. y spent long hours playing chess, using a cloth as a board and crumpled-up aluminum foil for pieces, or talking about everything from politics and religion to ir families. Schrier said y were t physically abused, though he has said he was tortured later in his imprisonment. But conditions were difficult, at times cramped with two dozen or prisoners, mostly government soldiers or allied militiamen. ir complex was hit several times by government forces, and fighting between Nusra Front and rivals erupted right outside, he said.

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Engi, 14-year-old daughter of Iy Suleiman cries as she remembers last time she saw her far, in a brief Skype video call home that his al-Qaida kidnappers allowed him to make. Eventually, Schrier was moved to ar prison. In July 2013, he mand to escape, squeezing out a window. Schrier maintains contact with Suleiman’s family. He said he doesn’t like to speculate about his fate.

“When I was gone everybody thought I was de. Look what happened. I popped up and I was alive. I tell myself that he’s still around somewhere,” he said.

Answers to troubled families

Answers come only slowly, if at all, to families of missing, even as Syria’s war shifts and changes, with Islamic State group losing all its lands and government clawing back most — but t all — territory once held by opposition factions. Some of those whose relatives were taken by government have received partial answers. Authorities last year began issuing death certificates for thousands of detainees. Some h died as long as six years ago. Still, authorities have returned bodies, leaving some with lingering doubts over ir loved ones’ fates.

At same time, authorities are trying to build a mechanism to deal with unkwn de who arise from Syria’s many killing zones. Syrian officials have been compiling a database of unidentified de found in areas under state control, which families can search through for missing loved ones. When an unidentified body is found, forensic experts photograph face and body or take DNA samples, said Zaher Hajo, of Syria’s General Commission of Forensic Medicine. information is kept with number of grave where body is buried. Over past years, authorities have been able to help identify 1,670 bodies, Hajo said, though he would t say how large database was. majority come from mass graves in territory liberated from Islamic State group.

In eastern Syria, once heartland of IS rule, Kurdish-led authorities have similarly been compiling ir own databases as y extract bodies from mass graves in city of Raqqa. In meantime, families desperately seek any scrap of information.

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After final Skype call, Suleiman’s family heard from released prisoners that he was given to ar Islamic militant faction, Ahrar al-Sham. Years have passed with furr news, even as government forces retook all of Aleppo and w w a campaign against rebels’ last stronghold, centered on Idlib province. Prisoner exchanges between government and insurgents continue to take place. In most recent, just over a dozen from each side were freed in Aleppo in late July. Suzan contacts anyone released to see if y saw or heard of her husband. kidnappers “never said that y eliminated him, so we are living on hope,” she said. Every year on Oct. 1, family celebrates Suleiman’s birthday.

family stopped receiving Suleiman’s salary when his four-year term in parliament ended in 2016, since he is t counted as a “martyr,” whose families go on receiving ir salaries for life. Suzan said she tries to give ir children as rmal a life as possible. youngest, Youssef, born seven months after his far’s kidnapping, always asks when he is coming back, Suzan said. ir eldest, 14-year-old Engi, described how, in that brief Skype call six years ago, she and her younger bror Yacoub told ir far all about new school year.

“Even among harshest people re are emotions. If y have some emotions, y should send him back to us,” she said.

Yacoub burst into sobs. When his far returns, he said, “I will t leave him for a moment.”

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