Reem al-Kari and her cousin Lama are searching through dozens of photos of children spread out on a desk. Lama thinks she spots one with a likeness to Karim, Reem's missing son.
Karim was two-and-a-half when he and his father disappeared, in 2013 during Syria's civil war, as they ran an errand. He is one of more than 3,700 children still missing since the fall, 10 months ago, of the Assad dictatorship. He would now be 15.
Are his eyes green? asks the man behind the desk, the new manager of Lahan Al Hayat, a Syrian-run children's shelter which former first lady Asma al-Assad helped establish in 2013. He is looking at one of the photos the women have picked out, comparing it to a photo of Karim aged two.
Yes, comes the reply.
The hairline… the man muses. There is a similarity but… His voice trails off. The task is enormous.
Lahan Al Hayat is one of several Syrian childcare facilities which were used to hold the children of detained parents during the 2011-2024 civil war. Instead of re-homing the children with their relatives, the youngsters were held in orphanages and used as political pawns. In some cases, the children were falsely recorded as orphans, or their identities changed, making tracing them - then and now - all the more difficult.
SOS Children's Villages International, headquartered in Austria, operated these orphanages and has been in the spotlight following an investigation revealing the troubling role it played in the separation of children from their families during the Assad regime.
Parents like Reem continue to search for their children, facing barriers and bureaucratic obstacles, with the hope that one day they may be reunited.
Karim was two-and-a-half when he and his father disappeared, in 2013 during Syria's civil war, as they ran an errand. He is one of more than 3,700 children still missing since the fall, 10 months ago, of the Assad dictatorship. He would now be 15.
Are his eyes green? asks the man behind the desk, the new manager of Lahan Al Hayat, a Syrian-run children's shelter which former first lady Asma al-Assad helped establish in 2013. He is looking at one of the photos the women have picked out, comparing it to a photo of Karim aged two.
Yes, comes the reply.
The hairline… the man muses. There is a similarity but… His voice trails off. The task is enormous.
Lahan Al Hayat is one of several Syrian childcare facilities which were used to hold the children of detained parents during the 2011-2024 civil war. Instead of re-homing the children with their relatives, the youngsters were held in orphanages and used as political pawns. In some cases, the children were falsely recorded as orphans, or their identities changed, making tracing them - then and now - all the more difficult.
SOS Children's Villages International, headquartered in Austria, operated these orphanages and has been in the spotlight following an investigation revealing the troubling role it played in the separation of children from their families during the Assad regime.
Parents like Reem continue to search for their children, facing barriers and bureaucratic obstacles, with the hope that one day they may be reunited.
