DNA ends years of mystery... revealing the identities of missing people in the Syrian war

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DNA tests helped identify the remains of missing persons in at least three cases in Syria this year, the first such identification cases in the country, and a major achievement in efforts to uncover the fate of missing persons after the years-long war.

The National Authority for Missing Persons completed two of the three cases, while the third case was the result of the work of Syrian and international non-governmental organizations that used genetic analysis to help identify the remains of a family killed in a suspected air strike during the war that broke out to expel ISIS from the Syrian city of Raqqa in 2017.

These three cases, reported here for the first time, offer a potential path to answers for families across Syria where tens of thousands of people remain missing after decades of repression under the Assad family and a nearly 14-year civil war.

The overthrow of former President Bashar al-Assad in late 2024 led to access to detention centers and burial sites that had long eluded independent investigators. But efforts to identify missing persons have been complicated by restrictions, including inaccessibility to sites during the war, logistical challenges in collecting DNA samples from families, and a lack of forensic expertise and equipment.

The identification work for a family in Raqqa was carried out by the Syrian Center for Justice and Accountability and the Syrian Missing Persons and Forensic Affairs Team, an independent humanitarian organization based in the city that investigates the fate of people who disappeared in the territories that were under the control of ISIS, and the Forensic Anthropology Foundation of Guatemala, a non-profit organization established to investigate murders in which the perpetrator was not found during the internal conflict witnessed by this Central American country.

Mohammed al-Abdullah, director of the Syrian Center for Justice and Accountability, told Reuters that the result raises families' expectations because it shows what is actually possible.

The National Authority for Missing Persons told Reuters it had confirmed the identities in the other two cases through DNA matching and had informed the families after experts from the International Committee of the Red Cross reviewed the results. The authority did not provide details about the victims or the circumstances of their deaths.

The family of Manar Aliwi was at the heart of the Raqqa investigation.

In August 2017, Manar and seven of her relatives were sheltering from airstrikes on the first floor of a building in central Raqqa where US-led air forces were helping a Kurdish-led Syrian fighting force fight ISIS militants.

A testimony submitted to the center showed that Manar’s family, residing outside Raqqa, lost contact with her that month. Satellite images showed that the building where she was sheltering was reduced to a pile of rubble between August 19 and 25, 2017, but the family spent years wondering whether their relatives had died there or had escaped and died elsewhere.

A demining organization operating in Raqqa discovered decomposed remains inside the same building in 2024, which Syrian forensic investigators recovered later that year.

Identity papers found in the building helped track down Manar's sister, who confirmed that the family was hiding there. The clothes found next to the remains matched what members of the Manar family were wearing in a photo taken in August 2017 provided by a relative.

Investigators then collected reference genetic samples from relatives.

After analyzing various DNA samples and testimonies from relatives, the Forensic Anthropology Foundation of Guatemala confirmed that the remains belonged to Manar, her husband, and their five children, one of whom was three years old. The surviving family members were informed in September 2026. The fate of Manar's father, who was present in the building, remains unclear.

For Mohamed Hamada, Manar's son and the only surviving member of her family, these identifications answered questions that had long troubled him.

Hamada said: “We can now bury them, have their graves known and visit them, and the mind and thinking can relax at least a little. We spent about nine years thinking about them... Did they leave? Did they go to another city? Did they reach regime areas?”

The United Nations body charged with clarifying the fate of missing persons in Syria and supporting their families indicated estimates ranging between 130,000 and 300,000 missing persons in Syria.

Its investigations include disappearances during the Assad era, those related to ISIS, and other circumstances in which relatives have disappeared.

Al-Abdullah, of the Syrian Center for Justice and Accountability, said he hopes the latest identification operations will demonstrate that partnerships between Syrian civil society and international experts can achieve results and encourage the National Authority for Missing Persons, established after the fall of Assad, to cooperate more with civil society.

The commission told Reuters that it had collected about 96,000 files from Syrian ministries and non-governmental organizations, about 2,000 samples of human remains recovered from sites suspected of being mass graves, and 29 DNA samples from relatives in cases where evidence indicated a possible match.

She said: "The authority was able to determine the final identity in two cases through DNA matching, and after an advisory review of the results by experts from the International Committee of the Red Cross, and the two families were informed of the results."

The Commission said in a written statement: “This is an important step, but it is still the beginning of a long path given the size and complexities of the file of missing persons in Syria.”

She explained that she is currently receiving about 100 new reports about missing persons as part of a “broader national program to collect genetic samples from families” launched on August 30.

The authority said: “In the field of laboratories, the authority is working to establish a DNA laboratory in cooperation with the International Committee of the Red Cross, which is expected to become operational in May 2027, in addition to a second laboratory in cooperation with the International Committee for Missing Persons, with support from the European Union.”

But the national database of missing persons has not yet been launched, and many Syrians have expressed frustration that the authority has not yet provided them with answers.

Hamada, who lives in Türkiye, said he paid money to people to search for information about his family, but he did not get any news until the Syrian Center for Justice and Accountability contacted his relatives.

He hopes that the committee, which is charged with coordinating the delivery of the remains with investigators and the family, will complete the task as quickly as possible so that he can travel to Syria to receive them, hold a funeral, and register the deaths.