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When Assad’s security state collapsed, locked doors opened, spilling decades of secrets. Among them: 100s of stolen children, hidden in orphanages & used to blackmail parents. We’ve done the deepest dive yet into this cruel system. Here’s what we found 🧵 www.lighthousereports.com/investigatio...

Mohammed Ghbeis was seized from an incubator in Damascus while only days old. By the time Mohammed’s mother Iman was able to see him in prison, he was a year old, taking his first steps. They couldn’t recognise each other. Ghbeis archive: Mohammed Ghbeis newborn

We tell the stories of toddlers, even newborns stolen from their parents, some of the 320+ children whose cases we’ve documented. Over 9 months, working with partners, we verified 1000s of documents, did 100+ interviews with families, ex-orphanage staff, lawyers & whistleblowers to build a database

Families told of orphanages that acted as prisons. Relatives were denied custody of children who were kept hidden under orders from Syrian intelligence. Some were given new names.”

At the heart of this system that tore apart families was a €1.6bn charity, SOS Children’s Villages. Funded by the UN, EU governments and private donors, SOS took in the largest number of stolen children. Its Syrian branch was run by the daughter of a close Assad aide

SOS International knew what they were accomplice to as early as 2017 when whistleblowers came forward. They chose to remain silent until the regime fell – 7 years after they were first told. “senior executives didn’t want to know the details and hid away from concrete action and responsibility.”

Partner BBC Eye follows Reem al-Kari as she searches for her son Karim. The 2yr old went missing when Reem’s husband Osama was kidnapped by security services. He would now be 15. Reem navigates a bureaucratic labyrinth of missing and falsified records. youtu.be/LymByDEqWkM