Account of the Disappeared Mohammed Dheher Dakhel
Mohammed Dheher, born in 1990 from Aleppo, he holds a secondary certificate and used to work in electronics. He served in the Syrian regular army the “compulsory service” since 2010. He is single and lives with his family composed of his father, mother and his only brother.
About the details of Mohamed’s disappearance, the family says[1]:
“Prior to his disappearance, he served at a military base in Jabal al-Shaykh area, and he disappeared one day before his discharge; we have not reached any information about his whereabouts or fate yet. We have no idea if he was arrested, abductee or dead; we heard that he might be detained with others in the same battalion but unfortunately, we were unable to verify the news… He contacted us the day before he disappeared and everything seemed to be okay.”
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Mohammad’s family added:
“We visited some military bands and institutions and asked about him, they said they would reply to us within three months, but unfortunately we have not received any responses from them despite their promises. We searched for his name, and found that he was not wanted to be detained or something like that; we expected a lot and hoped they would tell us that he was being held alive, or even dead but they did not reply… We heard from some people that we have to pay large sums of money to know his fate or his whereabouts, but it was too much for us to afford besides we feared it was ineffective or to be a scam because we heard about many people who paid big sums without any results.”
The family was greatly affected by the disappearance of Mohammad; everything reminded them of him. They stopped cooking some of the dishes he loved; nightmares and constant tension did not leave, this was reflected on his younger brother whose parents began to worry about him so much that he was not allowed to leave the house for a long time fearful of losing him too. Eventually, they were forced to flee and travel to Turkey and there the psychological effects mitigated.
The family did not suffer significant financial effects because of losing Muhammad given he was not the breadwinner.
[1] The meeting was conducted on 17 July 2017, via internet.
