“All of a Sudden the Wife Found Herself the Breadwinner and Sole Babysitter (Nanny) of Three Children.”

Account of the Disappeared Fadi Abdel Fattah Mousa

The disappeared, Fadi Abdel Fattah Musa, a Palestinian/Syrian with Jordanian nationality born on 22 September 1974 and is married with three children. He lived in Saqba in the countryside of Damascus then moved to live in Deir Atiyah in al-Qalamoun in the countryside of Damascus.

Fadi was traveling a lot between provinces given the nature of his work in repairing and installing medical equipment.

On 15 February 2013, Fadi was traveling to Homs province, where his cell phone suddenly disconnected and became out of service, he disappeared along with his car without any trace to the date of writing this story, according to a member of his family who refused to disclose her name for security purposes[1],

A relative of Fadi, who holds a high position in the government being enquired about Fadi, told his family that he was held in the Syrian Security Services. Others told them that he was in Palestine Branch (235), one of the security branches of the Military Intelligence Division; reports followed of his presence in Sednaya Military Prison after being transferred from Palestine Branch. However, Fadi’s family could not confirm any of this information despite all their efforts and sums they paid as bribes in order to know his fate.

Fadi’s parents did not find out his whereabouts or even knew the charge against him, or the party that arrested and disappeared him despite paying a lot of money as bribes to mediators. The family believes that Fadi has died in Security Services because there was no definite news of his whereabouts, or the circumstances of his detention, and what increased their fears was not meeting any former detainees who shared him the detention place.

Fadi’s family faced many crisis and psychological hardships after his disappearance. When he disappeared, his eldest son was in the second grade of preparatory school, and the youngest one was only one year old and he never knew his father. Fadi’s disappearance had a significant impact on his wife, who suddenly found herself the breadwinner and a babysitter of three children.

Fadi was the main and only breadwinner of his family, and his wife was a housewife with no other jobs. She faced some financial dispute with his parents about the money he had left but fortunately, Fadi had issued, prior the incident, a general power of attorney to his brother who managed to transfer it to the wife who in turn managed to utilize from Fadi’s property, which protected the family from serious financial problems.

After Fadi’s disappearance, his family faced a legal problem as Fadi had his children’s documents and birth certificates with him when he was abducted, and after the abduction the children became without any official identity documents because their registration was on their father’s passport. The wife tried to extract identity documents for her children from Jordan over and over, and she had difficulty in her children’s traveling due to the absence of their identity documents, but two months ago she managed to take them with her to Jordan by a compelling travel document, where she extracted the missing identity documents and passports. They returned to Syria later.

[1] This interview was conducted on 20 July 2017 personally.