Six children of Syrian chess champion declared killed after 2013 disappearance

Key developments

Syria's Commission for the Missing announced that the six children of dentist and chess champion Rania al-Abbasi were killed after being detained with their parents in a March 2013 raid in Damascus. The interior ministry said interrogations of detainees, video material and information provided by the National Commission for the Missing point to groups and militias affiliated with the former Assad regime, and that efforts to locate the children’s remains are ongoing. Authorities said the family were informed privately in line with protocols to protect their dignity; relatives say they identified the children from footage showing an officer accusing them prior to their deaths.

The ministry named Amjad Youssef, linked to the 2013 Tadamon massacre, as directly involved; Youssef was captured in April and in a recorded confession admitted taking part in numerous killings. Rights groups and surviving relatives had campaigned for answers for more than a decade, while the fate of Rania al-Abbasi and her husband remains officially unconfirmed. Tens of thousands of Syrians were detained or disappeared during the conflict—records from the Syrian Network for Human Rights cite more than 177,000 disappearances between 2011 and August 2025—and investigations into these crimes continue, as reported by Middle East Eye

This story has also been reported by: Enab Baladi, SANA