Children’s school uniforms hung on the door. Their academic workbooks lay on their desks. Toys covered in dust were still sitting on the floor.
That’s how Naila Al-Abbasi found her sister Rania’s apartment in Syria, nearly 12 years after she was detained alongside her six children and thrust into the former regime’s secret network of prisons and detention facilities.
Al-Abbasi had travelled from Saudi Arabia to visit the home in Dummar Project, an affluent neighbourhood northwest of the Syrian capital, Damascus, on Feb. 25.
“The smell of murder fills the house. The walls and curtains sad as if they were mourning their separation,” Al-Abbasi posted on Instagram.
She found every corner covered with dirt. The carcasses of birds who flew into the home were scattered on the floor.
It was once a bright and busy home to six children: Dima, 13; Entisar, 12; Najah, 11; Alaa, 8; Ahmed, 6; and …