Al-Qadi, who worked as a secretary for physician Rania Al-Abbasi, was last seen on March 11, 2013, when she left her home in the Dummar district of Damascus after receiving what relatives described as an urgent telephone call. According to family members, she never returned.

Her case remains unresolved despite years of inquiries, unverified reports and searches through available records. Family members say they have received no official confirmation regarding her whereabouts or fate.

Speaking to Syria’s state news agency SANA, relatives described Al-Qadi as a strong-willed and responsible daughter who often assumed a protective role within her family. Her father, Mohammad Fares Al-Qadi, recalled personal memories of his daughter, including performing Umrah together, which he said had helped sustain him through years of uncertainty.

Her sister, Fatima Al-Qadi, said the family learned after her disappearance that Majdoleen had quietly participated in humanitarian efforts, helping distribute aid to displaced families in the Dummar area.

According to relatives, Al-Qadi was detained upon arriving at the home of Al-Abbasi, along with members of the doctor’s family, in an operation allegedly carried out by military intelligence under the government that ruled Syria at the time. The family said they were never formally informed of her detention or subsequent location.

Family members said years of searching exposed them to conflicting reports, false leads and individuals who claimed to possess information in exchange for money. Mahmoud Sheikh Al-Shabab, Al-Qadi’s uncle, said the family repeatedly received contradictory accounts suggesting she had been transferred between detention facilities, but none could be independently verified.

The prolonged uncertainty took a significant emotional toll. Relatives said Al-Qadi’s mother experienced deteriorating health during the years-long search and died in 2018 after being diagnosed with cancer.

In an effort to find evidence, Fatima Al-Qadi recently reviewed archival videos and records related to detainees and missing persons, including materials held by Syria’s National Commission for Missing Persons. She said she was unable to identify her sister in any of the available footage, although she recognized children belonging to Al-Abbasi’s family.

With no confirmed information emerging, the family held condolence gatherings on June 4 and 5. Relatives emphasized that the event was symbolic and intended to honor Majdoleen’s memory rather than represent official confirmation of her death.

Her case reflects a broader national challenge confronting Syria. According to estimates previously released by the National Commission for Missing Persons, between 120,000 and 300,000 missing-person cases remain unresolved across the country, making it one of the largest humanitarian and accountability issues stemming from more than a decade of conflict.

For families such as the Al-Qadis, the absence of definitive answers continues to leave a void that neither time nor speculation has been able to fill.

The men were among seven villagers trapped in a semi-submerged cave in central Xaysomboun province on May 20 when flash floods blocked the exit. The group had entered the cave while hunting bats and searching for gold in former mining areas.

Five survivors were located alive a week later. One was rescued on May 29, while four others were guided out the following day after rescuers pumped water from the cavern.

Malaysian cave diver Lee Kian Lie, who joined the operation, said unstable conditions near the cave entrance and the increasing danger to rescue personnel forced authorities to halt the search.

“We were so close,” Lee told AFP, adding that the cave had become too hazardous for divers despite improved water levels.

Thai rescue coordinator Kengkad Bongkawong said no further entries into the cave would be permitted because of the risks posed by flooding and unstable structures. Water-pumping operations, however, will continue outside the cave.

Rescuers had stocked food and survival supplies at various points inside the cave in the hope that the missing men might still be alive.Heavy rainfall forecast for the coming days further complicated rescue efforts.

International cave specialists from Malaysia, Finland and Japan participated in the operation, which rescuers described as one of the most challenging cave missions in recent years.

Five of the seven villagers initially stranded inside the cave have already been rescued, while multinational teams from Laos, Thailand, Malaysia, Finland, Japan, Indonesia, France and Australia continue efforts to reach the remaining two.

Rescuers are pumping water from the cave and exploring possible dry passages and air shafts that could provide access to the missing individuals, who are believed to be trapped deeper inside the flooded system.

The group reportedly entered the cave in search of valuable minerals before a flash flood sealed their exit, triggering a major international rescue operation.

The commission said its findings followed multiple verification and analysis procedures conducted in coordination with Syrian authorities, marking a significant development in one of the country’s most prominent unresolved disappearance cases.

Al-Abbasi, her husband Abdul Rahman Yasin, and their six children, who were between three and 15 years old at the time, vanished in March 2013 after security forces raided their home in Damascus, according to rights organizations.

Their disappearance became a symbol of the broader issue of missing detainees and forcibly disappeared civilians during Assad’s rule.”We have reached reliable and corroborating results that allow us to conclude with a high degree of professional certainty that Dr. Rania Al-Abbasi’s children are deceased,” the commission said in a statement.

It added that efforts to locate the children’s remains were continuing.The commission was established by Syria’s new authorities in May 2025 to investigate cases involving missing and forcibly disappeared persons following Assad’s ouster in 2024.Hassan Al-Abbasi, Rania’s brother, confirmed the children’s deaths in a video posted on Facebook.

He said family members had viewed video recordings linked to a suspect accused of involvement in a 2013 massacre in a Damascus district.According to Hassan Al-Abbasi, one recording showed children being accused of financing terrorism.

He said the children in the footage were identified as members of the Al-Abbasi family.The fate of Rania Al-Abbasi and her husband remains officially unresolved. Contact with both was lost after their arrest, and while rights groups and media reports have suggested they may have died, no official confirmation or recovery of their remains has been reported.

The case underscores the scale of Syria’s missing persons crisis, which includes detainees who disappeared in government prisons, civilians who went missing during years of conflict, and individuals who vanished at checkpoints or while fleeing violence.The Syrian conflict began in 2011 after a government crackdown on anti-government protests and evolved into a prolonged civil war.

Tens of thousands of people were detained or disappeared during the conflict.The commission said last year that the number of people who went missing over decades of Assad family rule could exceed 300,000.

The men have been trapped for 10 days inside the cave after entering the site to search for valuable minerals before rising floodwaters blocked their exit. Five survivors were located alive on Wednesday, while two members of the group remain unaccounted for.
Rescuers successfully evacuated the first survivor on Friday after a complex operation through submerged and narrow cave passages.

Officials said the remaining four men were not yet ready for extraction and that efforts were continuing to lower water levels and improve conditions for a safe evacuation.

“One person has made it out safely, and we will not stop until the remaining four make it home too,” Thai cave diver Norrased Palasing, who is participating in the operation, said in a social media post on Saturday.
Video footage released by rescuers showed the first survivor emerging from flooded tunnels with assistance from divers before being wrapped in a thermal blanket and moved to safety.

Authorities did not identify which of the five survivors was evacuated.

The trapped villagers have been supplied with water, soft food and emergency blankets, though footage recorded inside the cave indicated their physical condition had deteriorated during the prolonged ordeal.

The rescue operation has drawn specialists from Laos, Thailand, Japan and Malaysia, with Indonesian, French and Australian experts also reported to have joined the effort. Several members of the international team previously participated in the high-profile 2018 rescue of a youth football team trapped in a cave in northern Thailand.

Rescuers face difficult conditions inside the cave system. According to Thai rescue worker Kengkaj Bongkawong, teams must navigate more than 200 meters of narrow, twisting, flooded passages before reaching a submerged tunnel that leads to the trapped men.

The operation is complicated by poor visibility, confined spaces and the challenge of guiding survivors with no diving experience through underwater sections of the cave. Video released by rescuers showed divers instructing the trapped men on the use of breathing equipment and underwater survival techniques ahead of their evacuation.

Search efforts for the two missing villagers are expected to focus on deeper sections of the cave beyond the area where the survivors were found.

Rescue officials said the area is heavily flooded, increasing the risks for divers conducting the search.
The cave is located in the mountainous province of Xaisomboun, approximately 120 kilometers north of the Lao capital, Vientiane.

According to the ICRC, more than 8,000 missing-person cases have been recorded during the war, although the organization said it had resolved over 1,000 cases and declined to specify how many involved people found alive or deceased.

Many of those missing in Khartoum state are believed to be among the thousands of bodies discovered in makeshift graves after the army regained control of the capital from RSF fighters last year. During intense fighting, residents often buried the dead near homes, roadsides and public spaces because access to cemeteries was too dangerous.

Associated Press reporters visiting Khartoum last month observed improvised burial sites in sports fields and other urban areas, with many graves lacking identification markers. A military media representative accompanied the reporting team during the visit.

Khartoum state authorities have relocated nearly 30,000 bodies from an estimated 50,000 hastily dug graves scattered across the region, according to forensic officials. The reburial effort remains ongoing as authorities work to identify the dead.

Hisham Zienalabdien, director general of Khartoum state’s forensic medicine department, said approximately 10% of recovered bodies remain unidentified. Authorities are preserving DNA samples from those remains in hopes that future testing will allow relatives to confirm identities.

Efforts to identify victims have been hampered by extensive wartime destruction. Laboratories that could conduct DNA analysis have been damaged or destroyed, while many forensic specialists have fled the country or are no longer able to work.

The uncertainty has left thousands of families searching for answers. Relatives continue visiting hospitals, morgues, detention centers and military facilities in attempts to locate loved ones who disappeared during military operations, displacement or detention.

Humanitarian organizations say the psychological burden of not knowing whether relatives are alive or dead has compounded the suffering caused by conflict and displacement. The ICRC said families of missing persons face heightened vulnerabilities stemming from ongoing hostilities and prolonged uncertainty.

The war has also complicated traditional burial practices. In many cases, families have been unable to retrieve or properly bury relatives killed during fighting, forcing communities to conduct emergency burials near homes and neighborhoods.

Sudan’s conflict has generated one of the world’s largest humanitarian crises, with widespread destruction, mass displacement and severe disruptions to public services across large parts of the country.

Nearly four decades after a series of killings along the Texas Gulf Coast unsettled communities between Houston and Galveston, investigators have moved closer to resolving several of the region’s most notorious unsolved murder cases following new evidence, fresh indictments and information provided through a volunteer search organization founded by a victim’s father.

Tim Miller, a Texas-based search-and-recovery volunteer who founded the nonprofit EquuSearch after the 1984 disappearance and murder of his daughter Laura Miller, said a series of phone calls from a man claiming to have information about the case helped revive an investigation that had remained unresolved for decades.

Miller initially dismissed the calls, saying the caller sounded unreliable and similar to many people who contact EquuSearch’s tip line with false or unverifiable information. The organization, based near Galveston Bay, frequently assists families and law enforcement agencies in locating missing people and human remains.

The caller persisted over several days before Miller returned the call. According to Miller, the man then told him he had information specifically about Laura Miller’s death.Laura Miller disappeared in September 1984 after leaving her family’s new home in League City, Texas, to use a payphone at a nearby gas station.

Her family said local police initially treated the case as a runaway or possible suicide investigation, citing her history of seizures, anxiety and depression.Two years later, in 1986, police discovered human remains in an abandoned oilfield near League City after dirt bike riders reported a strong odor in the area.

Officers found the remains of an unidentified woman later referred to as Jane Doe, along with Laura Miller’s remains nearby. Laura Miller’s cause of death could not be determined because of the advanced state of decomposition.

Former League City police officer Robert Valentine, one of the first officers at the scene, said the handling of the crime scene reflected weaknesses in local investigative practices at the time. Valentine said the department failed to immediately deploy criminal investigators and did not adequately secure the area overnight.

The discovery added to growing fears surrounding a series of killings targeting women and girls across southeast Texas during the 1970s through the early 1990s. Authorities linked several cases to what became widely known as the “Texas Killing Fields,” a stretch of land near Interstate 45 between Houston and Galveston where multiple bodies were discovered over the years.

Before Laura Miller disappeared, another League City woman, 25-year-old Heide Fye, vanished in 1983 after leaving the same gas station. Her remains were later found in the same oilfield. Investigators determined she had likely died from blunt-force trauma.In 1991, horse riders discovered another woman’s body in the same area.

Investigators called the unidentified victim Janet Doe. Like earlier victims, she appeared to have suffered fatal violence.For years, investigators pursued multiple theories and suspects.

Miller himself publicly accused several men over time, including ranch owner and former NASA engineer Robert Abel, who was later cleared by authorities after an extensive investigation. Abel died in 2005 after being struck by a train in what authorities believed may have been a suicide.

Miller later acknowledged his accusations against Abel were unfounded.In 2000, Miller established EquuSearch, using volunteer search teams, horses, boats and specialized equipment to assist in missing persons investigations across the United States.

The organization later participated in several high-profile recovery operations, including the 2020 search for murdered U.S. Army soldier Vanessa Guillén at Fort Hood and the 2024 discovery of missing Texas woman Kimberly Langwell beneath flooring inside her former boyfriend’s home.

Advances in forensic genealogy and DNA analysis produced a major breakthrough in 2019 when investigators identified the two previously unknown women found in the League City oilfield.Jane Doe was identified as Audrey Lee Cook, a Tennessee native and motorcycle enthusiast who had relocated to the Houston area during the 1980s.

Janet Doe was identified as Donna Gonsoulin Prudhomme, a woman from Port Arthur, Texas, who disappeared in 1991 after facing personal difficulties.The identifications renewed investigative momentum and brought renewed attention to Clyde Hedrick, a longtime League City resident whom Miller had suspected for decades.

Hedrick previously served prison time after admitting he concealed the body of Ellen Beason, a 29-year-old woman who disappeared in 1984 after leaving a local bar with him. Hedrick maintained that Beason drowned while skinny-dipping and denied killing her.

Initially, medical examiners found no evidence of homicide.In 2012, however, authorities exhumed Beason’s remains at Miller’s urging. A forensic anthropologist later identified a skull fracture consistent with blunt-force trauma, and Beason’s death was reclassified as a homicide.

Hedrick was subsequently convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to 20 years in prison.Hedrick consistently denied involvement in Beason’s death and denied any role in the killings connected to the League City oilfield.According to Galveston County District Attorney Ken Cusick, recent developments in the case accelerated after investigators interviewed another man, William Elmore, who authorities allege was associated with Hedrick for years.

Prosecutors later sought indictments connected to the deaths of Laura Miller, Audrey Cook, Heide Fye and Donna Prudhomme.Authorities said investigators confronted Hedrick in March 2026 while he was hospitalized for chronic medical conditions. Hospital staff discovered him dead the following day.

Cusick said investigators determined Hedrick died by suicide.A Galveston County grand jury later indicted Elmore on charges including manslaughter in Laura Miller’s death and evidence tampering connected to the deaths of Laura Miller and Audrey Cook. Prosecutors alleged Elmore prepared a vial of cocaine that Hedrick later administered to Laura Miller.

Elmore’s attorney declined to comment, citing the ongoing case.Investigators subsequently executed search warrants on property owned by Elmore that authorities said previously belonged to Hedrick. Officers searched for additional human remains but reported none were found.

Court filings later showed Elmore also faced separate charges related to alleged possession of material depicting sexual assault and child sexual abuse.Authorities have not announced murder charges directly tied to the deaths of Heide Fye or Donna Prudhomme.

Some killings associated with the broader “Texas Killing Fields” investigations also remain unresolved.Separately, serial killer William Reece pleaded guilty in 2022 to the murders of Laura Smither and Jessica Cain, two Texas teenagers whose disappearances in 1997 renewed fears about serial killings in the region.

Miller, now nearly 80 and retired from construction work, said he continues to work with EquuSearch despite multiple surgeries in recent years. He said the organization’s mission remains unchanged even as progress emerges in his daughter’s case after decades of uncertainty.

The survivors, who said their vessel had initially carried 105 people, were found clinging to the wreckage of an overturned boat before being taken aboard nearby ships, according to Mediterranea Saving Humans and Sea-Watch. The bodies and survivors were later transferred to an Italian coast guard patrol boat and brought to the island of Lampedusa.

Italy’s interior ministry declined to comment on the incident, while the Italian Coast Guard did not immediately respond to requests for confirmation. The rescue took place during Easter, a major holiday in Italy.

Footage released by Sea-Watch showed migrants struggling in open waters, with several individuals holding onto the partially submerged orange hull as rescuers approached.

The central Mediterranean route, one of the world’s deadliest migration corridors, has been further complicated this year by adverse weather conditions. Rough seas have reduced the number of departures from North Africa but increased the risks for those attempting the journey.

The International Organization for Migration estimates that at least 683 people have died along the central Mediterranean route so far this year, marking one of the highest death tolls recorded since 2014.

The latest incident occurred on 27 September in the Dasht Konchati area of Kech, where Pakistani forces reportedly carried out a late-night raid. Two men — Altaf, son of Habtain, and Gulab, son of Ayub Baloch — were seized from the area. According to family members, no information has been provided by authorities about their location or condition.

Two days earlier, on 25 September, Saud, son of Haji Rahim, was taken from his home in Hairabad. His relatives remain unaware of his fate, heightening concerns he too has been forcibly disappeared.

Human rights activist Noora Marri, commenting on the pattern of detentions, said the situation has become unbearable for families across the province.

“Every week brings new names of disappeared Baloch men. Their families are left to suffer in silence while the state refuses to acknowledge their arrests,” she wrote in The Baloch Circle. “This cycle of fear must end.”

While several individuals remain missing, there have been a few recent releases. Sheeraz, son of Ghulam Qadir, from Barkhan, who was detained on 20 September, returned home a week later.

In Turbat, Siraj, son of Sanjar, was freed on 27 September after being detained the day before. Meanwhile, Asghar Karmdani has also been reunited with his family after spending three months in custody.

Security operations continue across the wider region. In Buleda, forces stormed homes in the Gardank area on Saturday, with local witnesses reporting gunfire in residential neighbourhoods — though no casualties have been confirmed. In Panjgur district, raids were conducted in Haji Isa Bazaar, Haji Hakeem Bazaar and Kadaan, where houses were searched and the surroundings photographed and filmed. No arrests or injuries have been reported in these operations.

For many in Balochistan, such raids — often followed by disappearances — have become a grim routine, reinforcing long-held fears of unchecked security powers and a lack of accountability.

Our little hands were holding pictures of our father back then; now we have grown up and we still have no clue if he is alive…

For over 11 years relatives of people who disappeared in the murk of a separatist insurgency in southwestern Pakistan have gathered outside the Press Club of Quetta wanting to know who took their fathers, husbands and sons.

The daily sit-in protest in the provincial capital of Balochistan began on June 28, 2009 after a doctor, Deen Muhammad, was abducted by “unknown men”.

Relatives suspect Muhammad, like many other missing ethnic Balochs, was snatched by Pakistani security forces hunting separatists, who for decades have waged a campaign for greater autonomy or independence.

Sometimes less than a dozen join the daily protest, other days many more, but Muhammad’s two daughters have been among the regulars since they were eight and ten years old.

“Our little hands were holding pictures of our father back then; now we have grown up and we still have no clue if he is alive,” Sammi Baloch, now 21, told Reuters by telephone from Quetta.

Even when the weather is too extreme in Quetta to hold protest, a sit-in is observed by Balochs in front of the press club in Karachi, Pakistan’s largest city and a melting pot for different ethnic groups.

The insurgency in Balochistan, a sparsely populated, mountainous, desert region bordering Afghanistan and Iran has sometimes waned and sometimes intensified over the years.

But for all the durability of the Baloch struggle, the conflict has seldom drawn international attention. It grabbed headlines however, in late June when a group of young Baloch militants launched an attack on the Pakistan Stock Exchange in Karachi.

On Tuesday, three soldiers were killed and eight wounded in an area known for attacks by Baloch fighters. But beyond giving the grinding casualty toll, the veil of secrecy over the conflict is seldom lifted, and foreign journalists are often discouraged from visiting Balochistan.

Multiple calls, texts and emails to Pakistan’s human rights ministry, the military and Balochistan’s provincial government, seeking comment for this story went unanswered.

The military did issue a statement last year sympathising with families of missing Balochs, while saying that some may have joined militant groups and “not every person missing is attributable to the state.”

Pakistan has repeatedly blamed India for fanning militancy in Balochistan, a charge New Delhi has consistently denied.

More Missing

Last month, the Balochistan National Party (BNP) quit Prime Minister Imran Khan’s parliamentary bloc, frustrated by unfulfilled promises to address Baloch grievances including the festering issue of the disappeared.

When he led the BNP into an alliance with Khan’s coalition two years ago, Akhtar Mengal gave the government a list of 5,128 missing persons.

Since then over 450 of the people on the list have been found or returned to their families, but during the same period Mengal says another 1,800 were reported to have disappeared.

“If you cannot recover people, at least stop disappearing more people,” said Mengal.

Another Baloch party – set up in the months prior to the 2018 elections with backing from the military establishment, according political analysts – is in a coalition with Prime Minister Khan’s party at both federal and provincial level.

Balochistan Awami Party Senator Anwar-ul-Haq Kakar told Reuters the numbers of missing are “exaggerated”.

But, Mama Qadeer, who heads a group called Voice for Baloch Missing Persons, keeps his own count.

“In last six months, the number of Baloch missing persons has risen,” he told Reuters by telephone. His son disappeared a decade ago.

In February last year, Qadeer’s group handed a list of 500 missing to provincial officials. Since then nearly 300 have been returned to their homes, but 87 others disappeared in the first half of this year, according to the group.

China Raises Stakes

A federal commission set up nine years ago listed 6,506 cases of enforced disappearances nationwide by the end of 2019. Most came from the northwestern province of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa.

Only 472 were registered from Balochistan. Advocacy groups say Balochistan’s number is far higher, pointing to difficulty in having cases accepted by the commission.

“There’s hardly a home in Balochistan that hasn’t had a relative or loved one picked up,” Mohammad Ali Talpur, an aged activist who once fought alongside Baloch insurgents in the 1970s, told Reuters.

The conflict has a long, complex history, but since that time the stakes have risen as Balochistan’s wealth of copper, gold, gas and coal deposits caught China’s eye.

The prospects of Pakistan’s most reliable ally pouring in money excited successive governments, while fuelling Baloch resentment over how little would come their way.

Separatist militants have frequently targeted Chinese construction in Gwadar, a port on the Balochistan coast, near the entrance to the strategically-important Gulf.

And in 2018, the Balochistan Liberation Army launched an assault on the Chinese consulate in the southern port city of Karachi, killing four Pakistani police and civilians.

It was the most high profile attack by the group until June 29 this year, when its fighters attacked the stock exchange, again killing four people.

The attack came a day after hundreds of relatives of missing Balochs gathered in Quetta to mark the four thousandth day of their protest since the disappearance of Dr Muhammad.