On 12 May 2026, Alkarama submitted to the United Nations Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances (WGEID) the cases of three Syrian brothers, Fouad Ahmed Doum, Maher Ahmed Doum and Reda Ahmed Doum, who were arbitrarily arrested and subsequently disappeared in Homs in September 2011.
The Unknown Fate of the DOUM Brothers
On 7 September 2011, the three brothers were in the Al-Bayada neighbourhood of Homs, near a medical centre, when members of the Syrian security services carried out a large-scale arrest campaign targeting numerous young men from the area. According to several eyewitnesses, the Doum brothers were forcibly taken away in vehicles to an unknown destination.
Like many other Syrian families, their relatives have since remained suspended in the hope of receiving a sign, information, or the truth. Over the years, fragmentary information emerged concerning two of the brothers.
According to the testimony of a former detainee who shared a cell with him, Fouad Ahmed Doum, who was serving as a soldier at the time, was reportedly seen in Al-Balouni prison — the military prison in Homs, also known as Al Roubai — in 2014. Maher Ahmed Doum was reportedly detained in Saydnaya prison in 2017. The former fellow detainee who provided this information was able to give the family precise personal details concerning Maher, including the names and ages of his two children, thereby confirming the credibility of his testimony. Since then, no further information has been obtained regarding their fate or that of Reda Ahmed Doum.
While a great number of detainees arrested under the Assad regime have been released by the new authorities, the victims’ family still has no news of their loved ones. For this reason, they sought Alkarama’s assistance in order to be supported in their efforts to uncover the full truth about the fate of their disappeared relatives, after more than a decade of anguish and uncertainty.
Alkarama Remains Committed
Long before the outbreak of the Syrian conflict, Alkarama had already been documenting cases of enforced disappearances, arbitrary detention and torture in Syria by bringing them before the relevant United Nations mechanisms.
With the beginning of the war and the massive escalation of violations, Alkarama continued submitting cases to the United Nations Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances, while supporting families in their search for truth and justice.
As Syria gradually enters a phase of stabilisation and reconstruction, Alkarama intends to continue and strengthen its follow-up on these cases in order to contribute to clarifying the fate of disappeared victims and to the recognition of families’ right to know the truth, in close cooperation with the various United Nations procedures.