RAQA, Syria: When the IS group lost its Syrian bastion Raqa last year, Amani hoped to finally uncover what happened to her husband who had vanished in the prisons.
But with many IS jails destroyed in fighting and no centralised body investigating the issue, she has spent a year desperately searching for AbdulIlah without answers.
“I thought I’d see him immediately after the city was liberated. I thought he would come back to me,” said Amani, a mother of three.
“But I haven’t heard any news on whether he’s alive or dead. No one helped me with this.”
IS ruled over Raqa for three years, implementing its interpretation of religious law until US-backed forces seized the northern Syrian city on October 17, 2017. Anyone who violated the rulings or was suspected of working against them was locked up in its notorious prisons, including under the football stadium where the group made its ill-fated last stand.
AbdulIlah was among them, accused by IS three years ago of plotting with the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces to bring a car bomb into Raqa.
Amani, who denies his involvement, said she has spent a painful year searching for her husband.
Some sources told her that he had been killed, while others said he was whisked away with other detainees to Hajin, IS’s final holdout in Syria’s eastern Deir Ezzor. Amani now works with the Raqa Civil Council, which has governed the city since the fall of IS, and has demanded a committee be created to properly follow up.
Her hair wrapped in a glittery beige scarf, she flipped through papers at her RCC office.
“Whether he’s alive or dead, I just want to know so I can rest.”
Hanan, 22, misses having her older sister Razan around. — AFP
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