Al Jazeera Net correspondents
Oman – The families of Jordanian detainees in Syria live in a state of anticipation and hope mixed with fear. The doors of Syrian prisons have been reopened – including the notorious Saydnaya prison in the Damascus countryside – and thousands of detainees have been liberated, speaking of hundreds of Jordanian detainees and missing persons in Syria.
The families of 236 Jordanian detainees in Syria appealed to the competent authorities to work to release their children and find out the fate of those missing, after the fall of the regime of ousted President Bashar al-Assad and the armed opposition forces’ control of the capital, Damascus.
Over the past decades, the Jordanian authorities have recorded dozens of cases of citizens who went missing in Syria, some of whom were recovered and released, while the fate of many of them remained unknown.
According to official Jordanian authorities, many of the arrests and kidnappings occurred within areas under the control of the former Syrian regime, and by unknown parties, while others were arrested by the Syrian authorities for unknown reasons, in addition to rare cases carried out by Syrian factions.
The Minister of Government Communications and the official spokesman for the government, Dr. Muhammad al-Momani, confirmed to Al Jazeera Net that the Jordanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates Affairs is “following up the file of Jordanian detainees in Syria, as part of the communications that the government is conducting with the relevant authorities in Damascus.”
Return without memory
Among those released from Saydnaya prison after the fall of the Assad regime was Jordanian Osama Al-Bataineh, who arrived in Jordan at dawn on Tuesday, after a detention that lasted more than 38 years, but he returned without consciousness or memory.
Al-Batayneh’s story shed light on his family’s suffering over the past years, as his father confirms that his family sold all of their possessions in search of any information about Osama’s fate, but to no avail, pointing out that the Syrian authorities completely denied even the issue of his presence within their territories.
Days before the fall of the Assad regime, Jordanian journalist Omair Gharaibeh was released, with a special presidential pardon, according to what was announced by the Jordanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, after he had been detained in Syria since February 7, 2019, when he was with his friend on a tourist trip from Amman to Damascus. During his visit, he documented scenes of the city through his lens.
Gharaibeh confirmed – in his interview with Al Jazeera Net – that the Syrian security services stopped him at one of the checkpoints in the village of “Manket Hatab” in the Damascus countryside, which is under the control of the Syrian Air Intelligence. After searching his camera and reviewing the saved images, the security services arrested him and transferred him to an unknown destination, and it later became clear that he was detained in the Palestine Branch in Damascus.
Gharaibeh confirmed that he was sentenced to 20 years in prison, on baseless charges, while his family confirmed that the Syrian Foreign Ministry initially denied knowing any details about his arrest, which increased the ambiguity around his case.

Detainees file
The Arab Organization for Human Rights revealed the names of 236 Jordanian detainees in Syrian prisons, most of them in Saydnaya prison, who were previously on the list of missing persons.
Yesterday, Monday, the Jordanian Parliament discussed the file of Jordanian detainees in Syrian prisons, amid increasing parliamentary calls to ensure their return to the Kingdom. Representatives asked Prime Minister Jaafar Hassan about the fate of Jordanian detainees in Syria, calling on him to follow up on their conditions and secure their return as soon as possible.
In turn, the Prime Minister stressed that “the file of Jordanians in Syria receives great attention, and that the issue is under follow-up and coordination, to ensure their security and secure their return.”
Representative Saleh Al-Armouti also called for work to find out the fate of Jordanian citizen Wafa Obaidat, who has been detained for 35 years in the prisons of the former regime in Syria, pointing out that she is the granddaughter of the first Jordanian martyr in Palestine, Kayed Mufleh Obaidat, and she went to Syria to search for her brother who disappeared there, but she… She was also kidnapped and arrested in the prisons of the Syrian regime, and her fate is not known from that date until today.
For his part, the former Commissioner-General of the National Center for Human Rights, Dr. Musa Braizat, called on the Jordanian government to follow up on the issue of Jordanian detainees in Syria, and to intensify efforts to address their humanitarian file, indicating in his speech to Al Jazeera Net that “the government is responsible for protecting its nationals abroad in accordance with the constitution.”
Braizat pointed out that “Jordan recognized the right of the Syrian people to its new political system, and there is no hostile position with the new political situation in Syria,” adding that “there have always been normal relations with neighboring Damascus, and this must be followed by coordination with the new Syrian government.” “To quickly determine the fate of Jordanian detainees in Syria.”
The Jordanian human rights commissioner affirmed that “the previous Syrian regime was an outlaw regime with its people, and did not respect human rights,” and pointed out that there had been complex political and security disputes for many years between the Assad regime and the Jordanian authorities, “and every Jordanian who entered Syrian territory was placed under surveillance.” , according to him.