An international investigation has found that SOS Children's Villages, a major Austria-headquartered charity, ran orphanages in Syria that received children taken from detained parents during the country’s civil war and that some of those children were subsequently hidden from their families.
The BBC World Service, working with Lighthouse Reports and five other outlets, built a database of 323 children it says were hidden by the Syrian regime in a network of orphanages. The reporters reviewed and authenticated thousands of leaked and gathered documents and spoke to more than 50 current and former SOS employees, whistleblowers and relatives of missing children.
The investigation says SOS admitted in an internal review that 140 children without proper documentation were taken into SOS Syria between 2013 and 2018, and that 104 of those were later returned to Syrian intelligence services or the Social Affairs Ministry, after which SOS said it had no knowledge of their whereabouts. The charity has denied a formal link to the Assad family and said it stopped receiving children of political detainees in 2018, but documents reviewed by the reporters indicate transfers to SOS as late as 2022.
Families interviewed described long-running obstacles to finding children taken from their parents. Reem al-Kari, whose son Karim disappeared with his father in 2013 when Karim was two-and-a-half, said she has been unable to trace him and does not know whether he was taken into SOS or another institution. After the collapse of the Assad government in December, Reem and other relatives gained access to records and sites previously closed to them and have begun searching through orphanage lists and photographs for matches.
Former and current SOS staff told reporters that many senior positions at SOS Syria were filled with individuals appointed directly by the Assad palace and that Asma al-Assad, the former first lady, had an influential role in the organisation. Samar Daaboul, who had been chairperson of the board of SOS Syria and is the daughter of a close Assad aide, resigned in May 2025. She denied that her family links influenced her work and said Asma al-Assad visited SOS only once.
Whistleblowers described repeated instances in which children’s identities were changed, relatives were denied information or visits, and staff were instructed not to show children photographs of their families. The investigation recounts cases in which SOS documented children with different official names and in at least one case gave a child a different legal name while in its care. Former staff members also alleged that pressure to meet funding targets influenced decisions on who to admit.
Omama Ghbeis, who was imprisoned for two years, was reunited with her daughters Layla and Layan only after three years apart. She told reporters the children had been forbidden from contacting relatives while in SOS care and that staff had changed their names. The BBC and partner outlets confirmed that one daughter was referred to under an alternate name in Syrian intelligence paperwork.
SOS Children’s Villages International responded that it ‘‘deeply regret[s] that children were forcibly separated from their families and that families spent years without knowing where their children were.’’ In an interview with the BBC, interim CEO Benoît Piot said the charity had been following orders from what he described as ‘‘a terror system’’ under the Assad government. Mr. Piot said SOS International had not been aware of some paperwork indicating transfers up to 2022 and that an independent investigation it has launched can establish the facts.
The charity told reporters it does not offer financial rewards for increasing orphan numbers and denied any formal connection to the Assad family. It said most donors had withdrawn funding from SOS Syria since reports about the detention of children emerged but added it intended ‘‘to keep SOS Syria running for many years to come, and [to] ensure continuity of essential services for children currently in our care.’’
More than 50 former and current employees and four senior executives from SOS’s Vienna headquarters spoke to the investigation team. Several said that when safeguarding concerns were raised, senior international managers ‘‘didn’t want to know the details’’ and that enforcement of policies and standards at headquarters had been slow and under-resourced.
Syria’s Social Affairs and Labour Ministry announced a new joint ministerial committee in May to investigate what happened to children under the Assads but has limited staff and resources and has not released findings. Reporters said they were repeatedly blocked from filming inside ministry offices when relatives sought records and that a missing persons file had been moved to a security agency.
The BBC and its partners note that more than 3,700 children remain missing since the fall of the Assad administration in December, which has renewed access to sites, documents and people previously unreachable. The investigation is part of a wider project that includes reports from The Observer, Der Spiegel, SIRAJ, Trouw and Women Who Won the War.
The Assad family, who have relocated to Russia after the regime’s collapse, and Syria’s Social Affairs and Labour Ministry did not respond to requests for comment. SOS Children’s Villages International said it was investigating whether any informal link had existed between the charity and Asma al-Assad and committed to learning from independent investigations to prevent future harm.
Relatives continue to search through records, photographs and lists at orphanages and ministries in the hope of locating missing children. For many families, the collapse of the previous system has opened the first window of opportunity to find answers after years of obstacles and misinformation. The charity said it would ‘‘note’’ findings from external inquiries and urged patience while investigations proceed, but relatives and former staff said urgent action is needed to help trace children and to hold organisations to account.