--:-- Kate Linebaugh: Welcome to The Journal, our show about money, business, and power. I'm Kate Linebaugh.
--:-- Ben C. Solomon: I'm Ben C. Solomon, a colleague of Kate's. We're here to talk about the search for Shadi, a young man who's been missing since 2013.
--:-- Kate Linebaugh: Suleiman Al-Yusuf is a father of seven. He lives outside Damascus and works odd jobs. Twelve years ago, his son Shadi went missing. And he's been looking for him ever since.
--:-- Ben C. Solomon: When we first met Suleiman, he was just very kind, very gentle, and really just soft-spoken. It was clear that he didn't come from a lot of money, that he was a working-class guy, and that he just didn't know really where to turn.
--:-- Kate Linebaugh: He showed us the only clue that he had that his son was alive, a video. The video shows a crowd of freed prisoners thanking God for freeing them. They're outside Sinaya, an infamous prison known as the Human Slaughterhouse.
--:-- Ben C. Solomon: Suleiman pointed to one man in the crowd, who he said is his son. He said, "When I saw the video, I knew. I said, that's Shadi."
--:-- Kate Linebaugh: Ben makes documentaries for The Wall Street Journal and decided to follow Suleiman's journey. It was like, oh, this is going to end with a happy ending. Like, he's going to find his son.
--:-- Ben C. Solomon: We got to follow this guy. When I went to Syria, I knew I wanted to find someone like him. I knew I wanted to find somebody that was actively looking for their family because there were hundreds of thousands of people that were missing.
--:-- Kate Linebaugh: Coming up on the show, the search for Shadi. According to Suleiman, Shadi was 25 years old when he disappeared in 2013. Shadi had worked at a tobacco and shisha store. His father described him as dignified and ambitious.
--:-- Ben C. Solomon: His mother, Mfadi, said Shadi was the head of the household and that his brothers would listen to him.
--:-- Kate Linebaugh: What did Suleiman say about the last time he saw his son?
--:-- Ben C. Solomon: Suleiman told us that the last day that he saw his son, the son was trying to go out, trying to work, and Suleiman was like, "Just don't go to Damascus. Don't go to the city. Don't cause any problems. Don't, like, test it. Just stay home."
--:-- Kate Linebaugh: He took the car keys away and hid them so his son wouldn't sneak off. Eventually, Shadi got hold of the keys and drove into the city. He was arrested at a checkpoint. Shadi disappeared at a time of tremendous conflict in Syria.
--:-- Ben C. Solomon: There were widespread protests against the oppressive regime of Bashar al-Assad. And the regime was indiscriminately arresting men of military age.
--:-- Kate Linebaugh: With all that chaos, Suleiman had wanted his family to keep a low profile. This is a really poor family that was just trying to do whatever they could to make money.
--:-- Ben C. Solomon: And so he and his wife were telling their son all the time, "Lay low, don't make a fuss, don't get in trouble, because they were just arresting any military-age man around that area."
--:-- Kate Linebaugh: And then not long after the fighting started, his son went out, and then he just never came home.
--:-- Ben C. Solomon: What did he think happened to him?
--:-- Kate Linebaugh: For a long time, Suleiman told us they just didn't know. It could be any number of things. His son could have been killed. He could have been shot in some of the crossfire because there was a lot of active fighting all around that area back then.
--:-- Ben C. Solomon: You know, they don't know. And for the longest time, he just, like, searched wherever he could.
--:-- Kate Linebaugh: Suleiman told me that they were always thinking of him. We were always thinking of him. We always on any occasion would think of him. We would cry and wish that he was there with us. He would have gotten married by now. He would have had kids. He would have had grandchildren.
--:-- Ben C. Solomon: So we didn't forget him one bit not one bit. And there was always hope that we would find him. We would always pray and send him our prayers that one day he might return to us unharmed.
--:-- Kate Linebaugh: For years, Suleyman looked for his son. He went to prisons. He talked to locals in Damascus. He looked online.
--:-- Ben C. Solomon: This was a systemic machine of disappearing people that were opposed to the government. And so many people were being put in the same position where they just did not know what happened to their family members.
--:-- Kate Linebaugh: And to say anything and to be loud about it and to push or to fight with the government would risk your safety as well.
--:-- Ben C. Solomon: So, you know, he was suffering in silence. And like so many Syrians, there was no recourse to try to find what happened, to try to get any kind of justice, to try to get any kind of information.
--:-- Kate Linebaugh: So it was just years and years of kind of waiting and kind of staying quiet.
--:-- Ben C. Solomon: Then, in December last year, Assad was overthrown. And thousands of people were freed from prisons.
--:-- Kate Linebaugh: While there were many celebrations, there was also chaos on the streets of Damascus. Many of those prisoners didn't know how to get home.
--:-- Ben C. Solomon: The reality of the situation in Syria back then was that it was mayhem. Like, so many different—nobody knew what was happening.
--:-- Kate Linebaugh: It was just chaos. There was—nobody was in charge yet. There was no kind of, like, overarching mechanism for anybody to figure anything out.
--:-- Ben C. Solomon: There was no government. The government had just left. So it was rumors. And a lot of the rumors that were going around were that some of these people that were coming out of the prisons did not remember who they were, did not remember any of their history, barely knew their names.
--:-- Kate Linebaugh: And then Suleiman found that video of the man who looked like Shadi.
--:-- Ben C. Solomon: The video shows a crowd of freed prisoners thanking God for freeing them. They're outside Sinaya, an infamous prison known as the Human Slaughterhouse.
--:-- Kate Linebaugh: The men are skinny and bald. And Suleiman thought that one of those men was Shadi.
--:-- Ben C. Solomon: And at one point, I asked him if seeing the video made him feel better or worse, and he said, "Of course, better. I was sure that he still exists."
--:-- Kate Linebaugh: There was no room for doubt that my son is alive, and that he's there and that he was released from prison.
--:-- Ben C. Solomon: But I just want, I just am dying to find him.
--:-- Kate Linebaugh: Thousands of men had disappeared during the Assad regime.
--:-- Ben C. Solomon: Ben wondered, what are the chances that in this random video, Suleiman actually saw his son?
--:-- Kate Linebaugh: So it wasn't until the first time that I saw, I went to his house and he went through a photo album and he showed me the pictures of Shadi.
--:-- Ben C. Solomon: And I took pictures and I went back to my hotel and I looked at them side by side. The videos of the man from the night that Sinaia opened. The photos of Shadi before he was arrested.
--:-- Kate Linebaugh: And I just, you know, I wasn't sure. I couldn't be sure.
--:-- Ben C. Solomon: And I showed it to some colleagues and they weren't either.
--:-- Kate Linebaugh: And it was just, you know, when you hear from a father that that is my son 100%. You know, what can you say to that?
--:-- Ben C. Solomon: It's either like, who else would know? And a mother too, Mfadi, whose wife was also just convinced that him that 100 him and we have to find him.
--:-- Kate Linebaugh: Shadi's mother, Mfadi, said, "He's my son. What's more to say? He's a piece of my heart."
--:-- Ben C. Solomon: She said their lives were shattered by his absence.
--:-- Kate Linebaugh: But my life is a very good one. My house is a very good one.
--:-- Ben C. Solomon: It was such a crazy time that it felt not unlikely that his son might not just have been able to find home.
--:-- Kate Linebaugh: They had moved from the original place where they had lived before. So there was a high likelihood that it was him.
--:-- Ben C. Solomon: But, you know, days turned into weeks, turned into months.
--:-- Kate Linebaugh: And then from afar, as I was just texting him on WhatsApp and just, you know, he would tell me no information, no information, nothing new.
--:-- Ben C. Solomon: At a certain point, did you think it was a dead end?
--:-- Kate Linebaugh: I think at a certain point, we kind of started to feel that maybe it's not him.
--:-- Ben C. Solomon: It seemed more and more unlikely that this guy just had so much memory loss that he couldn't hit home.
--:-- Kate Linebaugh: And that was when we kind of started digging deeper.
--:-- Ben C. Solomon: That was when we started joining these Facebook groups, getting into these accounts of lost people, and starting to look for Shadi ourselves.
--:-- Kate Linebaugh: Ben joined Suleyman in his search for Shadi. And what he found wasn't what he expected. That's next.
--:-- Ben C. Solomon: To help Suleiman in his search for Shadi, I started looking online, trying to find the man in the video.
--:-- Kate Linebaugh: We started looking for this photo, and we just put out word. Anybody could tell us any information. Does anybody know who this person was?
--:-- Ben C. Solomon: I got some help from a local journalist in Syria named Arub Hamoud.
--:-- Kate Linebaugh: Arub posted about Shadi on Facebook groups and made lots of calls.
--:-- Ben C. Solomon: She chased down leads and tried everywhere she could to find the man in the video.
--:-- Kate Linebaugh: And then in February, she got a hit.
--:-- Ben C. Solomon: Finally, you know, after months and months of writing around randomly, just got a Facebook message.
--:-- Kate Linebaugh: And a man wrote to her and said, "Hey, that's actually my cousin."
--:-- Ben C. Solomon: And here's his name. And here's his story. And then sent a picture of the same man wearing the same thing.
--:-- Kate Linebaugh: Aroub called him. The man from the video was in another part of Syria.
--:-- Ben C. Solomon: So Aroub set up a call with Suleiman.
--:-- Kate Linebaugh: Suleiman took the call from his house. He sat on his couch and fidgeted with his keys.
--:-- Ben C. Solomon: Umfadi sat across from him.
--:-- Kate Linebaugh: Hello.
--:-- Ben C. Solomon: I think he knew as soon as he started talking to them that this is not my son.
--:-- Kate Linebaugh: And I think that was really tough to see.
--:-- Ben C. Solomon: The man wasn't Shadi.
--:-- Kate Linebaugh: Suleiman still had questions.
--:-- Ben C. Solomon: How long had he been in prison? The man said, over seven years.
--:-- Kate Linebaugh: And then Suleiman said, "I saw you in the video. I thought you were my son."
--:-- Ben C. Solomon: The man on the call responded, "God willing, God willing you will find him soon."
--:-- Kate Linebaugh: Suleiman asked him some more questions about the sweater he was wearing in the video, the cigarette he was smoking.
--:-- Ben C. Solomon: He also asked him where he's from.
--:-- Kate Linebaugh: And Suleiman again told the man that he really, really thought he was his son.
--:-- Ben C. Solomon: The man responded the same way he did earlier. "God willing, you'll be reunited with him soon."
--:-- Kate Linebaugh: The call ended.
--:-- Ben C. Solomon: Suleiman put down the phone.
--:-- Kate Linebaugh: And he said, "It's not Shadi. It's not his voice."
--:-- Ben C. Solomon: Suleiman stared at the ground.
--:-- Kate Linebaugh: He rubbed his face.
--:-- Ben C. Solomon: He said, "This means Shadi is dead."
--:-- Kate Linebaugh: Suleiman stared beyond Ben's camera.
--:-- Ben C. Solomon: He repeated out loud that Shadi was gone and whispered a prayer.
--:-- Kate Linebaugh: He rubbed his face again.
--:-- Ben C. Solomon: And it was just a two-minute call, but in those in those few minutes there was just these long pauses where he just kind of waited to kind of hear this man's voice and just think about what to say next.
--:-- Kate Linebaugh: I mean, it was really hard to kind of see him slowly realize that that this is not his son and that this is the end of his search.
--:-- Ben C. Solomon: Ben learned that Suleiman wasn't the only person who thought the man in the video was their loved one.
--:-- Kate Linebaugh: So many people were posting the same photo and their son next to it and their brother and their cousin. They thought it was their relative.
--:-- Ben C. Solomon: It was hard to see these faces over and over of so many people seeing their sons.
--:-- Kate Linebaugh: You know, this, people were desperate.
--:-- Ben C. Solomon: Like this, this is a country of desperate people with no information.
--:-- Kate Linebaugh: And for years just had given up hope.
--:-- Ben C. Solomon: Like these are just hundreds, if not thousands of Suleyman's who just believed that this could be their family member.
--:-- Kate Linebaugh: And it was just, you know, he had bushy eyebrows and he was gaunt and he looked like a face that so many people could just see their love in and see their hope in.
--:-- Ben C. Solomon: So in some ways it was really inspiring and in other ways it was really, really hard to hear and see.
--:-- Kate Linebaugh: What does Suleiman now think happened to Shadi?
--:-- Ben C. Solomon: Well, Suleiman, he's kind of back to just the same place he started years and years ago, unfortunately.
--:-- Kate Linebaugh: He doesn't know.
--:-- Ben C. Solomon: There's no information.
--:-- Kate Linebaugh: I still think part of him holds on to hope a little bit.
--:-- Ben C. Solomon: I think even though he kind of has to say goodbye to this hope, to this moment, there's still a part of him that wants to think that maybe he's still out there and maybe there's something he doesn't know.
--:-- Kate Linebaugh: This is not just Suleiman's story. It's the story of so many people in Syria.
--:-- Ben C. Solomon: I mean, you hope so much that there's some happy endings for people like Suleiman, but there's some hope that so much of the suffering will have meant something.
--:-- Kate Linebaugh: But as the new country just tries to rebuild itself from decades of pain and silence and war, it's hard to know what happens next.
--:-- Ben C. Solomon: Thanks for listening.
--:-- Kate Linebaugh: See you tomorrow.
