“Waiting is more Difficult than Death”

The disappeared Amir Ahmed, also known as Amir Hamed, was born in 1977 in ad-Darbasiyah in Qamishli in al-Hasakeh province. He is married with four daughters and lived with his family and his mother who suffered from permanent bodily disability. Anyway, he worked in freelance, as well as he had a piece of land and worked on it. He is the only one among his brothers who preferred to stay in Syria, unlike his two brothers who lived in France.

On January 11, 2014, a group of masked men abducted Amir Hamed from his house in ad-Darbasiyah. Although the finger of blame was pointed to armed elements affiliated to Democratic Union Party/PYD directly after the incident, but Amir’s family did not know exactly the party responsible of the abduction. Amir was a peaceful person and did nothing to expose him to detention, his family said. The family believed that the abduction occurred against the backdrop of Amir's criticism to PYD policy without any other real charges, his brother expressed[1].

Amir's family were informed, through some detainees who were released, that he was in a detention facility run by armed elements affiliated to (PYD). They told his family that their son was detained for a routine investigation and he would stay for two or three days before his release. Moreover, they advised Amir’s family not to inquire publically about his whereabouts in order to not harm Amir or cause negative reactions to Amir, which made Amir’s family to keep silent for a whole month before announcing his disappearance, Hasan Ahmed added:

“At first we decided to remain silent to protect Amir given the PYD is an armed group that does not know any mercy or humanity, it just understands arms and force language."

It is well mentioned that after a week of Amir's disappearance, armed elements affiliated to PYD stormed his second house located in a village in ad-Darbasiyah, searched all of it and scrambled its contents on the pretext of searching for fugitives from the prisons. Amir’s family believes that this breaking into aimed just to cause harassment and psychologically pressure on the family.

A month after Amir’s disappearance and when his parents lost hope of getting any way to release him, they began to contact a journalist, who was their relative, to announce his story to the media. Indeed a press interviewed Amir’s brother and published the incident, but following the interview, the Pro-Autonomous Administration Asayesh forces arrested the journalist who did the meeting for 20 days. However, after the journalist was released, he refused to communicate with Amir’s family and asked them not to talk to him at all especially about the story of the Amir's disappearance. Amir's family believes that the Asayesh forces threatened the journalist.

 The family began trying to know something about Amir’s fate in many ways, but the offers of bribes and financial inducements did not work on certain elements and mediators, so they deepened altogether on leaks and news that they received from some of the detainees who were released and who had met Amir. Some of them said that they met Amir in a prison in the al-Malikiayah/Derek, and other said they met him in several different detention facilities run by armed elements affiliated to the PYD, some rumors circulated that he was handed over along with other abductees to the Syrian regime.

After his abduction, Amir's family suffered a lot, as they were obliged to resort to Iraqi Kurdistan and live in refugee camps given their only breadwinner is absent, and they lost any hope for him to return or even know anything about his fate. This coincided  deterioration in the mother’s health who had already suffered from permanent disability. Amir's brother ended saying:

 “The psychological effects were greater than the material one, as the family life has become pessimistic, and nightmares accompanied with the false hopes after every new news we hear about Amir. If we hear his murder news, it would be easier than waiting, disappointment and unending grief.”