Family’s relief after boy survives three-month kidnapping

The kidnappers who seized Fawaz al-Qataifan on his way home from school demanded a large sum to release the eight-year-old Syrian boy.

They hung him from a wall and beat him with a belt. They forced him at gunpoint to record a ransom message.

After being held for more than three months in a government-controlled region of Syria, Fawaz was released when his family paid the £147,100 ransom. Police have made four arrests.

Mosaab al-Qataifan told The Times that his nephew was “still in shock”. He added: “He is only eight and he had to stay with a gang of bad people for 105 days. He couldn’t play and survived without any warmth and love, without his parents.” His abductors released a video of Fawaz screaming for help while being beaten that went viral. There has been a wave of sympathy for the boy and his family, who received messages of support and promises of help from Germany and America.

To raise the ransom Fawaz’s family sold everything they had, including land and jewellery. “That only covered a part of it,” his uncle said. “Generous donors covered the rest.

 “We were very distressed and miserable. Our life turned into a nightmare. I am an engineer and I couldn’t go to work. His grandmothers got sick, one of them had a heart attack. His father and mother almost went crazy.”

Fawaz was taken on November 2 while walking home in Ibtaa, a town in Daraa province, southwestern Syria, that became known as the cradle of the rebel uprising. The first protests against Bashar al-Assad’s regime erupted there in 2011 after the arrests and alleged torture of at least 15 children for painting graffiti at a school.

Daraa was supposed to be under partial rebel control under the terms of a Russia-mediated deal in 2018. The regime broke the agreement last year to take it by force.

Ayman Abu Noqta, an activist for Houran Free Gathering, an anti-regime media group, said that many of the kidappers were working with the rulers. “It has become a profession and an important source of income for the regime officers,” he said. “Paying ransom every time also encouraged more abductions.”

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a UK-based monitoring group, said that Fawaz’s case highlighted the plight of hundreds of children.

The group said lawlessness was prevalent especially in “areas controlled by the regime”. Fawaz’s family has thanked Assad for taking a keen interest in the case.