Mothers in Syria count their lost

NO REASON TO CELEBRATE: Asma al-Assad, wife of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, met with the mothers of wounded Syrian army soldiers at an undisclosed location on Saturday in celebration of Mother’s Day, according to pictures posted to the official Facebook page of the Office of the Presidency of the Syrian Arab Republic that night.

Al-Assad was quoted as telling the mothers, “you all have raised heroes who never surrendered, neither on the battlefield nor in life.”

5,280 mothers have been killed in Syria and another 190 arrested by the regime since the beginning of the conflict in March 2011, according to a report released Saturday by the pro-opposition Syrian Network for Human Rights. SN4HR added that 68,000 women in Syria had lost their husbands and become widows, and that 18,572 children had been killed.

The report acknowledged 11 cases of women giving birth inside regime prisons, adding that many women had been tortured in front of their husbands and children as a means of forcing them to give confessions.

The report further added that 85,000 children had been born abroad to female Syrian refugees in neighboring countries since the conflict began, and that most have never been granted any form of Syrian citizenship.

-March 22, 2015

-Photo courtesy of Syrian Arab Republic

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