Who Trolled Amber? - Asma’s orphanages | We call her Emma Ep5

Episode Date: August 4, 2026

Chloe learns of allegations that Asma - the ‘mother of the nation’ - had an active role in one of the regime’s cruellest strategies: separating the children of dissidents and rebel fighters from their parents to use them as bargaining chips. At an orphanage in Damascus, Chloe gets closer to the truth. We call her Emma is a 6 part original series from Tortoise Investigates and The Observer.To binge listen to more episodes today, ad-free, subscribe to The Observer and use the code AUDIO50 to get 50% off your annual subscription.You'll get access to:This series and all our podcasts before anyone elseAd-free listeningPremium newslettersPuzzles from the inventors of the cryptic crosswordExclusive offers from our partners including Mubi and iescapeTickets to join Observer events in our newsroom or onlineOr subscribe to Observer+ on Apple Podcasts or Spotify to listen to all our podcasts, including this one, without any ads.Reporter - Chloe HadjimatheouProducer - Gary MarshallSound design - Karla Patella & Hannah VarrallPodcast artwork - Lola Williams & Eliza BournerExecutive producers - Jasper Corbett and Basia Cummings Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Tortus investigates. Oh look, I'll drive Abu Whissam's got us coffee. Shugran! Oh, I can't reach it, there we get. We're driving around Damascus, from meetings to interviews, taking in the city. This is the slow drip, drip, drip of Arabic caffeine that you get throughout the day. I love the cardam, it's so nice, isn't it? Right by this roundabout in the heart of town, I keep noticing this green netting covering the side, of a collapsed building.

It turns out it's the Ministry of Defence headquarters and the very visible aftermath of an Israeli airstrike last year. Other than that, you could almost forget that this place endured a long devastating war. There's an energy to the city. Yes, it feels poorer and tired, changed from how it was when I was here last before the conflict. But there's also a vibrancy.

This is the two Syrias I've told you about before. It's just that these days, the darker Syria isn't hidden in underground dungeons anymore. Instead, it's just three miles east into the suburbs of the capital, a short drive-away. And it's not a gradual change. It hits you like a punch to the gut. It just goes on and on, Gary, and there isn't a single building. It isn't a single building for as far as the eye can see. that hasn't been bombed.

One morning, our driver takes us to a suburb called Jobar. And instead of cafes and busy markets, I'm suddenly looking at something post-apocalyptic. It's weird to finally be here and be in these towns whose names I was hearing all those years during the war. They sort of seemed like vague entities then and now coming here, they're real places. They're real places with real people

and the sort of the human cost of it all just becomes all the more stark. Suburbs like this, Jobar, Kaboon, Tadamon, were for years controlled by rebels fighting the Assad regime. It's incredible how close they got to Damascus, to central Damascus. I just hadn't quite clocked that. It was so near. The battles that went on here, they would have been within earshot of the Assad department in the upmarket Malki neighbourhood, as well as the presidential palace up on the hill. Joe Barr was one of the last rebel strongholds near the capital to continue fighting. Eventually, the Syrian army, with the help of their Russian allies, recaptured the area in 2018.

The entire population was evacuated, their belongings pillaged and stolen. Then the state helped loot the area, taking everything of worth, even the metal from the buildings, until only the concrete shells remained. There is not one single human possession to be seen anywhere in this entire town. Almost every wall is riddled with bullet holes, and many of the floors of apartment blocks have pancake down on top of each other. Today, Jo Bar is completely uninhabitable. It's one thing to read about the Syrian war.

It's another thing to stand in a suburb that's still scarred by it and realize how little distance separated the seat of power from all this devastation. The war wasn't somewhere else far away from Asma's bubble. It was right here on her doorstep. And the thing that I keep coming back to is that this was not, not an equal fight. All the different groups that were fighting Assad, none of them had air power, not a single one of them. The bombs that were falling from the sky, the helicopters and the planes,

all of those belonged to Assad and his allies. It's going to take so long for Syria to recover from this. When the regime took back control of Jabar, what was left of the 300,000 people who lived there scattered around Syria, neighboring countries and across Europe. It's possible to trace some of them, but others are missing. It happens in war. People vanish. It's just that in Syria, there are a lot of missing people. Human rights groups have consistently cited a figure of more than 150,000 missing people. But the Syrian National Commission for Missing Persons has suggested the number could be double that.

That means potentially hundreds of thousands of people whose families have no idea where they are, what happened to them, or even if they're alive or dead. Among them were lots of children. It's a horror that's hard to comprehend. And that's where asthma comes back into it. Because soon after the regime collapsed in 2024, rumours began circulating that Asma al-Assad, the First Lady herself, had been involved in the disappearing of children.

I'm Chloe Hadjamatho, and from Tortoise Investigates and the Observer, This is We Call Her Emma. Episode 5, Asma's Orphanages. On a dusty street in the suburbs of Damascus, Bissan Juma and her kids come out of their home to greet us. We're here because although Bissan didn't know Asma personally, their lives did become intertwined in a fascinating way. Bissan's in her mid-twenties, but she's in her mid-twenties, but she's in her.

She's so petite that if I didn't know better, I could have mistaken her for a child. That's partly because on the day we meet, she's wearing a full knickab so her face is concealed. It's only her dark, steely eyes I can see. While we're setting up in her small apartment, Bissand's mother serves us sweet tea. We're all sat on cushions on the floor. On one side is me, Gary, who's recording, and Sarah. who's interpreting, and on the other side is Bissan and her two young boys. Omran, the youngest, is eight, and his older brother Omar is 10.

They're so young, but both of them sit patiently watching over their mum, like they never want to leave her side. And by the time I've left, I understand why. Bissan grew up in Yarmuk, on the southern edge of Damascus. For a long time, it was home to the largest Palestinian community in Syria. Even though it's often called a refugee camp, it evolved over decades into a busy neighbourhood. When the revolution started in 2011, Yarmouk quickly became a central battlefield between opposition forces and those remaining loyal to the regime. Yeah, at that point, we were under siege, so there was no school, no going out, and no one could come around.

Bissan's talking to us in Arabic, so we've used an Arabic-speaking actress to voice her words. There was nothing at all, so I was just looking for something new. He was my brother's friend, and he told my brother he wanted to get married, and that he wanted me. They asked me, and I accepted.

You know, just to change my reality. I didn't know anything about marriage. I was 13, and he was 13. and he was 20. The disparity in age is pretty shocking. Bissang was barely a teenager. It's important to say that this is unusual in Syria too. The legal minimum age for marriage is usually 18,

but during the war there was a surge in these underage unions as poorer families worried about young women being left unprotected during a time of such instability. Bissan's new husband was a fine. with the main rebel faction at the time, the Free Syrian Army. The couple moved north to Idlib and Bissan had her first child, Omar. But then her husband was shot by a regime sniper and badly injured. He had to travel to Jordan across the border from Syria to get proper treatment,

which meant that Bissan was left alone, 15 years old and pregnant for the second time. I called my mom. and I told her I was scared to give birth in Idlib. I was young and I didn't want to do it alone while having to care for my young son, Omar, too. So my mom told me to come down to Damascus. Travelling south meant going through regime-controlled areas. For someone who'd been living in an opposition area, that was a risk.

But Bessan felt she didn't have a choice. At least she wasn't completely alone. A couple of friends, women who were all. married to rebel fighters, we're going to travel with her. We took the road from Idlib down to Homs, the whole way we were passing through checkpoints and having our names run. But they didn't find anything on us. Until they get to the city of Homs, about halfway to Damascus.

There they run into a government patrol. They stopped the bus and got on. We were sitting at the very back. When they reached us, they asked for our identity. One of the women she's travelling with popped up on the officer's database are suspicious and next thing Bissan knows, all of them are being taken off the bus and into custody. Bissan's main concern is for 18-month-old Omar and for her unborn child. But terrifying as it is, she's sure this is just a mistake.

She's young, she's pregnant, surely they'll let her go. Honestly, I thought that since I'd passed the checkpoints before, that I would be fine. I was sure no one would touch me. I mean, I hadn't done anything wrong. But instead, she's taken to Meza branch in Damascus, one of the most notorious detention centers in the country, and she's put in a cell. I honestly could not believe I was in an intelligence branch. It was dark and cramped and it smelled disgusting, really disgusting. I felt like I was suffocating. Omar had been quiet until then, but in that cell there were so many other women.

He started to get upset, but no one was allowed to talk to each other in there. I remember there was a broken window on one wall and they had covered it with a picture of Bashar al-Assad. The poster of the president is so familiar. She's seen his image in every classroom, shop, and every living room she's ever been in. But in that dungeon,

It looks surreal. I was too scared even to curse him, even in my own head. All night long, I just stared at that poster until I think I must have finally fallen asleep. In the morning, she tries to think positively. Surely they won't keep her in here with a young child, especially when she's almost ready to give birth. What she couldn't have known is that it will be almost seven years before she sees the outside world again. And most of that time, she'll be alone. All around the country, people

were being rounded up, and the country's detention centres and prisons were heaving. In cells barely a couple of metres across, dozens of people were crammed in, often having to take it in turns to sit down, because there wasn't enough room. Lots of them had done nothing wrong. They weren't even involved in the protests or the opposition movement. So the fact that Bissan's only crime was being married to an opposition fighter, that wasn't unique. But she was treated differently, and she first noticed it when they began questioning her.

They didn't beat me as much as the other girls. I think they were concerned about my pregnancy because of the prisoner exchanges. The trade in prisoners. It was common that the country. captured families or children of rebel fighters would be exchanged for regime soldiers, prisoners of war. The children of rebels were often labelled as security cases, and then they were used as bargaining chips. Back when she'd been living in Idlib surrounded by rebels, Bissan had heard about these kinds of swaps. And a rebel is more likely to cave in and comply with their regime, if it's a child on the line rather than their wife.

so the regime would use their own children against them. The guards suspected that Bissan might be married to a rebel fighter, so they began interrogating her, and they leant on the fact that she was there with her young boy. They threatened me, saying that they have lots of officers who don't have children and that he would be adopted. The officer told me,

we will take him and raise him better than you. You're raising him to be a militant, a terrorist. We will raise him the way we want. That's what broke her in the end. She gave them the password to her phone and they found messages from her husband. That was enough for them to accuse her of harboring a terrorist. She and Omar were put in solitary confinement,

a tiny dark, damp cell with nothing to do but stare at the wall. I was just praying and sleeping and praying and sleeping. That is all I could do. Omar, I swear to God, he would bang his head against the wall out of boredom. I mean, the cell was just two meters by two meters. What was he supposed to do in there? There was a female guard that was especially cruel. There was never enough food and they were constantly hungry.

And when Omar would cry, she would yell at Bissan. She would yell, shut him up. Shut your son up. And I swear to God, she would bring biscuits in and sit there and eat them in front of him. Why would you do that, you know? Show him the biscuit while he sits there crying. Or she would make popcorn and not turn on the kitchen fan so that everyone could smell the scent. You know how good popcorn smells.

It was almost sadistic the pleasure she took in tormenting not only the women in there, but also Omar, who was so little he couldn't cope. When she went into labour with her second child, Bissan was taken to hospital. Strange coincidence here, but it happens to be the same hospital where the bodies were in the photos gathered by Osama and Farid, the same hospital where asthma was treated for breast cancer, right underneath the presidential palace. Throughout her labour, Bissan says the hospital staff treated her like a terrorist. She was kept handcuffed to the bed.

The midwife said this is because of what you've done. You did this. to yourself by becoming involved in something bigger than you. I said, why do you think it's my fault? I haven't done anything. My family chose my husband for me. But she just laughed at me. I begged them to call my mother. Thankfully, there were no complications with the birth and her son was born healthy. Then, the same day, Bissang was returned to her cramped cell. Now there were three of them in there. She made a bed for her tiny new son out of an old scarf and a nappy bag.

They had around a week together until one day the hatch on her cell slid open and a guard's face appeared. He asked, what is your older son's name? I told him, and he said, come on, get dressed. I asked, why? And he said, we've received an order that they want the children. I started crying. Who wants the children? Where too? And how? The guard explained that Omar couldn't stay there anymore. Bissan was pleading with him. I couldn't believe this was happening. I told him, if he's not allowed to stay here, can't you at least give him to my family?

My family can come and take him. Where are you taking him? Bissan knew her mother would have jumped at the chance to come and get over. But she didn't know where Bissang was. All she knew was that her daughter had disappeared on the way down from Idlib. Just another person lost in the war. The officer opened the door and said, You can keep your baby. Just give us Omar. Omar was unbelievably attached to me at this point.

I held him in my lab and stayed glued to the corner of my cell. Come on, come here, he was saying to me. I just kept hugging, Omar, but I had only given birth six days ago. I had no strength, and they grabbed him from me. And I swear to God, the sound of the scream he let out when they yanked him away like that, I could live and die and never forget that sound. He was screaming, Mommy. Mommy!

And I could hear other women screaming, because they were taking other women's children too. For weeks afterwards, Bissan was so distressed by the loss of Omar, she struggled to care for her newborn. Then, just a couple of months later, they came for him too. They never told me where they were taking him. For more than a year, she didn't have a clue where they were. But eventually, Bissan would learn that her boys were being kept in orphanages.

When Bissang was young, Asma paid a visit to her school in Yarmuk. She remembers being excited about the First Lady, this glamorous refined character who publicly presented herself as the mother of the nation. And like every other Syrian mother in the country, I have dreams for my children. I want them to be healthy. I want them to be educated. I want them to be happy. And that's not just my dreams for my own children. It's actually the dreams of over 8 million Syrian mothers.

Sitting in her tiny cell all alone, Bissan's mind wandered back to that visit by asthma to her school. As a young girl, I was deceived into thinking that she was decent, that she visited schools and, you know, that she was a humble person. But it was all just for show in the end. Me God never forgive her. But I was just a child. then. I didn't really know who they were until I was imprisoned. Then I saw it with my own eyes. Asma was responsible for the orphanage where my children were kept. She imprisoned children's parents and then orphaned those children. And then she would come to that orphanage on a visit? In what capacity?

As if she were so caring. In prison, Bissans heard rumors that asthma is involved with the orphanages her son Omar and her newborn baby are held in. She's sure that the First Lady has had a hand in deliberately keeping not only her children from her, but lots of other children from parents who are imprisoned in detention facilities. And she believes Asma did this for a very particular reason, to help the regime exert pressure on the opposition. Actually, it's easy to see how these kinds of rumours might have started.

The internet's littered with photos of asthma at orphanages, posing with young children on her lap. But if there was any truth to what Bissan had heard, that asthma's involvement was more sinister, calculated, it would be extraordinary. It would mean that the mother of the nation who'd modelled herself on Princess Diana was actively harming mothers and children on behalf of the state. There was one place that might tell us if there was any truth to these rumours. So we've just driven to the outskirts of Damascus, the suburbs of Damascus. We're going to go and visit an orphanage. We weren't able to get access to the specific orphanages where Bissan's children were held. But Asma seemed to be a patron of several institutions in the capital.

So we called around and we managed to get ourselves invited to another place, Lahan al-Hayat. as first lady, she was meant to be looking after the poor, the children, the needy in the city, particularly in the capital. So I'm going there to talk to the management and to talk to some of the people there to see if they remember her, what they remember of her. In the car on the way there, me, Sarah and my producer Gary, who travelled with me from London, are trying to go through what we think we know about aspects. Asa's role in the running of these institutions, places that housed often extremely vulnerable babies and children. Do we know, I know you've said that before, but like, do we know for sure that they ran it? Or was it under the ministry and the ministry is seen as part of Esma's realm? I guess let's ask the guys now in the Heiats when we get there.

She ran it, that her organisation run it, and that particularly the place where we're going to now. What I need to establish is, was Asma just a patron of the orphanage, turning up a couple of times a year for a nice photo op? Or did she actually have a hand in managing it? If you're saying that you don't think she had any connection with it? I mean, if she was just the patron of it, the back doesn't stop with her. If you can hear the anxiety in my voice,

it's because I've started to wonder whether there's any evidence that can prove what Bissan thinks. I can't rely on rumour. I'm worried that perhaps asthma's become a kind of bogey woman for many Syrians. Maybe her name's attached to many of the horrors simply because she was who she was. Well, yeah, but I think for now that's got to fight that out.

But yes, I mean, I can see that that's quite a significant roadblock. The taxi driver drops us at the door of a walled compound that houses all the orphanage buildings. There are pretty murals of kids holding hands and dancing, and Sarah notices a plaque next to the main door. Right here it says right outside the Lachna'Hayat's compound, it says the Syrian government's Minister of Social Affairs. So my understanding is the connection to Esma

is because the Minister of Social Affairs usually traditionally falls under the purview, under the patronage of the First Lady, of Esma specifically. Before ringing the bell, I need to pause to get my head straight. I don't think it's fair for us to have expected her to know what was going on in here if all she was doing as a patron is turning up for photo ops. Like does patronage mean the same in Syria that it would mean for us? Like if Princess Diana was the patron of something. I think patronage implies connection and not responsibility,

but the whole time we haven't been saying ESMA is responsible. We've been saying ESMA is connected. This direct link to ESMA that gives her responsibility for knowing about these crimes. that's something we have and no one has been able to prove. I think let's just go in and find out. Yeah. Okay, cool. Yeah. Are you recording?

Yeah, would it be possible to all sit a bit closer? Okay. What do you want to start with? So could he tell us his name, how long he's been here and what his role is here? Mortesem al-Salumi's been managing this place since the regime fell. At first glance, he looks like the face of Syria's new government. He's got a long beard and he's wearing a baseball cap. And he looks like someone devout trying to appeal to a hip younger generation.

He was involved with the Islamist group which ruled over an opposition enclave in the northwest of the country. This is before they marched down and took control of the country from the Assad. Up there, he remembers lots of occasions when the children of rebels were used to blackmail or harass their parents, trying to persuade them to hand themselves into the regime. And he remembers the prisoner swaps. And Motusem tells us something else, something that answers some of the questions I had before I came here. The Syria Trust for Development gave money to, something called Sunduqarra.

And that gave money to La Hianal Ha'at. So he says, financial support, like emotional support, just all kinds of support. So it was being financed by the Syria Trust for Development, one of their institutions. He also tells us that Asma appointed the two women who used to be in charge of the orphanage. They're both now under investigation

by the new Syrian government, so they're not here. But Motusem says we should speak to some of the carers or mothers, as they're called. who worked here when asthma was involved with this place. We would have children come to us, for example, from the secure branches. They'd call them crisis children. Anna is one of the senior mothers who's been taking care of kids here for years. We've changed her name, and this isn't her voice.

But she remembers that from quite early, on in the war, there started to be an unusual influx of children into the orphanage. Some of the children who were a bit older might talk when they felt comfortable with a caregiver or a supervisor. They might quietly say, my dad is in prison, or they took me and my mom is currently detained, or something like that. But we didn't know why. I assumed it was for like regular crimes and that's why their parents were imprisoned. I never imagined for a day that they would be children of revolutionaries. You know, it's just so very sad. I don't know whether to believe Anna when she says she didn't know what was really happening.

After all, they referred to these kids as crisis children. But I appreciate it must be uncomfortable now trying to explain your role in something as awful as holding children hostage. Not that Anna would have been able to do much to stop what was happening. We were strictly forbidden from asking where they came from. or why they came. We couldn't ask why they were there or where their parents were. We were just told to take these children

and distribute them among the apartments. Sometimes babies who arrived at the orphanage without any clear identification were given new names. But it seems that those brought here by the intelligence services, children who often knew who they were were also being given new names, presumably to hide their identities from families who might come looking for them.

And the younger ones who were too small to remember their parents were sometimes given to Syrian families for adoption. As for the rest of the kids, the intelligence services eventually came back for many of them and took them away. It's unclear what happened to those children after that. The orphanage just hadn't asked any questions, and that's where the trail runs cold.

But Anna believes that asthma would have been aware of everything that was going on here. Absolutely, absolutely, because you can imagine that the administration had a direct relationship with Asma al-Assad, a direct line of contact with her. They were untouchable, that no one could even say a word to them.

So you can imagine that they didn't know? Impossible. And do you think Asma knew? Oh, 100%. She definitely knows, definitely. She knows everything and knows about all the crimes I mean 100% I am certain about this, even though I did not see it.

But this is the reality that we are living. Anna says she knows this because she knows how the country worked and how the systems of the regime worked. She claims that asthma was close to the managers she'd appointed to run this place. They were untouchable. No one could even say a word to them. And she tells us that at some point, soon after the fall of the regime, a journalist arrived at the orphanage,

asking if they'd had any so-called crisis kids through their doors. And the manager said no. And then I asked her, why did you say no? We know we have crisis kids here. And she replied, well, you knew. I did not. I hope you're not trying to pin it on me. All throughout the war, the regime was releasing PR videos of asthma,

often accompanied by this kind of dramatic music. This was one filmed at Estabre. SOS children's villages, an international orphanage in Damascus with headquarters in Austria. It's Mother's Day, March 24, just months before the fall of the regime. She's standing in SOS villages wearing a floor-length royal purple open kimono, her hair tied back in a neat ponytail at her neck. She looked striking, dressed more for an opening at a gallery or a museum than a visit to an orphanage. The video cuts between shots of her smiling down at various children,

stroking their hair and handing them chocolate, and she addresses the mothers or carers there. You're caring for these children, she says, building strong, close-knit families and you're helping shape a promising bright future for the young men and women who've been entrusted to you. She tells them, Happy Mother's Day to you and to all the mothers of Syria.

This, by the way, happens. to be the very orphanage where Bissan's older son was held. Asthma was there while Bissang was all alone in her cell without her boys. Later, SOS villages would accept that around 140 children were placed in its care by the Syrian authorities and that they hadn't followed normal procedures in those cases. Back in 2018, a few months after her children were taken, Bissan was brought before a judge. The charge against her was a judge. concealing a felony because she hadn't informed on her husband.

The judge said you're a minor, and anyway, the criminal is your husband. You have nothing to do with it. He said he couldn't find me guilty, but he also said he couldn't release me. I'd just be picked up by the authorities again. Bissan is transferred from the interrogation centre to a juvenile detention centre. Remember, she's still a child at this point. and then she ends up in a larger prison. She still has no idea what's happened to her children,

but her mother finally manages to track her down and she bribes her way into the prison to visit her. The minute Bissan sees her, she breaks down. I just cried and cried and cried, and I told her they took my children. She asked, where did they take them? I said I swear I don't know. I was just crying and saying,

for God's sake, just find out where my children are. Just look for my children for me. Her mother promises to try to track down her boys. Meanwhile, Bissan's now in a bigger cell with other women. Speaking is strictly forbidden, but in snatched whispers, Bissan learns that many of her cellmates are in the same situation as her. They've also had their children taken away from them.

And so they decide to get organized. Bissan describes what they do as a mutiny. They start banging on the walls and the doors and refusing all food, demanding to see their children. It works. They learn that their children are being kept in orphanages and within days the children are brought to the prison on a visit. But Bissan's boys are brought separately

because it turns out the brothers have been placed in different orphanages. Her baby is 14 months old at this point. She'd named him Walid, but she discovers that the orphanage has changed his name to Omran. That visit was enough to make stones weep. They brought the children in, and there were so many of them. The room was full of children looking for their mothers. I scanned them one by one.

Her youngest was just a couple of months old when he was. taken from her. His face was still all soft beginnings. His features hadn't settled into the boy he'd become. So now she finds she can't recognize him. It's distressing. The officer in charge notices and he starts laughing. What kind of mother doesn't know her own child? He asked me. How can you not know? But then an older girl holding a baby came up to me and said, Is your name Bissan? I said yes, she told me, this is your son. It's so emotional finally getting to hold him,

but half an hour just flies by, and before she knows it, the visit's over. Seeing her oldest, Omar is no less upsetting. He's been brought from SOS villages that orphanage asthma was filmed at, and as soon as Bissan sees him, she throws her arms around him. They'd been so,

so close when he was taken from her. But it's been a year, and now he doesn't know her anymore. I said, Omar, it's me, your mom. And he said, get away from me, I don't want you. Get away. The visit's painful. There is one thing to cling on to, though. Bissan's family now know where the boys are being held, so her mom and her sister go to the orphanages to take them home. but they won't release them.

They would say they aren't here. The manager told them, I have rules and I'll get punished if I deviate from them. I can't get into trouble with the state. Gary, can I record myself? Shall I take this? We've come back to spend a second day at the orphanage. We've been invited into one of the flats where the children live.

There's around 12 boys in here, between the ages of 5 and 15. They sit around the living area quietly watching TV or playing and when they see us they all get up and take it in turns to shake our hands. Salome, the mother who takes care of them, has been working here for more than two decades. She tells us about the children she was sent during the war and how they talked about being with their parents in prison and that some of the older ones were distressed at having their names changed.

She remembers passing this information on so it could be included. in the weekly reports that were sent to asthma. And she remembers asthma visiting often and telling them she was being regularly updated about what was going on in the orphanage. What I really want to see is the paperwork here. There are ringbinders full of notes from the years that asthma was connected to this place,

documents the new manager found here when he took over. The first thing you showed us was an intelligence, a letter from intelligence saying, top secret. One of our patrols found a child. The documents show children being brought to the orphanage by the intelligence services, and they prove what the carers here have been telling us, that those intelligence officials were specifically ordering the orphanage to keep the presence of these children a secret.

There was a directive there to the orphanage. not to release the children to any family or anyone coming asking for them? It says not to release it to anyone without prior consent from them. From the ministry or from the army? I think it was Air Force intelligence. So they said, please receive her and do not turn her over to any person, whoever they may be without our prior consent. And it's signed by the head of the branch.

I was a bit concerned about Asma's direct involvement with this place, but it sounded like... On the way back to Damascus in the taxi, we're still processing everything we've learned. I was really scared that we've got this wrong, and that maybe asthma wasn't that involved, especially when you saw that it was run by the ministry on the door there. So it seems likely that she knew what was going on inside the orphanage,

and if not, she should have done. If she didn't know, I mean, we're talking about a country in which nothing, this is not a free-thinking place. This is a place that's been, for the last decades and decades and decades, people have been trained to do what they think the government wants them to do, these people were operating in Esma's world, and they were operating in a way that they believed, I'm sure, Esma approved of. And so because that's what it meant for Esma to be a patron of a place like this.

It meant you were doing things that please the First Lady. So how easy do you think it is for her to say, I didn't know what was going on in that? I think it's as easy as you saying that sentence. I know, but what I mean is, How credible do you think that is for her to say I had no idea what was going on in there? This is all a shock to me. I mean, I think it's pretty easy considering there's no documentation that links her to this.

And when you say, as Esma al-Assad or Bashad or Hafiz, when you say that didn't happen over and over, eventually people will just say, well, yeah, that didn't happen. But it is quite easy to delineate responsibility when you don't have a lot of. paper trail. I guess the only real smoking gun we have is the person who was interviewed who claims that they asked asthma directly about children being brought to an orphanage by intelligence officers. I'd heard about a woman who worked at one of these orphanages and a very candid meeting she says she had with asthma. I was part of a team of journalists all digging around the story of

orphanages, a collaboration between Syrian and international journalists led by a non-profit called Lighthouse Reports. One of those fellow journalists at the BBC World Services I Investigations Unit managed to speak to this orphanage worker. And this is the first time this interview's been broadcast. We've changed her name to Maya and we've had an Arabic-speaking actress read her words. Asma al-Assad invited us to the presidential palace for Iftar during Ramadan and they served Mjadara, Syrian rice and lentils. It was really funny because she was telling us that she cooked Mjadara and she said, look, I eat the same things as ordinary people.

I thought, I mean, are you kidding us? Sitting there at that table and everything and she didn't eat, not a single bite. Maya was abandoned as a baby and adopted by an elderly couple who both, died when she was 12, so she was returned to the orphanage where she started. When she turned 18, she decided to stay on living at the institution, caring for the children there while she was getting a degree. After the war began, she remembered that same influx of children we'd been told about in the orphanage where she worked too. But she says she quickly figured out what was going on. I understood that these were the children of detainees because one told me the regime

imposed his father and the second one told me his father was with the rebel group. That's how I worked out what was going on. But we were forbidden from photographing them and it was forbidden for anyone to visit them. At some point, Maya finished studying law and she began writing a legal paper

based on her experiences at the orphanage. She was quite excited about it and so one day during a meeting at the orphanage she shared her plans with asthma. I told her that I wanted to write my thesis on children of unknown parentage and its title was going to be children of unknown parentage between law and reality. I really wanted to shed light on this issue. Her thinking was that they could try and reunite some of the children in the orphanage with their parents,

maybe publish their photos in newspapers and share their details so they could eventually be found if any family members were looking for them. And she was particularly interested in the so-called crisis children. She told me, no, no, just talk about the main children in the orphanage and do not mention those other children.

I said, oh, why is that? She said, those are the children of terrorists and that's none of your business. We know what we're doing, so don't go looking for trouble. I also suggested, why don't we exempt our young men? When they turn 18, they have to go to the military

and the war is very harsh, honestly. And these kids have no father, no mother, no one at all. But she said, why shouldn't they go to the military? The state raised them and fed them. They must serve. When I heard this, it seemed quite shocking to me. The idea that the children of rebel or opposition groups might be taken by the state

and eventually raised to be soldiers to fight their own parents. I didn't feel scared while I was talking to her because she often visited us at the orphanage so I felt comfortable with her. But after I went back home and I was like, why was it like that? I mean, what do you mean children of terrorists?

How could it be their fault? These children need to find their families. Why should they be registered as having unknown parentage? This was still on Maya's mind the next day when she went into work. And she recounted the conversation she'd had with asthma to a colleague. They told me that was like a veiled threat. And they said, don't get involved in something that isn't any of your business or you'll get hurt. So don't write that in your thesis.

Just make it a footnote. And submitted the way they want because she might have you arrested even if you are one of her own. Honestly, I got scared. I have a child. So I feared for my child and for my family. Asma al-Assad imposed her control over all of us. Maya had believed in asthma. She'd been encouraged by her.

But then she says she felt asthma was slowly freezing her out, later preventing her from getting a government job as a lawyer. She couldn't believe how asthma had turned on her. And she kept thinking, Asma, what happened to you? I don't understand. you don't want me to work as a lawyer with you? Why? Is it so I don't find out what you're messing with or so I don't see what you're doing? There's surely no other explanation for you

trying to stop me from being a lawyer. What Maya says suggests asthma knew what was going on in the orphanages she helped oversee. And it lines up with what we've heard from the numerous staff at the orphanage we visited. What we haven't found is a document with asthma's signature on it, proving on paper that she knew. What we do have is the testimony of multiple people who were there, speaking independently, all telling a similar story. Asma's father, Dr Fawaz Akras, declined to give me an interview, but he did respond to some of the allegations that I asked him to pass on to his daughter for me.

He told me that he wholly and categorically rejects the idea that Asma knew, authorised, facilitated or tolerated the use of children for political purposes or as a means of pressure against families or detainees. He said that he makes this denial as her father with the knowledge of a lifetime. And while he recognises that such knowledge can't be a substitute for evidence, he says he's never been shown any clear, compelling and independently verifiable evidence for any of these claims. By 2020, it felt like Bashar al-Assad had essentially won the war. He'd regained around 70% of the country and the rebels had all been pushed into two pockets in the north. And so now the world entered a new reality, one in which Bashar was here to stay. Slowly but surely,

serious status as the North Korea of the Middle East began to shift and Bashar began to be accepted back into the international fold, especially with neighbouring countries. Asthma too was enjoying a more powerful status at home. Syrians in general are people that are proud and they're productive. So 12 years of destruction has not stopped us from looking forward and thinking about the future. Her portrait had begun appearing alongside her husbands behind desks in government. offices and colossal banners bearing her face hung on the sides of buildings.

She even became the theme of several hit pop songs, like this one that describes her as the Jasmine of Damascus. By December 2024, Bissan had been imprisoned without her children for almost seven years. She would see her boys on the few occasions every year when they were permitted to come for half hour visits. And her mom would sometimes manage to get in to see her too. But her awareness of the outside world was limited to snatches that she and her cellmates would catch when they listened to the guards outside their door. When the phone would ring, we would usually hear what the guards were saying, what they were talking about and what the news was. And then one day we started to hear about

a rebel advance from the north. We were just gathering little bits of information. She and the other women realize there's something unusual going on. There's a guard who occasionally engages with them, and next time he opens the door, they chat to him. We asked him what the news was, and he said that rebels from Idlib were advancing. He said, if they make it south past the city of Hamas, you'll be executed immediately.

We fell apart and started praying to God that they wouldn't make it down here. At some point the following evening, they suddenly realise the wing is unusually quiet. They seem to be alone, no sign of any guards. The phone rang and no one answered. It rang and rang, so we started shouting. Hey, where are you? Anyone? But no one answered. Hours pass and eventually they fall asleep.

In the morning, they hear the voice of the brigadier in charge of the prison. He came in and woke us up, knocking on the door, shouting, Get up, girls, are you ready? We asked him, where are we going? He told us, home, where else? We couldn't believe it. Bissan scared they might be preparing to execute them, but she can't see any other guards.

He opened the door for us and we walked out of the cell. He opened everything for all the women. We walked past the empty guardroom. Then we saw the brigadier go to his office and start packing his things to leave. And we could see from the window that the document office was burning. The office with all our files. Outside, there were no personnel anywhere, just guns dumped on the ground. A man on a motorbike passes by and shouts to them, Syria's free.

It's the first time it really hits them. The Assad regime has fallen. Yeah, what can I tell you? We looked at each other and said, My God, is this even possible? Is it a dream? It feels like a dream. Our minds couldn't grasp what was actually happening.

It was impossible to comprehend. The man on the motorbike lends her his phone and Bissan calls her mother. I said, Mom, I'm standing in front of the door of the intelligence branch. For God's sake, come and get me. I was crying, crying on the phone, crying. Then she and her mother go to find her boys. At some point, they'd both been transferred to the same orphanage.

There was no security, and we got in very easily. I didn't have my idea with me and I was worried that it would cause me problems. But the people working there were scared. They were very scared. I told them, I'm Omar and Omran's mother. And they called for them immediately and said, take them. Take them. As Syria's coming to terms with the fall of the regime

and making sense of how to rebuild the country now that Bashar and Asma have fled, Bissan is quietly. repairing her life. Then one day, while she's scrolling on Facebook, she sees something that stops her in her tracks. The guard, that woman from the prison who had taken such sadistic pleasure in tormenting her and Omar, she's opened a hairdressing salon not far from where they live. Her picture just popped up. She had posted something and it appeared on my feet. And I'm like, She's just living her life? Why?

I was so angry. The truth is that lots of people who cause pain and suffering for so many years seem to have just got away with it. But here's one of them right on Bissan's doorstep, and there's no way this woman's going to get away with it. Not if Bissan can help it. Asthma too seems to have escaped without consequence. When she fled in early disson,

December 2024 and took refuge in Moscow, she left behind her a shell of a country. Half a million Syrians were dead. Another six million had become refugees and entire cities lay in piles of rubble. It was a far cry from the progressive modern country she claimed to be trying to build two decades earlier. But walking away from all that is likely to have been far more painful than you might imagine. Because it seems she may have been close to getting the top job. I've learned that Asmar al-Assad

had grown so powerful she was being considered as a replacement for Bashar to take over a serious next president. That's next time on We Call Her Emma. This series is reported by me, Chloe Hajemotho. It's written by me and the producer Gary Marshall with additional production by Hannah Varel.

The field producer and translator in Lebanon and Syria is Sarah Dardush. Our interpreter was Aisha Aldris. The development producer is Jess Swinburne. The sound design is by Hannah Varel. Our theme music is Yamo from the Syrian band Schoon. The voice actors were Hannah Joel, Sarahmar, Sira Akra, and Majid Atamimi. Podcast artwork is by Lola Williams and Eliza Borna. The executive producers are Jasper Corbett and Bashar Cummings.

The reporting in this episode was done in collaboration with the consortium of Syrian and international journalists led by Lighthouse Reports. This podcast was supported by a grant from the Pulitzer Centre. Thanks for listening to We Call Her Emma. If you'd like to listen to the rest of the series today without any adverts, just subscribe wherever you're listening now. You can also access exclusive reporting, including photos and videos from our time. in Syria on our website, observer.co.uk. Tortus Investigates.