Global children's charity withholds Syria abuse report amid internal crisis

SOS Children's Villages International, a global charity operating in more than 130 countries, has decided not to release an investigation it commissioned into its own role in separating Syrian children from their imprisoned parents during the country's civil war. The decision, made public through internal communications obtained by the BBC, marks a turning point in what was already a fractured reckoning with the organization's past.

During Bashar al-Assad's rule, Syrian security forces removed more than 140 children from parents held in detention and delivered them to SOS facilities across the country. The regime instructed the charity to conceal the children's identities and locations. The purpose was calculated: the children became leverage, used to pressure families and to negotiate prisoner exchanges. Sisters Layla and Layan Ghbeis were eight and four years old when they were taken from their mother, Omama, in 2015. Three years passed before a prisoner exchange brought them back together—and when they saw their mother again, Layan did not recognize her. The family eventually fled to the United States as refugees, but the rupture left by those years of separation has never healed. "Whether we're together or on our own, we're thinking about what happened to us," Omama told the BBC. "It had a huge impact on every member of our family."

After Assad's fall in December 2024, SOS acknowledged what had occurred and commissioned the Norwegian law firm Wiersholm to investigate who bore responsibility for the decisions that allowed this to happen. The report was completed in December 2025. In January 2026, the lawyers indicated to the BBC that an anonymised version would likely be released to the public. But in May, board chair Domenico Parisi sent an email to staff stating that the investigation had been "compromised" and would not be shared with anyone—not internally, not publicly. In a recorded internal meeting obtained by journalists, Parisi accused unnamed staff members of attempting to "manipulate" the report to portray the organization unfavorably. A draft version of the report that the BBC reviewed concluded that SOS was not forced to accept the children from security services, and that the charity's international headquarters in Vienna held ultimate responsibility for the decisions made at its Syrian facilities.

The refusal to publish the findings has fractured the organization from within. National associations in the UK, Norway, Switzerland, Sweden, France, and the Netherlands—all significant financial contributors—have voted to leave the federation and operate as independent charities. In December, the directors of SOS Children's Villages Worldwide, the largest single contributor to the international organization, voted to depart as well. But the German supervisory board, acting as trustee, overruled them and dismissed all three directors in February. The directors dispute the dismissals and are challenging them in German courts. Before their removal, they had established a fund designated for voluntary compensation to Syrian victims, but according to leaked documents reviewed by the BBC, no money has been distributed.

The families affected by the separations remain waiting. SOS has expressed "willingness" to provide support, but says assistance depends on "legal and practical conditions that require co-ordination with relevant parties." Omama Ghbeis, who spent three years separated from her daughters, said she had hoped for an apology and compensation from the organization. "No-one at SOS talked to us or gave us anything," she said. The charity's silence and the withholding of both the investigation and promised funds have left the organization's future uncertain. What was built as a global network of child welfare services now faces the possibility of dissolution, undone by its own refusal to reckon fully with what it allowed to happen.