How a TikTok video of freed Syrian prisoners re-ignited the hope of a missing man's family

ITV News' Rohit Kachroo reports on one family's hope to find their loved one, after catching a potential glimpse of him in a video of Sednaya prison inmates emerging from a bus

When Anwar Murad was sent a video on TikTok earlier this week, his heart began to race.

The clip, two minutes long, showed a yellow school bus pulling up on a Syrian street. Then one by one, men emerged down its steps, as bursts of celebratory gunfire are heard in the background.

The men were among a group of inmates freed that morning from Sednaya prison, the former regime's most infamous detention centre. No longer in jumpsuits, these were unknown, unfamiliar men - except for one.

"I watched the clip thousands and thousands of times," Anwar, who paused, rewound, resized, and replayed the video, over and over again, told ITV News.

Halfway into the clip, a man wrapped in a black hoodie emerges into the light. His hood was raised and his face was partially concealed, but he resembled Anwar's brother, Duraid. It was just a fleeting glimpse.

It is more than ten years since Duraid went missing during the early years of Syria's civil war. Two of his brothers were detained and killed in captivity, forcing many of their relatives to flee the country, scattered in cities across the world.

With few of their loved ones remaining in Syria, they are now searching for Duraid remotely, picking up information on social media, and dispatching old friends on the ground to investigate rumours about his whereabouts.

Anwar moved to Glasgow, where his son 17-year-old son Adam is helping his father to get to the truth - and they are not alone.

"He can still see his eyes, but he can't exactly see the colouration," said Adam, who thinks there is a good chance it is his uncle in the footage. But he cannot be sure.

Anwar said he felt "powerful" emotion about the possibility of being reunited with Duraid.

"There aren't words," he added.

They pick up the phone to Anwar's other brother, Waseem, who lives in Amsterdam where he works as a decorator.

In the absence of on-the-ground investigators with detailed databases, it its Waseem, Adam, and Answar who are working to locate Duraid, thousands of miles away from Damascus.

They exchange notes from the day's research. Waseem says everyone he has spoken to has echoed his suspicions, so he is growing more confident.

"I am 90 percent sure," he said, speaking over the phone from Amsterdam.

"It's my brother," he told them. "Yes, yes, I see the eyes of him, and he is telling me, 'I am Duraid'."

Adam, translating for our benefit, said: "He's saying the picture is talking to him, saying 'I am his brother'."

Waseem has spent the afternoon speaking to friends in Syria who have been driving around Damascus looking for information about Duraid's whereabouts.

He went on to suggest that his brother did look different, and believes he had been "starved" during his time in prison.

They have yet to establish what happened to the yellow school bus, and its passengers. But he is growing in confidence that the figure in the video is indeed Duraid.

"Any close family and friends that he knows who have been shown the picture are agreeing it is our brother," Adam said.

Sednaya prison was constructed in 1987, just north of Damascus. According to one estimate, 30,000 detainees have been killed there since then, many of whom were jailed after sham trials.

In most circumstances, the families of those killed were given no details about what happened to them.

Translating his uncle's thoughts after seeing the possible video of Duraid, Adam said: "He looks in shock, he looks like he doesn't know who he is anymore. He is hoping when he sees someone he will remember who he is.

"In his personal experience of people in these kinds of prisons, he knows that what you feel like when you come out, what you feel like when you're inside, and the shock."

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For Duraid's family, his detention has meant a decade of uncertainty. Waseem is determined to bring that period to a close.

"I will fly to Istanbul," he said, and gathered together a few changes of clothes.

His plan is to drive across the border to Syria and and to be in Damascus by the weekend.

"A lot of people are looking for him," Adam explains.

"When my uncle is down there, there will be no sleep, there will be a constant search until they find him, hopefully."

Waseem is almost certain that he will meet his brother again within the next few days. Only then will the conflict that has caused him so much trauma feel like it is over.

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