Exclusive: Children among 547 detained Syrians declared dead - rights monitor

FILE PHOTO: People hold portraits and a placard during a protest as around 300 landline telephones placed by Syrian families stand at the Bebelplatz as a call to governments to do more to seek information about detained people in Syria, in Berlin, Germany August 28, 2021. REUTERS/Hannibal Hanschke

BEIRUT (Reuters) - Ever since Yehya Hijazi and his two sons were detained in 2012 by the Syrian government, their relatives had clung onto the hope they were still alive and might be released one day.

But after a decade of silence from the authorities, their hopes were shattered when the independent Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR) monitoring group contacted the Hijazi family to tell them it had obtained death certificates for all three.