“Syria’s Stolen Children” Investigation by SIRAJ and International Partners Wins Sigma Award
SIRAJ – Paris
The cross-border investigative project “Syria’s Stolen Children: How the Assad Regime Turned Detainees’ Children into Hostages Between Intelligence Agencies and Orphanages” has won the 2026 Sigma Award for Data Journalism, presented by the Global Investigative Journalism Network (GIJN).
The investigation was selected among only 18 winning projects out of 543 submissions from 84 countries worldwide.
The Arabic version published by the Syrian Investigative Reporting for Accountability Journalism – SIRAJ was produced by journalists Ali Al Ibrahim, Ahmed Haj Hamdo, Mohammed Bassiki, Charlotte Alfred, Monica C. Camacho, Lynzy Billing, and Haya Al Badarneh, alongside an international team of reporters, editors, and researchers.
The investigation revealed, for the first time, a secret system operated by Syrian intelligence agencies under Bashar al-Assad’s rule, in which children of detainees were forcibly hidden inside orphanages and care institutions in order to pressure, intimidate, and extort their families.
Over nine months of investigative work, the team — led by SIRAJ alongside Lighthouse Reports, BBC World Service, DER SPIEGEL, Women Win War, The Observer, Trouw, and Sout — built a verified database documenting more than 323 children transferred from intelligence branches to care institutions, while families are still searching for at least 3,700 missing children.
According to the Sigma Awards jury, the investigation’s strength lies in “its ability to connect scattered records and personal stories into a clear and coherent pattern, transforming fragmented evidence into solid proof and making a hidden system visible.”
The investigation relied on thousands of official documents issued by the Ministry of Social Affairs, Air Force Intelligence, and orphanages, in addition to archived records, transfer orders, and security correspondence. The team also conducted more than 100 interviews with families, employees, whistleblowers, and former officials, while analyzing open-source material, legal files, and human rights documentation.
This award represents new international recognition of SIRAJ’s role in producing cross-border investigative journalism that exposes complex violations and documents crimes committed against Syrians through evidence-based reporting, data analysis, field testimonies, and long-term collaborative journalism.
The investigation was published in four languages: Arabic, English, German, and Dutch.
