Muazzez Kerricha, 82, who was forced to choose between her two children during the 1982 Hama Massacre in Syria, has never heard from her brother since the massacre.

For decades, the Baath regime banned any mention of the massacre, but after 61 years of Baath rule ended in December 2024, survivors have begun to break their silence.

Regime forces raided homes and rounded up boys over the age of 15, forcing Kerricha to choose between her two sons. Not wanting to lose both at once, she gave up her eldest, Majid, to protect his younger brother.

Majid returned home 13 years later, only to find that his father had died.

Kerricha said the attacks on Hama began the evening of February 2, 1982, the day her family returned from Aleppo.

"I was so afraid that they would slaughter my children," she said. "The attacks started in the evening. The windows were shaking from the intense tank attacks. We went down to the basement and piled soil and books behind the door."

She said they first heard airplanes overhead, and on the second day of the massacre, tanks began shelling homes.

'Hardest' moment

She described how the army's 47th Division detained young men when they entered the city centre, calling the moment she was forced to give up her son "the hardest" of her life.

"When they entered our neighbourhood, they took our young men, too. I begged them, pleading to take only one of my two sons. Because I sensed they would execute them," she said.

"I gave up one of my children. Otherwise, they would have killed both. I gave up one son so they wouldn't kill both."

Kerricha said members of the Defence Battalions, affiliated with Rifaat Assad, also detained her husband during the raids.

Kerricha said she left her house on the third day of the attacks to look for her brother's daughter.

"When they let us out of the house, we saw many things. We saw them killing people. The east of Omar ibn Khattab Mosque was full of dead bodies."

Brother's sacrifice

Her son, Majid Rammal, now 65, said that before the army came to their house, they were watching what was happening outside from the basement window.

"From there, we saw them killing unarmed civilians. They killed our neighbour Hatim's son with a tank shot."

Rammal said they were unable to move.

"Only those who lived it know this fear. I sacrificed myself so that my mother could save my brother. When they took us away, I was thinking where they would execute us," he said.

He said they were taken by military vehicle to a porcelain factory on the road to Homs, about 44 kilometres south of Hama.

"It was very scary in the factory. The place resembled a horror movie. They tortured people until they killed them. They gouged out the eyes of Hikmet Hani, an ophthalmologist, with a piece of iron and executed him an hour later."

Rammal said he was held in the factory for a month.

"We would enter the interrogation with 10 people and leave with three… During the interrogation, they accused us of being armed people. Their accusations were ready, they accused everyone of this. I did not accept these accusations."

Rammal said he was later transferred to Tadmor Prison, where he was tortured for 13 years.

End of Baath regime

With the fall of al Assad regime, survivors are now openly demanding justice for those killed and missing in the massacre.

After anti-regime forces took full control of Damascus on December 8, 2024, following victories across multiple cities, they established reconciliation centres for former regime members to surrender.

However, some refused, leading to clashes in various provinces.

The Baath Party's 61-year rule — and al Assad family's 53-year grip on power — officially ended with the opposition’s takeover of Syria's capital.