Journalist Shane Bauer’s investigation for The New York Times Magazine chronicles how Bashar al-Assad’s regime made an estimated 100,000 Syrians—children among them—vanish over the country’s 13-year civil war. The figure represents the largest wave of forced disappearances since the Nazi era.

Despite efforts by Syria’s Islamist-led government to enforce a ceasefire, the Druze region of Sweida remains engulfed in violence. Machinegun fire and mortar shelling continued after days of bloodshed, as Reuters reporters observed firsthand.