Bashar Assad is gone and Syria is finally free. However, I cannot be entirely happy about the long-awaited fall of his regime and the liberation of our country. That's because, like many Syrians, I have a gaping wound: My loved ones are still lost in Assad's prisons.

My soulmate and brother Yusuf disappeared in 2018 and I have been searching for him ever since.

Yusuf was once full of energy. His laugh would light up every room he stepped into. He loved music and dancing the dabuque. He raised pigeons and took care of them with all his heart and soul.

In August 2018, everything changed. The authorities accused him of participating in activities against the regime and detained his wife, forcing him to surrender.

Fearing they would harm his wife, he headed south to Suweida from the Rukban refugee camp where he lived. Somewhere along the way, he disappeared. I have been trying to find him every day since.

Over the years, I have pushed myself not to give up, not to lose hope. But I have nothing to hold on to. As the days passed, the last glimmer of hope I had left gradually disappeared.

Then, last month, after the regime fell, a short video of the newly liberated Suwayda prison reignited the fire in me. In the video, there is a man. His face, his posture, his fleeting smile were all identical to Yusuf's.

I played that clip over and over again. I sent it to my sisters. I sent it to Yusuf’s wife—to everyone who knew him and could confirm that it was indeed him.

Everyone who saw the video said the same thing: "It's him. It has to be him."

I wanted so badly to believe it was him. He is still alive. We will hug him again soon. I am hopeful again. But I'm also scared. What if we are wrong? What if this fragile hope crushes us again?

We have lived with uncertainty for a long time. Years of sleepless nights staring at pictures, years of empty chairs at the dinner table, years of unanswered prayers. For many years it was not known whether he was alive or dead.

For a long time, it seemed like there were no answers to our questions. Assad's prisons are impenetrable and the truth is locked behind concrete walls and barbed wire. Investigators are inaccessible, families of detainees like me get no answers, and the world moves on as if our pain doesn't exist and the fate of our loved ones doesn't matter. But now, with Assad out of office and prison doors open, we have a chance to reveal the truth—if we act quickly.

Now, as the doors of prisons and jails across the country are being unsealed, we're frantically searching through the chaos—digging for scraps of information, following rumors, looking for names scrawled on torn documents.

We cannot let this moment slip through our fingers.

So far, the search has been too slow, too disorganized and too inadequate. International organizations such as the International Committee of the Red Cross were supposed to collect evidence, provide humanitarian relief to prisoners of conscience and help them contact their families, but failed to come forward. They were absent when we needed help.

Every document, every trace of evidence that emerges from Assad's dungeon is a slice of life and a chance for closure for the long-suffering - a father's last words, a son's final whereabouts, a mother's fate. We must hold on to these traces, these impressions of life, because losing them is like losing someone we love all over again.

What we need today is for experts to get to work collecting, examining and preserving evidence – and we need to do this work urgently and meticulously so that we can find answers now and ultimately deliver justice in the years to come.

We, the relatives of the missing, cannot search alone. The trauma of not knowing where your loved one is, whether alive or dead, eats away at you. Limit your ability to continue fighting. Uncovering the truth about missing loved ones isn’t our only mission, either. As we search for our brothers, fathers, husbands, mothers, and sisters, we also work to find ways to rebuild, to care for children who have lost a parent, and to ensure that this pain does not consume the next generation.

Justice is not luxury; This is the only way we can begin to heal. There will be no peace without answers and accountability for those who orchestrated and carried out this nightmare.

I had to leave Syria after my brother disappeared. For years I couldn't go back and look for him, but now I finally can. Videos of Yusuf — or a man who looks a lot like him — gave me hope and reason to act. I am now returning to Syria, following every lead, asking questions that have eluded me for years, and entering places that were once blocked. This may be my only chance to find out if he is still alive, or if there is a grave where I can finally say goodbye.

But we, the families of the missing, cannot and should not do this alone. We need help, we need support. We need experts and specialists to lead the way.

The international community and the leaders of this fragile transition must not forget the detainees and their families as they forged a new path for our country. We have lived in silence for too long. Now, we demand what we deserve: answers, justice, and dignity.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial position of Al Jazeera.