A wave of high-profile fundraising campaigns has swept across Syria in recent weeks, promoted as a sign of self-reliance and national solidarity. Yet some pledges have provoked anger rather than applause—an outcome the organisers likely did not anticipate. The backlash, however, was hardly surprising, given that the contributions came from the family of Assad crony Mohammed Hamsho—one of the regime’s most recognisable figures.
Hamsho’s sons were anything but discreet. They appeared in person at the high-profile launch of the Syrian Development Fund—an event attended by President Ahmed al-Sharaa and senior officials, where they publicly announced their pledge. The $2.1mn donation—made at that event and another just two weeks later—was quickly condemned as a brazen attempt to launder the family’s reputation, long tarnished by war profiteering and by serving as financial proxies for Maher al-Assad.
The uproar has reignited questions about how the transitional authorities are dealing with figures tied to the former regime, and whether backroom deals are being struck out of public view. The government’s silence over why the Hamsho family was granted such visibility has only fuelled suspicion. This lack of transparency does more than erode public trust; it risks undermining the very message the authorities are trying to project: that Syria’s transition marks a decisive break from the shadows of its past.
The controversy erupted with the launch of the Syrian Development Fund in Damascus on 4 September, which raised more than $61mn in just one hour.
But Hamsho’s sons stole the spotlight, triggering an initial outcry. Activists from neighbourhoods flattened by Assad’s forces recalled how Hamsho-linked companies allegedly scavenged steel from destroyed homes. Others pointed to US and EU sanctions that long branded Hamsho as a key financier of al-Assad’s repression, warning that rehabilitating such figures could poison Syria’s fragile economic recovery before it begins.
