Since the fall of Damascus on December 8 and the flight of Bashar al-Assad, thousands of people have been searching for their loved ones, sometimes missing for years after ending up in the hands of the regime’s forces. Most worry about finding them dead, buried with dozens of other people in mass graves or behind prison walls. This Wednesday, November 25, the imagined horror seems to be taking shape: according to a White Helmets rescuer and an activist in Syria, a probable mass grave was unearthed during the day, containing the bones of detainees imprisoned by Bashar’s forces al-Assad or fighters killed during the conflict.
A team of journalists confirms having seen on Wednesday, on a wasteland about thirty kilometers northeast of Damascus, pits lined up next to each other, forming a trench more than a meter deep, each covered with concrete slabs that have been moved. In this area of Jisr Baghdad, several bags were visible in a grave, some bearing the inscription of a name or the words “13 – grave number”. In a bag, a journalist saw a human skull and bones.
“We think it’s a mass grave. We found an open vault with seven bags full of bones.explains Abdel Rahmane Mawas, a White Helmets rescuer whose teams visited the site in recent days. These bags – six of which had a name – were “transferred to a safe place”he added, specifying that “DNA tests” will be carried out. He assures that if “other vaults were opened, it is probable that civilians came there. But we must move away from the mass graves and let the competent authorities deal with them”.
“It will be a long road before we find out who is buried”
Since the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime, under the influence of an offensive by armed Islamist groups that entered Damascus on December 8, the new authorities and residents around the capital have begun to identify sites that would house graves. communities. The fate of tens of thousands of prisoners and missing people constitutes one of the most painful aspects of the Syrian tragedy, in a country torn apart by 13 years of a devastating war which left more than half a million dead.
The Jisr Baghdad site is located about twenty kilometers from the town of Sednaya, housing the formidable prison of the same name, which has become a symbol of the worst abuses inflicted by the regime. Diab Serriya, co-founder of the Association of Detainees and Missing of Sednaya Prison (ADMSP), says he first learned of the site in 2019, via “the testimony of a deserter from the intelligence services”. “This mass grave probably contains detainees, but also former fighters of the regime or the opposition killed during the fightinghe assures. The bags of bones may have been transported from other mass graves. It will be a long road before we find out who is buried.”
Mohamed Ali, deputy president of the municipal council of the locality of Adra, a few kilometers from Jisr Baghdad, assures that the inhabitants knew nothing about the site, located near a Syrian army position. And for good reason: “It was forbidden to approach it or take photos because it was a military zone.”
Source: www.liberation.fr
