At a time when news is circulated almost daily about the discovery of mass graves in various areas of Syria dating back to the period of the previous regime, private sources revealed to Sweida Press the existence of three mass graves in “New Syria” where the bodies of dozens of civilians from Sweida were buried following the invasion by the Transitional Authority forces in mid-July .
Private sources to Sweida Press reveal the existence of three new mass graves exposing practices of mass killing and haphazard burial, raising questions about the fate and rights of the victims. This report highlights three new mass graves for dozens of victims who were kidnapped or disappeared during the Sweida invasion, in the areas of Izra’, Najha, and Adra, and reveals how justice is absent in dealing with the bodies of civilian victims.
Izra’: Haphazard Burial and Violation of Victims’ Rights
The mass grave in the Izra’ area in the eastern countryside of Daraa is the most concerning, as a mass burial of dozens of bodies took place there, most of which had been retrieved from Sweida during the July invasion. Among the information received by Sweida Press is that some victims were wounded and were executed on the spot at a “medical evacuation” point in the Busr al-Harir area during those events.
According to private sources, about 50 corpses were buried in the Izra’ area in a haphazard and unprofessional manner, without any legal supervision. Photos obtained by Sweida Press show the bodies before burial, indicating that the burial of these bodies occurred in the first days of the invasion. What is concerning is that this burial process was carried out without any notable procedures to preserve the rights of the victims or document their identities. This raises question marks about the nature of dealing with the bodies.
Two Graves in Najha and Adra
In contrast to the haphazard burial process in Izra’, mass burials were carried out in the Najha and Adra areas in the Damascus countryside under the supervision of the “Center for the Identification of the Missing.” This center is responsible for registering unidentified bodies. The center’s page introduces itself via Facebook as the official page approved by the General Authority of Forensic Medicine to work on completing the file of the missing and unidentified bodies in Syria.
The center provides a WhatsApp number for communication and displays photos of unidentified bodies. Since last July, the Facebook page has been publishing photos it says are of unidentified bodies or of decomposed clothing from bodies from the “Sweida events.” It confirms in some of its posts that the bodies are buried without specifying their burial location.
The sources also confirm that among the bodies buried in the two mass graves in Najha and Adra, there are 39 charred bodies. Forensic medicine documented photos of the victims’ jaws, as a means through which the bodies’ identities could be identified later.
This prompted the Identification Center to publish a post on October 8th, “A number of charred, unidentified bodies of victims of the Sweida events have been buried in graves for unidentified bodies, but their records exist at the Identification Center. They cannot be identified through descriptions or clothing; identification is exclusively through teeth until DNA labs are prepared.”
Sweida Press contacted the number provided by the Identification Center to obtain statements and clarifications. The owner of the number refused to make any press statements and said he could only assist in the process of searching for the bodies.
Burial of Bodies Using Illegal Mechanisms and Exorbitant Financial Costs
A resident of the town of Najran, whose brother was among the missing, spoke to Sweida Press about his experience trying to identify his brother’s body. After seeing a photo of the body at the Identification Center in the Al-Zahira area of Damascus, he was informed that it was buried in a mass grave in Najha, where he was provided with the body number.
But when he went to the Al-Mazzah police station to complete the procedures for transferring the body to Sweida, he was surprised that the required cost was 14 million lira (about $1,300), a huge amount difficult for most families to pay. This exorbitant cost raises questions about the financial exploitation of victims’ families.
What happened in mass burial operations cannot be viewed in isolation from the broader context of the conflict. Operations of enforced disappearance and haphazard burial of victims are repeated in a manner indicative of a systematic policy targeting civilians on a sectarian basis, which reflects fully-fledged war crimes.
The Geneva Conventions and the Haphazard Burial of Bodies
Article 17 of the Fourth Geneva Convention emphasizes the necessity of burying bodies in a manner that preserves their dignity and is carried out in appropriate places, and demands special protection for the rights of the dead in occupied territories or in conflict areas.
Meanwhile, the practices of haphazard burial of bodies appear as one of the most heinous humanitarian violations that abuse the dignity of victims and deepen their suffering. The Geneva Conventions, which represent the legal basis for the protection of civilians in armed conflicts, set clear standards regarding the treatment of bodies and the rights of victims, obliging the warring parties to document the bodies, respect the identities of the victims, and bury them in appropriate places that ensure the preservation of their dignity.
The haphazard burial of bodies in the Izra’ area, as documented in this investigation, is not only a blatant violation of international law but also constitutes a war crime under the Geneva Conventions and the protocols of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. When victims’ bodies are buried without documentation or knowledge of their burial place, this constitutes an enforced disappearance that reflects a blatant disregard for human rights and deprives families of knowing the fate of their loved ones.