Syrian NGOs uncovering Daesh mass graves need help: HRW
beirut — Activists working to uncover mass graves in northeastern Syria — a region until recently controlled by the Daesh group — need help to preserve evidence, identify human remains and shed more light on the unspeakable horrors perpetrated by the militants during their reign there, an international watchdog said on Tuesday.
Human Rights Watch said thousands of bodies — both of civilian victims brutally slain by the extremists and of Daesh fighters themselves — remain to be recovered in several mass graves scattered around the city of Raqqa and nearby areas. According to remnants of clothing on them, some of the bodies already found are thought to be of Daesh militants.
The appeal came in a new report released Tuesday by the New Yorkbased group.
Local members of the Raqqa Civil Council are “struggling to cope with the logistical challenges of collecting and organising information” on the bodies uncovered and providing it to families searching for missing or dead relatives, HRW said.
Raqqa was the extremists’ de facto capital and the seat of their self-proclaimed caliphate — from which Daesh ruled the territories it controlled — lands that at the height of the militants power in 2014 amounted to a third of both Syria and Iraq.
The extremist group, which attracted fighters from around the world, ruled the area with a mix of terror, fear and brutality. It carried out atrocities and mass killings, often in public beheadings, burning, drowning or blowing up victims who were strapped with explosives beforehand. Women and men under Daesh rule who were charged with adultery were stoned to death, while gay men were thrown from the tops of buildings, their crushed bodies subsequently pounded with stones.
US-backed Syrian Kurdish-led fighters and Syrian government forces have captured most of the once Daesh-controlled lands in Syria and the extremists are now squeezed in small patches, scattered in eastern Syria. Human Rights Watch underscored that identifying missing people and preserving evidence for possible prosecutions is critical for Syria’s future. “Raqqa city has at least nine mass graves, each one estimated to have dozens, if not hundreds, of bodies, making exhumations a monumental task,” said Priyanka Motaparthy, acting emergencies director at HRW.
“Without the right technical assistance, these exhumations may not provide families with the answers they have been waiting for and could damage or destroy evidence crucial to future justice efforts,” she added.
In its report, HRW said that on June 12, the first responders team in Raqqa finished uncovering one mass grave containing of 553 bodies and reburying them in a local graveyard after logging in their identifying information. —