BEIRUT — A rights group accused
Syrian government forces Monday of burning bodies inside pits in an effort to make the
corpses unidentifiable — the latest in a slew of accusations of crimes by
Damascus.
اضافة اعلان
“This may reflect a broader practice of the Syrian
government to destroy evidence of their crimes and deny the families of their
victims their right to know the fates of their loved ones or receive their
remains,” the Washington-based Syrian Center for Justice and Accountability
claimed in a report.
Since the start of Syria’s civil in 2011 that began
with the government repression of protesters, Syrian authorities have been
accused of torturing detainees to death, of rape, sexual assaults, and
extrajudicial executions.
The NGO analyzed videos dating back to 2012 and 2013
that showed bodies burnt and transferred into mass graves in the southern
province of Daraa, and crosschecked them with satellite imagery monitoring the
trucks transporting the bodies.
Four videos show armed men transporting at least 15
bodies. They documented their identities, dumped them in a pit, then poured
gasoline and set them on fire.
In one of the video clips, an officer is seen
photographing the faces of the dead before another one poured gasoline on the
face and hands, before kicking a body into a pit and setting it on fire.
“This process is
repeated for every single body in the exact same order, indicating the
systematic nature of the practice and suggesting that this may not be the only
time this group of officials has carried out such an operation,” the NGO said.
The NGO believes that the 15 bodies belong to
civilians and army defectors shot dead by government forces during a house raid
in Daraa in December 2012.
The center obtained the video clips from an activist
who said that he received them from an government opposition group who ambushed
and killed the soldiers who burned the bodies.
Reports published in The Guardian and New Lines
Magazine emerged in April, revealing that government forces allegedly killed
dozens of people in the Damascus suburb of Al-Tadamon in 2013.
The Guardian report included footage of a Syrian
soldier appearing to order blindfolded civilians with their hands tied to run.
As soon as they bolted, soldiers appeared to riddle
their bodies with bullets and they fell into a pit. Forty-one men were killed
and their bodies later set on fire.
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