A new report on alleged war crimes committed by the Syrian regime in August of 2012 reads like a horror movie script.
In one city alone, 700 people were brutally murdered, with imprisonment, enforced disappearances, torture, pillaging and intentional attacks against civilians, protected persons and objects also said to have been committed.
The report by the Syrian British Consortium advocacy group, which hopes the United Nations will use its findings, was put together by Syrian investigators who tirelessly interviewed survivors of the attack by Bashar al-Assad’s forces on the city of Daraya near Damascus. The attack between Aug. 24-26, 2012 saw militants essentially hunting down civilians door-to-door, killing indiscriminately, and leaving a wake of carnage.
One witness told the investigators, “Everyone was screaming, saying, ‘Save this person or he will die.’ Entering the hospital meant that you were going to see people dying.”
“I still remember the people’s cries; everyone was calling the name of their loved one … I remember wondering whether some people were dead or alive because they had stopped screaming,” the witness said.
Another witness from a hospital remembered the vivid color of death. “The hospital floor, which had been white, became entirely red from blood,” the witness told the investigators. “We tried to mop it a little just to remove the red color. I would walk past the bodies lining the floor of the hospital to see if anyone was alive or if there was anyone from my family.”
The group also interviewed a number of grave diggers tasked with burying the dead. “They were buried in the clothes that they were killed in and were [just] wrapped in blankets,” one person said. “Many had bullets to the eye, ear or head. Some were slaughtered, including by machetes. Most were killed by gun fire, a few were burned.”
Many of the survivors said they cooperated with investigators writing the report to make sure the slaughter is not forgotten. “It is very important for our children to learn our history,” one woman survivor said. “Maybe future generations can learn from what happened to us. There are more of those who we love laid in the ground than living above it.”
Though the attack happened a decade, and several other battles ago, including the Taliban’s retaking of Afghanistan and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the report is widely seen as crucial documentation of an atrocity committed under Assad, who is still enjoying power.
Attempts to bring his regime in front of a U.N. tribunal are consistently vetoed by Russia and China for obvious reasons. “There is no doubt that the August 2012 Daraya assault remains a sorrowful event in the collective memories of victims and witnesses,” the report states. “This report documents these collective experiences to be kept as a historical record, with the hope that justice will one day be served.”
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