The medics identifying remains from Syria’s mass graves

Dr. Anas Al-Hourani says, “These are from the mixed lumps.”

The head of the new Syrian Identification Center stands next to two tables covered with femur. Each laminated white dining table has 32 human thigh bones. They are neatly aligned and numbered.

Sort is the first task of this new link, from Syria’s crime to definition. “Mixed mass tomb” means that the body is thrown over another person.

This bone is likely to belong to hundreds of thousands of people who are considered to have been killed by President Bashar Al-Assad and his father Hafez, who have ruled Syria for more than 50 years.

Then Dr. Al-Hourani says. They said they were one of the recent victims. They did not die a year ago.

Dr. Al-Hourani is a scholar of forensic medicine. Teeth can tell much more about the body, at least when they identify who are people.

But with the femur, the laboratory workers in the basement of this squat Gray office building in Damascus can begin their tasks. They can learn high, gender, age, or any kind of job. They will also see if the victim was tortured.

The gold standard of identification is, of course, DNA analysis. But he says there is only one DNA inspection center in Syria. Many people were destroyed during the North -South War in this country. “Because of sanctions, many precursor chemicals needed for testing are not available now.”

It also received information that “part of the instrument can be used for aviation and military purposes.” In other words, they can be considered “double use” and are defined by many Western countries from exports to Syria.

Additional cost: $ 250 (£ 187) for a single test. And Dr. Al-Hourani says, “You must do about 20 tests to collect all parts of the body in the mixed mass tomb.” This laboratory entirely depends on the financing of the International Red Temple Committee.

The Runner government, which has turned into a new Islamic rebel, says they are one of their priorities that they call “transitional definitions.”

Many Syrians who lost their relatives and lost all traces said they were frustrated without being impressed by the BBC. They finally want to see more people’s efforts Bashar Al-ASSAD pursued in power Last December after the 13 years of war.

During that long conflict, hundreds of thousands were killed and millions of people moved. And one estimation shows that more than 130,000 people have been forced to disappear.

At the current speed, it can take a few months to identify only one victim from the mixed mass tomb. Dr. Al-Hourani says, “This will be the years for years.”

Eleven of the “mixed mass tombs” teared around the beautiful and barren hill outside Damascus. The BBC is the first international media to see this site. The grave is quite noticeable now. For several years they dug, their surface sank to dry and stoney Earth.

Together with us, Hussein Alawi Al-Manfi or Abu Ali is also calling themselves. He was a driver of the Syrian army. Abu Ali said, “The refractory was the human body.”

This small man with salt and pepper beard was traced by the tireless investigation of Syria Emergency Task Force Syrian, a US -based advocacy group. He persuaded Abu Ali to witness Mois as “the worst crime of the 21st century.”

Abu Ali has transported trucks to several places for more than 10 years. In this position, he came on average for average two years for about two years when the protests began between 2011 and 2013.

Everyday was always the same. He headed for military or security installation. “There was 16m (52 ​​feet) trailer. It’s not always filled with visor. But each load will have an average of 150 to 200 bodies.”

In his cargo, he said they were convinced that they were civilians. Their bodies were “messed up and tortured.” The only identification he can see was the number of times written in the body or attached to the chest or forehead. The numbers have identified their dead place.

He said there was a lot of things in “215”, a notorious military information detention center of Damascus, known as “Governor 215” in “215”. This is a place to visit again.

Abu Ali’s trailer did not have hydraulic lifts. When he backed up to the trench, the soldiers pulled the body into the hole. Then the front loader tractor said, “Flat it, compress and fill the grave.”

In the neighboring village, three men with weathered faces arrived. They support this remote story about a regular visit to military trucks.

And the man behind the wheels about the following: can you do this every year every year? What did he tell him every time he went up to a taxi?

Abu Ali said he learned how to be a mute of a state. “You can’t say good or bad words.”

When the soldiers threw the corpse in the newly excavated pit, he said, “I just leave and see the stars or look at Damascus.”

Damascus is a place where Malak Aude recently returned to Turkey a few years later. Syria may have been freed from the choke hold of the dynasty of assads. Malak is still sentenced to life.

In the last 13 years, she has been trapped in everyday life and craving. It was in 2012, a year after some of the Syrians dared to protest the president.

Mohammed was still a teenager when the protests spread and the deadly crackdown of the regime caused war.

He hated what he was seeing, mother says. Mohammed began cutting and even went to the demo. But he tracked.

“They broke their arms and hit their backs,” she said. “He spent three days unconsciously in the hospital.”

Mohammed went back to AWOL. Malak said, “I reported that he lost him.” But I was hiding him. ”

In May 2012, the 19 -year -old Mohamed luck has fallen. He was caught with a friend group. They were shot. Malak said there was no official notification. But she always assumed that he was killed.

Six months later, Mohammed’s younger brother Maho was taken from school by officers. It was the second arrest of Maher. He went to a 14 -year -old protest in 2011. As a result, the first arrest continued. A month later, he said that when he was out of detention, he was wearing underwear, and his mother had tobacco burns, wounds and teeth. “He was terrified.”

Malak believes that Maher has lost in school because Maher lost at school in 2012, because she found her hiding her brother. For the first time in 13 years, Malak is desperate to return to the school and get a clue about what happened to Maher.

The new principal produces two assaulted red ledgers. Malak tracks the line of the name with his fingers and then finds his son’s name. In December 2012, according to the record, Maher was excluded from school because he had not been in class for two weeks.

There is no explanation that it has disappeared. But there is something else. A folder with Maher’s school record was found. Its cover is decorated with a photograph of a wise Basha Le Al-Assad, looking at the streets carefully. Malak picks up a pen from the principal’s desk and graffiti on the photo. Six months ago, the gesture could be fatal.

The only scraps that Malak had to obsess for several years were two people who said they saw MAher in “Branch 215”. It is the same military detention center as Abu Ali produced many corpses for transportation.

One of the witnesses told Malak that her boy told her about her parents. It was definitely that person. “He asked him to tell me that he was doing well.” Mryarah sheds tears and leaks and puts less tattered tissue on the corners of the eyes.

Like many Syrians, the fall of Malak was not just a day of joy, but a hope. “I thought Maher had a 90%chance of coming out of prison. I was waiting for him.”

But she could not find his son’s name in the prison list. So the hardship of pain continues through her. “I’m lost and confused,” she says.

Her younger brother, Mahmoud, was killed in 2013 by dismissing tanks to civilians.

“At least he had a funeral.”