GENEVA: Syrian families whose loved ones disappeared under ousted president Bashar Assad should not try to exhume their bodies themselves, which could prevent forensics experts from identifying them, the Red Cross said Tuesday.
After years of brutal conflict, families have an understandable urge to find and retrieve missing relatives’ bodies from formerly off-limits areas now that Assad has fled the country, but it is important to “follow all the steps correctly,” Christian Cardon, spokesman for the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), told AFP in an interview.
The issue of the missing is “central today, but also for the future,” with proper autopsies needed to “eventually pave the way for peace and reconciliation negotiations,” he said.
More than 100,000 people have disappeared during Syria’s civil war, according to rights groups. They say most of the disappearances came at the hands of Assad’s side, which was overpowered by an Islamist-led militant coalition, causing the long-time leader to flee the country Sunday.
As militants flooded into Damascus, images on social media showed dozens of emaciated men, some so weak they had to be carried, leaving the notorious Saydnaya prison, which Amnesty International has condemned as a “human slaughterhouse.”
With families searching for their missing loved ones, alive or dead, Cardon appealed to them to “respect cemeteries and other places where people may be buried.”
“Key forensic processes” must be followed so victims’ bodies can be identified, he added.
The Red Cross is also urging Syrians to “protect the registry documents in which thousands of prisoners’ names were recorded,” along with “thousands of people believed to be dead,” Cardon said.
“There’s a real urgency today to ensure that in administrative offices as well as prisons and detention centers across the country, people preserve and maintain that vital information.”
“Anyone in a position of authority in Syria today needs to make sure the different buildings are protected,” Cardon said.
The Red Cross is in touch with “influential actors” in the country, including Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS), the group that spearheaded the anti-Assad offensive, he said.
An ICRC team visited Saydnaya prison on Tuesday and “observed that many documents related to detainees held at the prison have been damaged and scattered in different rooms,” the organization said on X.
With thousands of prisoners now freed, the ICRC, which has around 500 staff in Syria, says it hopes to reunite as many families as possible using information gathered by its offices around the world over the years.
The organization has set up two hotlines, for both ex-prisoners (+963 953 555 431) and families seeking their loved ones (+963 936 033 628).
Its employees are also doing outreach on the ground in Syria to help families reunite.
It is a “puzzle” that will take time to complete, given that those involved have been through “major traumatic events,” said Cardon.
Red Cross urges Syrians not to exhume their own dead
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Red Cross urges Syrians not to exhume their own dead
- With families searching for their missing loved ones, alive or dead, Cardon appealed to them to “respect cemeteries and other places where people may be buried“
- “Key forensic processes” must be followed so victims’ bodies can be identified, he added
Syria Kurds impose curfew in Qamishli ahead of govt forces entry
- The curfew came after Syrian security personnel entered the mixed Kurdish-Arab city of Hasakah and the countryside around the Kurdish town of Kobani on Monday
QAMISHLI: Kurdish forces imposed a curfew on Kurdish-majority Qamishli in northeastern Syria on Tuesday, ahead of the deployment of government troops to the city, an AFP team reported.
The curfew came after Syrian security personnel entered the mixed Kurdish-Arab city of Hasakah and the countryside around the Kurdish town of Kobani on Monday, as part of a comprehensive agreement to gradually integrate the Kurds’ military and civilian institutions into the state.
The Kurds had ceded territory to advancing government forces in recent weeks.
An AFP correspondent saw Kurdish security forces deployed in Qamishli and found the streets empty of civilians and shops closed after the curfew came into effect early on Tuesday.
It will remain in force until 6:00 am (0300 GMT) on Wednesday.
The government convoy is expected to enter the city later on Tuesday and will include a limited number of forces and vehicles, according to Marwan Al-Ali, the Damascus-appointed head of internal security in Hasakah province.
The integration of Kurdish security forces into the interior ministry’s ranks will follow, he added.
Friday’s deal “seeks to unify Syrian territory,” including Kurdish areas, while also maintaining an ongoing ceasefire and introducing the “gradual integration” of Kurdish forces and administrative institutions, according to the text of the agreement.
It was a blow to the Kurds, who had sought to preserve the de facto autonomy they exercised after seizing vast areas of north and northeast Syria in battles against Daesh during the civil war, backed by a US-led coalition.
Mazloum Abdi, head of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), had previously said the deal would be implemented on the ground from Monday, with both sides to pull forces back from frontline positions in parts of the northeast, and from Kobani in the north.
He added that a “limited internal security force” would enter parts of Hasakah and Qamishli, but that “no military forces will enter any Kurdish city or town.”
