Relatives of Syria’s disappeared seek closure in Damascus morgues

Relatives of Syria’s disappeared seek closure in Damascus morgues
A woman shows the photograph of a missing person as people come to try to identify relatives among bodies bearing signs of torture found the previous day, on Dec. 10, 2024, at the morgue of a hospital in Damascus. (AFP)
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Updated 11 December 2024
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Relatives of Syria’s disappeared seek closure in Damascus morgues

Relatives of Syria’s disappeared seek closure in Damascus morgues
  • No such closure was within reach for Yasmine Shabib, 37, who still could not locate her brother or father, both arrested in 2013
  • Having failed to locate her son, a mother comes out, her hand bloodstained from the bodies she inspected

DAMASCUS: In the corridors of Damascus’s main hospitals, thousands of families have gathered for the foreboding mission of trying to find the bodies of loved ones captured years ago by the Syrian authorities.
“Where are our children?” women cried out as they grasped at the walls, desperate for closure after their years-long ordeal.
But no such closure was within reach for Yasmine Shabib, 37, who still could not locate her brother or father, both arrested in 2013.
Having traveled for more than four hours from the northwestern city of Idlib, the victorious militants’ wartime base, she had little hope of finding them alive.
But at very least, she hoped she would not leave without their bodies.
“Just open the prison vaults for us, we will search ourselves among the corpses,” she said in tears.
“They buried the people everywhere, not just in Saydnaya. There are Saydnayas everywhere under our feet in Syria,” she added, referring to Syria’s most notoriously brutal prison, dubbed a “slaughterhouse” by human rights groups.
Outside the hospital, voices echo.
“Does anyone recognize body number nine?” a doctor calls out to a group of families as a phone is passed around between them, the picture of a corpse lighting up the screen.
Every once in a while, someone recognizes a loved one, and the body is summarily brought out of the morgue to be taken to another mortuary freezer, where the family can finally confirm whether it is one of their own.
Having failed to locate her son, a mother comes out, her hand bloodstained from the bodies she inspected.
“Their blood is still fresh,” she said trying to catch her breath.
Pathologist Yasser Al-Qassem confirms: “We still don’t know the dates or causes of death for the bodies arriving from Harasta,” a suburb of Damascus where another morgue is located.
“But one thing is certain, these deaths are recent.”
As soon as he heard that Bashar Assad had fled, Nabil Hariri rushed to Damascus from his southern hometown Daraa to search for his brother.
Arrested in 2014 when he was just 13, Hariri had had no news of his brother since.
“When you’re drowning, you cling to anything,” Hariri, 39, told AFP.
“So we search everywhere.”
He was among the thousands of desperate relatives who gathered outside Saydnaya on Tuesday, hoping that his brother was among the thousands of prisoners freed after Assad’s fall.
“I didn’t find my brother there,” he said.
At dawn on Wednesday, there was a brief resurgence of hope when he heard that 35 bodies were arriving from Harasta. The hospital morgue there was used as a staging post for the bodies of prisoners who died of maltreatment, hunger or illness before they were buried in mass graves.
But that hope was swiftly dashed.
“In all the photos, the bodies were old,” he said. “My brother is young.”
Syria’s new militant authorities announced that they had found bodies in the Harasta morgue.
After opening the white body bags, militant official Mohammed Al-Hajj took video that he later showed to AFP.
The footage showed bodies bearing signs of torture — one without an eye, another without any teeth, a third covered in dried blood.
Another body bag simply contained bones, while yet another held the remains of a flayed corpse, its ribcage poking out from the flesh.
Harasta “is one of the main centers where bodies from Saydnaya or Tishrin,” another notorious prison, “were gathered before being buried in mass graves,” said Diab Seria, a member of the Association of Detainees and Missing Persons of Sednaya Prison.
Khaled Hamza found no traces of his son at Harasta, Saydnaya or the Damascus hospital.
But he has no intention of giving up, having stumbled across documents at the prison containing information about the detainees, which he then gathered and handed over to the new police authorities.
“We are millions searching for our children,” the taxi driver said. “We ask just one thing: are they alive or dead?“


Aid agencies ready Gaza push but warn of mammoth obstacles

Aid agencies ready Gaza push but warn of mammoth obstacles
Updated 9 sec ago
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Aid agencies ready Gaza push but warn of mammoth obstacles

Aid agencies ready Gaza push but warn of mammoth obstacles
  • On the ground in the territory, aid workers worry nothing will be enough to meet the need
  • World Food Programme has enough food for one million people ‘waiting outside Gaza or on its way’
CAIRO: An Israel-Hamas ceasefire deal expected to take effect on Sunday has sparked hope for life-saving aid to reach Palestinians, but aid agencies warn of obstacles from destroyed infrastructure, massive need and collapsed law and order.
Announcing the truce, United States President Joe Biden said on Wednesday it would “surge much needed humanitarian assistance to Palestinian civilians.”
The United Nations’ humanitarian chief Tom Fletcher called it “a moment of hope and opportunity” but said “we should be under no illusions how tough it will still be to get support to survivors.”
On the ground in the territory, where nearly all 2.4 million people have been displaced at least once, aid workers worry nothing will be enough to meet the need.
“Everything has been destroyed. Children are on the streets. You can’t pinpoint just one priority,” Doctors Without Borders (MSF) coordinator Amande Bazerolle said by phone from Gaza.
Speaking from the southern Gaza city of Khan Yunis, Mohammed Al-Khatib, of Medical Aid for Palestinians, said local aid workers haven’t stopped for 15 months even though they themselves are displaced.
“Everyone is exhausted,” he said.
In the hunger-stricken makeshift shelters set up in former schools, bombed-out houses and cemeteries, hundreds of thousands lack even plastic sheeting to protect from winter rains and biting winds, Gavin Kelleher, of the Norwegian Refugee Council, said.
Even if the bombs stop, agencies like his have to focus on the basics of emergency response, including bringing in “tarpaulins, rope and fixtures to close gaping holes” in buildings.
“At least until we stop seeing children dying of hypothermia,” he said via text message from Gaza.
By last week, hypothermia had killed at least eight people – four newborns, three infants and one adult – according to a health ministry toll used by the World Health Organization.
On Wednesday, Egypt’s state-linked Al-Qahera News reported coordination was underway to reopen the Rafah crossing on the Gaza border. It was one of the main humanitarian entry points but has been closed since Israeli forces seized the Palestinian side in May.
The truce is based on a plan Biden presented in mid-2024 that foresaw a surge in aid to 600 trucks per day, or more than eight times the December average reported by the United Nations.
The World Food Programme said Thursday it had enough food for one million people “waiting outside Gaza or on its way.”
On the Egyptian side of the border, a source in the Egyptian Red Crescent said up to 1,000 trucks are waiting “for their entry into Gaza.”
But with air strikes continuing to pound the territory, where aid groups and the UN have regularly accused Israel of impeding aid flows – which Israeli denies – aid workers were skeptical.
MSF’s Bazerolle said the promise of hundreds of trucks a day “is not even feasible technically.”
“Since Rafah has been destroyed, the infrastructure is not there to be able to cope with that level of logistics,” she explained, with bombs audible in the background.
Aid that does arrive is subject to looting by both armed gangs and desperate civilians.
“The Israelis have targeted the police, so there’s no one to protect the shipments” from looting, which Bazerolle said will continue “as long as there’s not enough aid entering.”
After more than a year of the “systematic dismantling of the rule of law” in Gaza, NRC’s Kelleher called for “the resumption of a Palestinian civilian police force.”
The situation is especially dire in northern Gaza.
Bazerolle, who says MSF missions in the area have been targeted by Israel, says the group hopes to send teams to the north “to at least treat patients where they are,” in the absence of hospitals.
According to the WHO, only one hospital, Al-Awda, is partially functioning in the north.
WHO’s Rik Peeperkorn said that, in addition to hospital capacity, his agency will focus on “the very basic things” including water, electricity and waste management systems in Gaza.
Still, the displaced will hope to head back – including Khatib himself – if the truce holds.
Many, he said, “will return to find their entire neighborhoods destroyed” and without food or shelter.
“People aren’t even talking about rebuilding their houses, but just the most basic essential needs,” he continued.
“We’re closing one chapter of suffering and opening a new one,” he predicted, before adding: “At least there is some hope of the bloodshed ending.”

WHO upbeat on scaling up aid under Gaza ceasefire terms

WHO upbeat on scaling up aid under Gaza ceasefire terms
Updated 1 min 22 sec ago
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WHO upbeat on scaling up aid under Gaza ceasefire terms

WHO upbeat on scaling up aid under Gaza ceasefire terms
  • The WHO plans to bring in an unspecified number of prefabricated hospitals to support Gaza’s decimated health sector, he added

GENEVA: A World Health Organization official said on Friday that it should be possible to scale up aid imports into Gaza massively to around 600 trucks a day under the terms of a ceasefire deal.
“I think the possibility is very much there and specifically when other crossings will be opened up,” Rik Peeperkorn, WHO representative for the Occupied Palestinian Territory, told a Geneva press briefing.
The WHO plans to bring in an unspecified number of prefabricated hospitals to support Gaza’s decimated health sector, he added.


First Syria visit by an EU official since Assad’s fall

First Syria visit by an EU official since Assad’s fall
Updated 17 January 2025
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First Syria visit by an EU official since Assad’s fall

First Syria visit by an EU official since Assad’s fall
  • Syrian state news agency SANA published images of Lahbib with the country’s new leader Ahmed Al-Sharaa

Damascus: EU crisis management chief Hadja Lahbib on Friday became the first European Union official to visit Syria since Islamist-led forces toppled longtime ruler Bashar Assad last month.
Syrian state news agency SANA published images of Lahbib with the country’s new leader Ahmed Al-Sharaa, reporting he was meeting with “a delegation from the European Commission” headed by the EU official.


South Sudan president urges ‘restraint’ after looting in capital

South Sudan president urges ‘restraint’ after looting in capital
Updated 17 January 2025
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South Sudan president urges ‘restraint’ after looting in capital

South Sudan president urges ‘restraint’ after looting in capital
  • South Sudan President Salva Kiir has urged restraint after an anti-Sudanese demonstration in the capital Juba degenerated into looting

JUBA: South Sudan President Salva Kiir has urged restraint after an anti-Sudanese demonstration in the capital Juba degenerated into looting.
Police fired warning shots on Thursday after protesters pillaged Sudanese-owned shops during a demonstration against the reported deaths of 29 South Sudanese citizens in Wad Madani, the capital of Sudan’s Al-Jazira State.
AFP has not been able to independently verify the reported deaths.
South Sudan, the world’s youngest country, gained independence from Sudan in 2011.
It faces chronic instability, violence and extreme poverty, lately exacerbated by some of the worst flooding in decades and a massive influx of refugees fleeing the war in Sudan.
“We must not allow anger to cloud our judgment, and individuals fleeing violence deserve protection,” Kiir’s office said in a statement late Thursday.
“I call on all of you to exercise restraint and allow the government of South Sudan and Sudan to address this matter.”
Since April 2023, a war between the Sudanese army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) has killed tens of thousands, uprooted more than 12 million people and pushed hundreds of thousands into famine.
Both sides have been accused of targeting civilians and indiscriminately shelling residential areas, with the RSF specifically accused of ethnic cleansing, systematic sexual violence and laying siege to entire towns.
The Sudanese army this week retook Wad Madani from the RSF, which controlled the city for over a year.


ICC prosecutor sees ‘no real effort’ by Israel to probe alleged Gaza war crimes

ICC prosecutor sees ‘no real effort’ by Israel to probe alleged Gaza war crimes
Updated 17 January 2025
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ICC prosecutor sees ‘no real effort’ by Israel to probe alleged Gaza war crimes

ICC prosecutor sees ‘no real effort’ by Israel to probe alleged Gaza war crimes
  • Israel has rejected the jurisdiction of the Hague-based court and denies war crimes
  • The US, Israel’s main ally, is also not a member of the International Criminal Court

THE HAGUE: International Criminal Court Prosecutor Karim Khan has defended his decision to bring war crimes allegations against Israel’s prime minister, saying Israel had made “no real effort” to investigate the allegations itself.
In an interview, he stood by his decision over the arrest warrant despite a vote last week by the US House of Representatives to sanction the ICC in protest, a move he described as “unwanted and unwelcome.”
ICC judges issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, former Israeli defense chief Yoav Gallant and Hamas leader Ibrahim Al-Masri last November for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity during the Gaza conflict.
The Israeli prime minister’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Khan’s remarks to Reuters.
Israel has rejected the jurisdiction of the Hague-based court and denies war crimes. The United States, Israel’s main ally, is also not a member of the ICC and Washington has criticized the arrest warrants against Netanyahu and Gallant.
“We’re here as a court of last resort and ... as we speak right now, we haven’t seen any real effort by the State of Israel to take action that would meet the established jurisprudence, which is investigations regarding the same suspects for the same conduct,” Khan told Reuters.
“That can change and I hope it does,” he said in Thursday’s interview, a day after Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas reached a deal for a ceasefire in Gaza.
An Israeli investigation could have led to the case being handed back to Israeli courts under so-called complementary principles. Israel can still demonstrate its willingness to investigate, even after warrants were issued, he said.
The ICC, with 125 member states, is the world’s permanent court to prosecute individuals for alleged war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide and aggression.
Khan said that Israel had very good legal expertise.
But he said “the question is have those judges, have those prosecutors, have those legal instruments been used to properly scrutinize the allegations that we’ve seen in the occupied Palestinian territories, in the State of Palestine? And I think the answer to that was ‘no’.”
Trump’s imminent return
Passage of the “Illegitimate Court Counteraction Act” by the US House of Representatives on Jan. 9 underscored strong support for Israel’s government among President-elect Donald Trump’s fellow Republicans.
The ICC said it noted the bill with concern and warned it could rob victims of atrocities of justice and hope.
Trump’s first administration imposed sanctions on the ICC in 2020 over investigations into war crimes in Afghanistan, including allegations of torture by US citizens. Those sanctions were lifted during Joe Biden’s presidency.
Five years ago, then-ICC prosecutor Fatou Bensouda and other staff had credit cards and bank accounts frozen and US travel impeded. Any further US sanctions under Trump would be widely expected to be more severe and widespread.
The ICC, created in 1998, was intended to assume the work of temporary tribunals that have conducted war crimes trials based on legal principles established during the Nuremberg trials against the Nazis after World War Two.
“It is of course unwanted and unwelcome that an institution that is a child of Nuremberg ...is threatened with sanctions. It should make people take note because this court is not owned by the prosecutor or by judges. We have 125 states,” Khan said.
It “is a matter that should make all people of conscience be concerned,” he said, declining to discuss further what sanctions could mean for the court.