“The corpses the officers had marked we would later dig up and hand back to them. They would ask the victims’ families for $1,500 to $3,000 per body.”

Syria’s Sinister yet Lucrative Trade in Dead Bodies, Anwar al-Muhammad was wandering around the garbage dump like he had done for years, looking for anything of value that could be traded or sold, when he suddenly smelt a strange smell. It was moldy mixed with the reek of flesh. At first he thought it was a dead dog.

What the 35-year-old garbage collector found instead in the landfill in the village of Hadath east of Aleppo would turn his life upside down, and turn him into a very rich man.

As it turned out, the smell emanated from the partly decomposed body of someone recently liquidated by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS).“If it were not for the remains of God’s creation, I would not have been able to build my house on the land I inherited from my father,” said Anwar pointing at his home. “Look, it has a courtyard and stone fences. And I have planted olive seedlings.” Having dug a hole next to the dump Anwar buried what was left of the corpse. He feared leaving it out in the open might attract stray dogs. This was in August 2014.

Like most people in the region, Anwar did not know why ISIS killed these people and dumped their bodies the way they did. Yet, on the foreheads of most of the bodies ISIS fighters had written in blue or black “infidel” or “apostate.”

After the first corpse had been dumped, many others followed,” Anwar explained. “Most bodies had ropes around their feet, hands or necks. Initially, the ISIS fighters warned me that if I were to recognize a body and contact the family, my place would be among the dead.”

Like most people in the region, Anwar did not know why ISIS killed these people and dumped their bodies the way they did. Yet, on the foreheads of most of the bodies ISIS fighters had written in blue or black “infidel” or “apostate.”

ISIS used to throw bodies in wells, dry streams or river beds and garbage dumps, according to reports issued by both local and international human rights organizations.

Anwar gradually became aware that the bodies had a value and price, as some point he started selling them to the victims’ relatives. “That’s how I made the money I would never have made just working in a landfill,” he said.

13th Century Fatwa

From 2013 to 2015, more than 20 mass graves were found across Syria, containing thousands of bodies. One of the most famous places where ISIS used to dump its victims is the 50-meter deep Al-Hota pit, located some 85 kilometers from the northern city of Raqqa.

“The Al Hota gorge was once a beautiful natural site,” said Syrian researcher Sarah Kayyali in Into The Abyss, a report issued by Human Rights Watch (HRW) in May last year. “It became a place for terror and punishment.”

During our 18-month investigation in Syria and neighboring countries, we did many interviews and obtained photographs confirming the trade in dead bodies. We tracked four cases in different geographical areas to ensure there is a pattern to the trade which has made some individuals involved in the conflict very rich indeed.

In the governorates of Deir Ezzor and Raqqa and the countryside of Aleppo, ISIS did not give the bodies to the families, based on a fatwa issued by the 13th century Islamic scholar Ibn Taymiyyah, which states it is forbidden to bury an “apostate” in a Muslim cemetery. And so ISIS threw them in wells, dumps and large pits instead.

In 2015, one family was searching the dumps in the countryside north of Allepo for the body of their son, who had been killed by ISIS for “dealing with foreign parties.”The family met Anwar and offered him $7,000 for finding their son, after they had been told his body was thrown onto a village dump. They even told Anwar not to worry “if the corpse were decayed, for they could still recognize it from the teeth.”

Anwar told the ISIS fighters who regularly came to the dump to throw bodies about the family looking for their son. They demanded $10,000 for the body. Anwar would get a commission of 100,000 Syrian pounds.

8,143 People Still Missing

“The Islamic State’s (ISIS) expansion in Iraq and Syria featured horrendous public abuses,” HRW stated in its report Kidnapped By ISIS, which was issued in February 2019. “Largely unseen but equally egregious were the widespread detentions and kidnappings – thousands of people snatched from their homes and cars and at checkpoints, who subsequently went missing.”

While the full scale of the missing is not known, the Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR) has reported more than 8,143 cases of individuals detained by ISIS whose fates remain unknown. The majority of those taken were men. But HRW also documented the disappearances of several women.

“ISIS members would ask for money in exchange for informing families about the fate of their son,” Anwar said. “People did not bargain a lot.”

When we were researching other waste dumps in the Aleppo countryside to confirm what Anwar told us, one worker there told us: “They were throwing bodies, once or twice a day. And I also saw them take bodies from the dump.”

Yasser Al-Najjar used to work as an official for the Syrian military authorities negotiating the exchange of prisoners and dead bodies. “ISIS at times had crippling conditions in their requests,” he said in his office in Kilis in southern Turkey. “But that did not stop them from selling bodies for money. In the shadows, far away from media and cameras, anything is possible in Syria.”

SNHR director Fadel Abdul-Ghani told us how one of his teams once witnessed an exchange between the Syrian regime and opposition factions, in which the bodies of Iranian militants were handed over in return for the release of detainees.

In Damascus

A Syrian man currently living in the Swedish capital Stockholm used to work for a public funeral service in Damascus which transported bodies to cemeteries on a daily basis. At first, he refused to speak with us, but after several calls he finally agreed to give us his testimony on the condition of anonymity.

“Our assignment was to transport bodies from the Tishreen Military Hospital and the Mezzeh 601 Military Hospital to two large cemeteries in Qatifah, north of Damascus, and one in Najha, south of the capital,” he said. “The car looked like a decorated box with pictures of Bashar al-Assad on all sides, so we could pass all checkpoints.”

“Some corpses had specific numbers or signs on them, which we would bury next to the mass grave,” he continued. “The others were thrown into the mass grave, one on top of the other, and covered with sand by a bulldozer.”

“The corpses which the officers had marked, we would later take out and hand back to them,” he added, after pausing to drink a cup of water. “For each body, they demanded some $1,500 to $3,000 from the victims’ families.”

He then made us listen to audio recordings and phone messages of conversations between him and the military and security officers. He estimated the total number of bodies he contributed to selling at 125.

According to HRW, the Syrian regime arrested and forcibly disappeared tens of thousands of people. The detention centers under its control are known for the widespread and systematic use of torture, and catastrophic living conditions. According to the SNHN, there are still some 130,000 detainees in the detention centers of the Syrian regime, including 7,913 women and 3,561 children, which represents 88.5% of all detainees in Syria.

The Corpse Market

In August 2020, 30-year-old May learnt that her husband Zaid Jibril had been killed three years after his arrest by the Syrian regime’s security forces for “organizing anti-regime demonstrations.” He was buried in the Qatifah cemetery north of Damascus,May said she was forced to sell her house to be able to pay $7,000 to an officer in the Syrian security services through a local broker, who then brought her husband’s body, so she could bury it.

“I thank God I was able to obtain my husband’s body so our children can visit,” said May by Skype from a refugee camp in the northwestern state of Idlib. “Many families paid money to regime officers and brokers. Many sold everything they owned to obtain news of their loved ones.”

“Trading in corpses, mortgaging them to exchange or sell them is considered a crime against humanity by the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court,” said legal expert Hussein Hamadeh.

According to him, any assault on or mutilation of corpses, leaving them in the open, not allowing them to be buried, using them as tools of political pressure or selling them violates international law. Authorities are furthermore not allowed to intentionally withhold information about those missing, given the level of anxiety and mental stress it produces for friends and families. When the person in question dies, the authorities must provide the family with information regarding the place of burial.

Five BodiesAhmed Al-Sayed’s family learnt that one of their sons had been arrested by the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) during their control of the city of Raqqa in October 2017.

The young man was arrested after an airstrike near the Abu Al-Hays intersection. The 34-year-old was transferred to a nearby medical center. His father told us that the family had asked all the center’s health workers about their son, but at first they could not find him.

A few days later a  military source told the family their son had been killed. Obtaining the body would cost them $10,000. “We paid the full amount to a SDF commander through a local broker and started digging near the archaeological park in Raqqa,” said Ahmed’s brother. “We found five bodies, one of which was my brother. We reburied the others in the same place, while we took my brother’s body to the family cemetery on the outskirts of Raqqa.”

We requested representatives of the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria, as well as the Syrian Ministry of Interior to comment on our findings, yet did not receive a response.

As soon as the burial begins, the march of Abu Al-Ward begins too. And of all others who work just like him.

The March of Abu Ward

Abu Al-Ward is a local broker in the city of Idlib. After burying some bodies, he and three young men set out to search for a corpse that someone had asked for in exchange for $3,000.

In the center of Idlib, you can see bodies entering the forensic medical center on a daily basis. They were found, or belong to people killed in mysterious circumstances. Some 75 bodies a week arrive, according to the center’s documentation office.

“There are bodies that the courts and hospitals refuse to hand over to their families, especially those known as Shabiha [gangs closely related to the Baath Party],” said Abu Al-Ward by WhatsApp. “What follows is the process of handing over the body and receiving the money.”

“The body remains in the fridge for some 15 days to a month,” said Ali Al-Taqash who works at a medical center. “Samples for DNA testing are stored to facilitate future identification.”

As soon as the burial begins, the march of Abu Al-Ward begins too. And of all others who work just like him.

The Corpse in the Well

On January 6, 2014, the family of Mohamad al-Ali (a pseudonym) managed to obtain his body, which had been thrown in a well near the town of Deir Sunbul in the Idlib countryside.

Mohamad had been kidnapped at a checkpoint of the Syrian Revolutionaries Front (SRF) and was later liquidated by a gunshot to the head

“After negotiations that lasted for days, we paid a local mediator $10,000 and the SRF allowed us to extract the body from the well,” said the young man’s family.

Local activists we met in the north of Syria and Turkey said they witnessed the sale of at least five bodies between January 2012 and March 2014. Their statements were backed by photographs and videos of the negotiations and sale, which are in our possession.

Military Gains

On the road between the Jenderes border crossing and the village of Qatma north of Aleppo, we met Abu Jaafar, who used to be responsible for forensic medicine in the opposition-held areas east of Syria until late 2016.

He had witnessed the exchange of bodies between the armed opposition and the regime and pointed at another dimension of the trade, which reflected military gains in the war.

“The body of one fighter in an Iranian-backed militia was exchanged for five or six detainees alive in the prisons of the Syrian regime,” he said.

The Syrian war has witnessed countless negotiations and exchanges of bodies and prisoners between the regime and the opposition. In August 2012, the Al-Baraa Brigade in Eastern Ghouta concluded a deal with the regime to release over 2,000 detainees from Syrian prisons, in exchange for the release of 48 Iranians, most of them belonging to the military.

“Any assault on a corpse is considered a crime prohibited in international law,” said SNHN director Abdul-Ghani. “Take the The Hague Convention on respecting the laws and customs of war, which clearly stipulates a commander is responsible for all actions of people under his command, and calls for respecting the dead and preventing the remains from being despoiled.”

This investigation was carried out under supervision of the Syrian Investigative Journalism Unit Siraj and edited by Mohammad Bassiki. published on DARAJ. 

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Mohammad Bassiki – Akhten Asaad:

ALhayat newspaper

In the road which lead to ALWAKALAT street in middle of commercial market in ALQAMSHLY city (north ,east Syria ) on the right of the road there is an huge electrical generator , working by diesel (MAZOUT) yellow color, the sound of its engine full of the air , And overshadows the voices of street vendors & owner of the commercial shops inside their shops , It emits thick black smoke ,beside it a tree ,it was Full of leaves and its shadow covers the place before year 2015,but today it became dried and waiting someone to pull it out .

SALWA ,The young girl  in third decade of age, notice since a period that there are a died doves thrown on the land, in her house’s garden, and she don’t know the reason , but she attributes it to pollution in the air and to poisons which filled the sky of the city.

These poisons make the healthy status of the young ARAS HAMO (25 year) falling back day by day , by continuing on breath a polluted air from the electrical generator in the street , even inside his house , because his family depend on electrical generator , where he suffers from (Inflammation of the pharynx and scratching), and he afraid of becoming worse ,and his doctor decided to put him “under intensive examination  for treatment ” according the medical report which related in his status, dated on :1 June 2017.

According the commission of the administration and municipalities in the city , that there are 175 central electrical power generators inside the Residential neighborhoods in the city which consumed daily between 2000 to 7000 liter diesel – gasoline , with average 25-30 liter per hour , and there are 40 thousand small generators working all the time ,”so that expose ALQAMSHLY city and al HASSKEH city to extreme pollution due to from poisonous gas ” according to ROJ environmental organization  .and the Chronic respiratory & chest diseases became follow the people due to breath of Toxic gas residues from electrical generators which work by Refined fuel in a primitive way, so that quicken of appearance and spread a deadly diseases like ” Pulmonary embolism” and  ” Pulmonary cancers”.

The Necessary solution

 Residents of QAMSHLI (300 thousand people) and since stopping provide the city with regular electrical power on 2012 they are suffering, and a chest & respiratory diseases  infect them ,due to breath polluted air with poisonous & cancer gas which emits from generators , one of it : Sulfur dioxide (SO2)and Carbon monoxide(co) Hydrogen sulfur(h2s) and according to  environment experts & doctors ,these gases are “poisonous and breakdown the respiratory system .

A local newspapers and media in ALHASSAKE said that: “Isis” organizing cut the electrical power utterly on ALQAMSHLI and ALHASSAKE in general (1.5 million people ) after it is control on the main power supply source “TISHREEN dam” which located in ALPHURATE river ,west of Aleppo city on spring 2014 , where the generators became” a compulsory solution ” ,MOUAZ ABDULKAREEM the joint chief of ALQAMSHLI municipality said “the generators is a need for us due to not availability of electrics , so we bring it to provide the doctor’s clinics – pharmacies  and hospitals in electrical power since starts the war .

There is a patient in every house

Every house in the city has a patient infected with “Bronchitis or pharyngitis or allergic asthma or Shortness of breath” according to DR.SAAD EDDIN HASSO the specialist in chest & internal diseases, and Lung function tests.

The doctor which works in the hospital since 2013 until now, record daily as per his saying “large” increasing in patients attendance’s rate which” suffer from chest diseases accompanying with symptoms of cough & shortness of breath “and in some times happening a defect in sense of smell, so the patient lose the ability of distinguish between smells.

The patient ZINAB SH (fifth decade) has already going out from one of the doctor’s clinic and said that she suffers from “allergic” disease and upon her medical report, it is starts appear on her a symptoms of cough accompanying to extreme pain in the chest, and she said my status become worse with presence of electrical generators which spread in city neighborhoods, and the doctor recommended me to stay away from it, but where I go? She asked while she is going out.

ABDULRAHMAN KHALIL, chief of environment protection association in ALHASSKE enhance in declaration published in “ALPHURATE” newspaper in its number 2349 date: 11-10-2017, that what happens from breathing people these gases in his saying “the polluted emissions  from electrical generators …contain on poisons & cancer materials harmful to human being directly “

Most diseases which occur and deadly

The death which due to from respiratory diseases is form the highest rate of death in Syria in rate 16.2 % for year 2009 ,and in year 2010 the respiratory system diseases was third of the “most occur” diseases in rate 12.5 % according to Syrian ministry of health .but after year 2011 and due to of generators the rate has been increased more ,as the doctor HUSSIEN OSMAN saying ,the specialist in nose & throat diseases ,where the cancer  infections has increased in the upper air roads between 75-100 % during the last five years in ALQAMSHLI and ALHASSKE ,and he depends in this result according 75% of his coming patients these days suffer from respiratory diseases &  Chronic sinusitis.

And according to specialist doctor MIRVAT BARAZI , that people who infect in respiratory diseases are increasing ,due to pollution spreading .and she refer to lack of the medical system to reliable accurate statistic depends on it.

The third of deadly diseases

The respiratory diseases in al QAMSHLI and ALHASSKE in general, which documented by the investigation editor in documented medical reports which belong to patients, and by doctors’ testimonies and statements of health centers, it will result if the patient continues living in polluted air ,and if he has Hereditary respiratory diseases or previous, to (COPD) (chronic – obstructive pulmonary disease ) which lead to death , that during a period between 6 – 10 years “, according to the specialist doctor ,JALAL MURAD .

One of (COPD) symptoms, is a cough accompanying with Sputum secretion, and shortness of breath, according to specialized “medical web”, and what causing it “environmental & industrial air pollution, and inflammations in different kinds, and it spreading in development countries”

MURAD said “the generators smoke is increasing and quicken appearance of chronic – obstructive pulmonary cases, because the final Tracheas of the patient are injure, where is occur exchanging between oxygen & carbon, and this incurable disease.

The doctor refer to that 20% from his patients have “Allergic ground” or as it known a Genetic allergy and previous respiratory diseases, and they are according that susceptible to chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), if they stay in this current polluted air, and this number apply on all ALQAMSHLI population in general, which the population of it increase currently on 300 thousand person.

That mean almost quarter of the city population are exposed to this deadly disease, and their life threatened now, while all population are exposed to respiratory diseases , he referred to that “no exist accurate statistics to the governorate in general or rest of the nearby areas about the number of sick people and their ages & distribution rate”.

The patient RADER MAHMOUD afraid, (23 years) which his family suffer from genetic respiratory diseases which is “Bronchial sensitivity” (his mother according to medical report in date 17 June 2017) from deteriorating his health to worse, so he suffers now from acute pain in the pharynx, and the doctor asked from him to keep away from pollution source promptly.

And the lady SAEDA MOHAMMAD, according to medical report on date 1(August) 2017 she is suffers from “Allergic pharyngitis” and the doctor asked from her to keep away from generators smoke, because her status will become worse, and she don’t know how she has infected, and she don’t have any choice except staying in these circumstances as she is saying.

With the doctor MURAD expectations ,the international health organization expects  in a study belong to her , the investigation editor has obtained a copy of it, and according a collected data from 193 states ,”the obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) will be the main third cause of death in the world on year 2030″ .

The doctor MURAD Confirms the possibility of achieving the expectations of this study internationally and even in Syria ,because the criteria and the causes are available currently on the earth in ALHASSKE governorate in general , and was based on a healthy data to sates upon the medical reality of each country .

And for confront the disease and other respiratory diseases; the international health organization formed an alliance under a name “Global Alliance against Chronic Respiratory diseases”(GARD) and officially released on 28 March – 2006 in Chinese capital, Beijing.

The investigation editor has connected with professor, YOUSER MOHAMMAD, the coordinator of alliance (GARD) in Syrian, and he admitted in existence of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, where his team which working in the Syrian government controlled area has examined  cases of Syrians displaced from areas of “ISIS” organization  control in east & north the country , they has came to governmental hospitals in Damascus ,and they are suffer from Waste of air pollution and has diagnosed many infected cases in the disease, and cases for women have infected in cancer of lung and they are non smoking under age of 50 years.

But the professor refused to provides any numbers of numbers of the sick people monthly or annually.

A new international study has published by “REUTERS” on 20 October 2017, is linking between the rate of death around the world and air pollution, where the pollution is related in 9 million death case on 2015.

And by a study, “most of deaths are cause from air pollution diseases like heart diseases – heart attack and lung cancer “.and the polluted of air is from different reasons from transportations – industrial production and the fire which used in heating, was the biggest cause of death which lead to 6.5 million death cases.

Lack of equipment impedes diagnosis

According to what professor MOHAMMED say:

Lack of medical equipment impedes diagnosis of chest and respiratory diseases like chronic pulmonary obstruction; on the other hand many “health centers had stopped working in areas of conflict”, at a time” the program began providing support like inhalation devices and other for some of health centers in cooperation with the Syrian ministry of health”, and while the reasons of disease sounds known, but its results anonymous on population, and the doctor (NILSE.BILLO) of World health organization says “the alliance until now didn`t search for the effects of the war on the health of respiratory system in Syria”. He considered that “air pollution and smoking cause chronic obstruction pulmonary disease (COPD)”.

He suggested on local communities in Syria, working to limit the risks of chronic respiratory system diseases, and chronic pulmonary obstruction disease and lung cancer depending on strategies to increase the usage of clean energies.

Acute shortage in the number of doctors

The Investigation editor in ALQAMISHLI has counted presence of clinics for 6 specialties chest surgery doctors, 9 doctors their specialties of ear –nose and throat and they supervise on the treatment of 300000 people and it is the number of city population according to unofficial numbers of the city’s doctors source, after the last official statistics in 2007 which mentioned the number of ALQAMISHLI population which was 88 thousand people.

ABEAR HASSAF the joint head of health commission which affiliate to self administration in ALHASSAKE (ALJAZERA territory) there is another kind of their suffering as a responsible medical commission and she says “we suffer from continuous emigration of specialist doctors and shortage of cadres, we fear on the long period of time from fetal distortions and emergence of malignant tumors”.

According to approved numbers of the world health organization and which published on the website of” the official international bank” about proportion of doctors and nurses with number of population , it shows that in Syria for the year of 2014 ,1.55 doctor per 1000 citizen, but in ALQAMISHLI and around it , it shows acute shortage of numbers of specialist doctors in chronic pectoral respiratory diseases ,where the number of doctors clinics  doesn`t exceed 15 clinics , only 10 of them are  doctors of pectoral and respiratory, they are treating  250-300 thousand citizen , according to the specialist doctor JALAL MURAD , one doctor  for treating 20 thousand patient.

The most dangerous gas

The annually report of ” ROJ “for environment protection for year 2015 is estimates the number of “diesel engines  ” which used for generating the power in ALQAMSHLI more about 100 generator which provide the houses with electric power , in working hours rate between (8-10) hours daily . Where there are more than 40 thousand generators which working by diesel & gasoline all the time.

And JANAR KHALAF, the specialist in the environment sciences is seeing that gases of “hydrogen sulfate” and Sulfur dioxide (Co2) and “Carbon monoxide”(CO) are dangerous, but the last gas is considered the most dangerous because of relating it with hemoglobin of the Blood in a high rate from link ratio the oxygen with Blood hemoglobin.

The danger includes everyone

Sulfate dioxide ,is a chemical compound has a formula so2 , is produce naturally from volcano and industrially from many of industrial possesses and from burning the Petroleum products which contain the sulfate compounds.

The municipalities & environment commission which affiliate to the self administration in ALQAMSHLI area and Aljazeera territory in general is imposes conditions to anyone wants to possess a big electrical generator in a neighborhood or street , and it is :the generator must be away from the general gardens – schools and congestion’s Places, and should be equipped with filters and exhausts for the sound ,as of saying the engineer ALAN MOHAMMAD ,the administrative man in the municipalities & environment commission .but 10 central generators from 175 distributed  generators in the city and countryside which has examined by the investigation editor and which has shown  breaching of these conditions ,which are located in central congestion markets and neighborhoods and daily passing beside it of  women & children and it is emitting from it noise and smoke and does not achieve the criteria and mentioned  conditions.

According to Mohamed, during the two years 2016-2017, teams of commission monitored two owners of central generators, after giving them warnings under the pretext of technical conditions infraction, with estimated fine 50 thousand Syrian bounds ($100).

Technical Specifications don’t require from generators owners to put their generators away from residential areas in a certain number of meters as a separative space, and leave it up to environment administration and its detection committees, to keep the distance of generators away from residential areas as much as possible, but according to some citizens this gap allow to many generators owners, to put their generators in the Center of markets and alleys. Big generators are used in residential areas and its price between 3 to 4 million Syrian bounds ($ 6000-8000-800 Ampere), we can say that 4 Ampere of electricity access to 200 houses daily and they are non-hidden generators of sound or smoke.

 Every living in ALQAMSHLY and ALHASSKE in general has to leave the generators to conserve the residents health or continue in situation as it is because the needing to electricity , but a  gleam of hope talking about it the official in environmental management ,ALAN MOHAMMAD about a coordination with power commission to follow up the maintenance of high voltage line KBA230 which  connects between the ALTABKA dam at east and ALHASSKE at west ,hoping to obtain the electrical power in natural way , And get rid of the current situation.

Doctor JALAL MURAD is saying that” the patients now don’t benefit from anything of treatment but on the contrary, their numbers are increasing, and the danger inclusive all … the pregnant women, aged people – children which they have another disease “.

This story has been made by The Syrian Investigative Reporting for Accountability Journalism (SIRAJ).

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