Skulls and body bags: Searching for Syria's disappeared

 Skulls and body bags: Searching for Syria's disappeared

Image caption,

Khaled al Hamad dug up human remains in search of his two brothers, who vanished under the Assad regime

Adra is a strange kind of neighbourhood cemetery – two lone graves sit in an empty expanse of bumpy earth, sparsely covered with grass.

For years, this was an area tightly controlled by President Bashar al-Assad's forces.

Now, a week after they fled, a concrete slab in one corner of this empty cemetery has been moved to reveal a shallow grave containing at least half a dozen white bags, labelled with names and prison numbers.

Khaled al Hamad, a nearby resident, was desperately pulling the bags out when we arrived.

He shows us the three he has already opened. Each contains a human skull and bones. The writing on the sacks suggest they are the remains of two female prisoners, and one male.

It is not clear how they died, or whether this is evidence of criminal abuse by Assad's regime.

But Khaled needs no convincing. He's searching for his two brothers, Jihad and Hussein, taken by Assad's notorious air force intelligence a decade ago. They haven't been heard of since.

FULL ARTICLE AT: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cr4rz5169q9o