10,000 Bodies Buried in Raqqah Mass Graves
DAMASCUS (Dispatches) -- A senior Syrian medical official says members of the Daesh terrorist group have executed 10,000 people and buried their bodies in mass graves across the country’s northern city of Raqqah.
Syrian Forensic Medicine General Director Zaher Hajo told Arabic-language and pro-government Al-Watan daily that his colleagues had confirmed the presence of 4,000 bodies in one single grave.
Hajo went on to say that Syrian Health Minister Nizar Yazigi has ordered the formation of a committee in order to collect the remains of the victims and transfer them to the military hospital in the northwestern city of Aleppo.
He stated that identification of the victims, using their teeth and bones, will start next week, stressing that he will chair the committee.
Hajo said the mass graves have been found in areas now controlled by the so-called Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) – a U.S.-backed group of Kurdish militants.
The SDF said in October that it had "liberated” Raqqah after driving out Daesh terrorists from the city, which served as Daesh's de facto capital in the war-ravaged Arab country.
The militants later said the political future of the city and the province of the same name would be determined "within the framework of a decentralized, federal, democratic Syria.”
SDF spokesman Talal Silo said than the group would hand over the control of Raqqah to what he called "the Raqqah Civil Council.”
Syrian Minister of National Reconciliation Affairs Ali Haidar reacted by saying that Raqqah’s future could only be discussed "as part of the final political structure of the Syrian state.”
The so-called Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) has said that the SDF’s purported operations in Raqqah have killed civilians and damaged infrastructure in the city.
"When you’re killing around 1,200 civilians — nearly half of them women and children — and destroying 80% of the city, that’s not liberating Raqqah,” Rami Abdel Rahman, the head of the SOHR, told Arab News daily newspaper.
Syrian Forensic Medicine General Director Zaher Hajo told Arabic-language and pro-government Al-Watan daily that his colleagues had confirmed the presence of 4,000 bodies in one single grave.
Hajo went on to say that Syrian Health Minister Nizar Yazigi has ordered the formation of a committee in order to collect the remains of the victims and transfer them to the military hospital in the northwestern city of Aleppo.
He stated that identification of the victims, using their teeth and bones, will start next week, stressing that he will chair the committee.
Hajo said the mass graves have been found in areas now controlled by the so-called Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) – a U.S.-backed group of Kurdish militants.
The SDF said in October that it had "liberated” Raqqah after driving out Daesh terrorists from the city, which served as Daesh's de facto capital in the war-ravaged Arab country.
The militants later said the political future of the city and the province of the same name would be determined "within the framework of a decentralized, federal, democratic Syria.”
SDF spokesman Talal Silo said than the group would hand over the control of Raqqah to what he called "the Raqqah Civil Council.”
Syrian Minister of National Reconciliation Affairs Ali Haidar reacted by saying that Raqqah’s future could only be discussed "as part of the final political structure of the Syrian state.”
The so-called Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) has said that the SDF’s purported operations in Raqqah have killed civilians and damaged infrastructure in the city.
"When you’re killing around 1,200 civilians — nearly half of them women and children — and destroying 80% of the city, that’s not liberating Raqqah,” Rami Abdel Rahman, the head of the SOHR, told Arab News daily newspaper.