The Syrian Observatory For Human Rights

The regime forces recover the bodies of tens of their members from former battle fronts raising the number of those who have been recovered from mass and individual graves to about 1500 members

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitored the regime forces holding a funeral for more than 30 members of their forces and gunmen loyal to them, of those whose bodies were recovered from the places where they have been killed, within several areas of those witnessed clashes between the regime forces and gunmen loyal to them, against the “Islamic State” organization on one hand, and the rebel and Islamic factions on the other, where funerals were held amid the continued processes of finding more casualties of the regime within mass and individual graves raising to about 1500, the number of the members whose bodies have been recovered, since early April 2018, until today the 6th of December 2018, of the members of the regime forces and their allies.

And the Syrian Observatory published on the 7th of August 2018, that it monitored the finding of remnants of tens of casualties of the regime forces and gunmen loyal to them, in a mass grave in Ayn Issa area in the north-western sector of Al-Raqqah countryside, where reliable sources confirmed to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, that the Syria Democratic Forces, with the help of locals from the area, have found a mass grave contained the remnants of 110 casualties of the regime forces and gunmen loyal to them, who were killed years ago in attacks on the area, also reliable sources confirmed to the SOHR that a delegation of the regime forces have visited the area and took all the bodies, after taking all the remnants out of this grave, raising to more than 1240, the number of those whose bodies have been recovered since early April 2018, until today, Tuesday the 7th of August 2018, of the members of the regime forces and their allies, and the finding of this grave, comes 16 days after the Syria Democratic Forces and the Kurdish Internal Security Forces (Asayish), have found mass graves in the area of the Brigade 93 in Ayn Issa in the north-western countryside of Al-Raqqah, they contained bodies and remnants of more than 350 persons, intersected sources confirmed that most of them are of members of the regime forces and gunmen loyal to them of who were killed in the clashes of the Brigade 93 which ended with their loss of control, the Syrian Observatory fro Human Rights also monitored on the 13th of June 2018, the regime forces recovering bodies of more members from several Syrian areas, of who were killed earlier during confrontations in the Syrian Desert and in areas controlled by the “Islamic State” organization in Syria, and other Syrian areas, where the bodies of at least 734 members were recovered until the abovementioned date, from mass graves and other graves that were found whether within the controlled areas of the regime forces and their allies or in controlled areas of the SDF, while there are still thousands of corpses buried in random mass graves for members whose bodies were dragged by their opponents, during the clashes that took place between both parties, and the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights learned that the search for bodies of soldiers of the regime forces is still underway in the newly controlled areas.

It worth mentioning that the regime forces on November 2017 had recovered the remnants of more than 60 members of its forces and of the militiamen loyal to it, where they were in a burial ground at Hamdiyyeh Camp in the countryside of Idlib, and the remains were exhumed. Several sources confirmed to the Observatory that the bodies belongs to members of the regime forces and militiamen loyal to them; who were killed in clashes against the rebel and Islamic factions and Hayyaat Tahrir Al-Sham in Wadi al-Deif and Hamdiyyeh Camps before the first quarter of 2015, amid information about more bodies in the area within graves in which regime’s dead members were buried, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights also published back in 2016 about the exhumation of bodies and remains of about 100 members of the regime forces and militiamen loyal to them, of who were killed in Menagh Airbase in the northern countryside of Aleppo and controlled by the Syria Democratic Forces currently, and in the details obtained by the activists of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights back then; after mediation by Muhammad Marouf Balwi -a businessman from Nubl town in the northern countryside of Aleppo- an agreement was reached between the Syria Democratic Forces and the authorities of the regime, about allowing the regime to retrieve bodies of his dead members from the airport, where civilian cars were brought as well as exhumation teams at the expense of the businessman, who covered all the costs of the operations and transportations, and after the exhumation of mass graves -which lasted for about 5 days- the exhumed bodies were transported to the capital Damascus via Aleppo – Khanasser – Al-Salamiyah road, while the search operations for more bodies continued, and the sources confirmed that access to sites of the mass graves took place by one of the survivor members of the military operations that took place at the airbase more than 3 years ago, when the “Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant” and rebel and Islamic factions attacked the Menagh Airbase and controlled it, and the declaration of control took place in early August 2013 by the Colonel Abduljabbar al-Akidi, the commander of Aleppo Military Council, and Abu Jandal the military commander in the organization of the “Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant”, and Radwan Qarndal, the commander of al-Fath Brigade, and Adnan al-Sayyadi, representative of Aasefat al-Shamal, Azaz and Menagh Brigades and the north of Syria.