PHOTO: Carrying a victim in the Saif al-Dawla district of eastern Aleppo city, November 19, 2016
Louise Loveluck writes for The Washington Post:
It’s too dangerous to bury east Aleppo’s dead in the daylight. So when night falls, an imam slips out to the latest mass grave, conducting the briskest of rites and thanking God that the skies have stayed silent.
With President Bashar al-Assad’s warplanes circling and ground troops closing in, Aleppo’s rebel-run districts are in such chaos this week that no one can count the dead.
“We can’t keep up,” said Ibrahim Abu Laith, a volunteer with the White Helmets civil defense group. “We’re having to choose who we find and who we don’t.”
Syria’s 5½-year war has proved so difficult to track that the United Nations said last year that it had stopped counting casualties at the half a million mark. Yet the scale and ferocity of the bombardment in east Aleppo since the start of a pro-government offensive on Nov. 15 has posed documentation challenges unseen in this war.
Last week, the opposition-run health directorate put the death toll at 508. Despite daily bombardment, there has been no update since.
While a local morgue records what details it can, the knock-on effects of a government siege mean many deaths go unrecorded. Casualties are treated across the floors of family basements and former fruit stores, and without enough gasoline to take bodies for autopsy, many people now opt to take them straight for burial.
Crippled by shortages, even the White Helmets to choose their rescue missions carefully — wasting too much gas to reach one blast site could rob them of the chance to save more lives at another.
When they do venture out, the rumble of warplanes can swiftly abort an operation. This weekend, Laith said he heard whimpers from the rubble as his team scrambled away.
“When you hear someone alive but reach them dead, that is the hardest part,” said Laith. Broken buildings across east Aleppo could still hide dozens of bodies, according to the local health directorate.
Some have been torn apart by follow-up airstrikes.
The head of Aleppo’s White Helmets branch watched last week as two women combed a body bag for signs of their loved ones. “Suddenly, the mother cried out and reached for a leg. She said he was her husband. She knew his jeans,” said Ammar al-Selmo.
Then her companion recognized a watch. “All that was left of her son was his arm. We’re bringing in body parts at this stage.”
