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Nearly Half of all Victims Recorded in Syria Since the Beginning of 2023 Were Killed While Looking for Desert Truffles
I. Background and Methodology
This report documents the death toll of victims whose deaths were documented by Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR) as taking place at the hands of the parties to the conflict and the controlling forces in Syria in April 2023. The report sheds light particularly on victims who died due to torture, and victims among medical personnel. In addition, the report focuses on documenting massacres perpetrated by the parties to the conflict and controlling forces in Syria which the SNHR team was able to document during this period; it should be noted that we use the term, ‘massacre’ to refer to an incident in which no fewer than five peaceful individuals were killed. The report also includes a summary of the most notable incidents during this month. Full details of every incident are maintained on the SNHR database.
Documenting deaths in Syria has been one of the most important roles performed by SNHR since March 2011. This task is all the more crucial since murder is the most prevalent of all the violations perpetrated, and the one which most profoundly affects the Syrian people, with countless families suffering incalculable and irreparable trauma through the loss of parents, spouses, children, siblings, friends, etc.
These violations have become so widespread primarily due to the systematic killing of civilians by Syrian regime forces and their affiliated militias. Between March 2011, and the beginning of 2012, Syrian regime forces were responsible for the overwhelming majority of deaths in Syria. The regime began by using tanks and artillery, then proceeded to also use warplanes and helicopter gunships which were deployed in attacks using barrel bombs, in addition to ballistic missiles and chemical weapons.
The emergence of several other parties during the Syrian conflict has further increased both the importance and complexity of documenting the victims killed in Syria.
The killing of civilians in Syria has continued for the 12th consecutive year, as it has done continuously since the initial outbreak of the popular uprising for democracy in Syria in March 2011, resulting in casualty figures that are among the highest worldwide; this underlines the fact that Syria is still the most dangerous nation in the world for civilians, and remains an exceptionally insecure and perilous environment wholly unsuitable for the return of refugees.
This report catalogues the death toll of victims at the hands of the parties actively engaged in the Syrian conflict. It should be noted that accurately ascribing responsibility sometimes requires more time and investigation than usual, especially in the case of joint attacks. We also face additional challenges in assigning responsibility for attacks in some incidents of ground-based bombardment, especially those in which the bombardment originates from an adjacent area controlled by a different party. In such cases, SNHR tries to thoroughly investigate each incident, in order to conclusively identify the party responsible for the bombardment.
Despite these efforts, however, there are cases in which we are unable to definitively assign responsibility for a particular killing to one of two possible parties due to the area’s proximity to the lines of engagement, the use of similar weapons, or other reasons. In such cases, the incident is classified within the category ‘other parties’ until such time as we have gathered sufficient evidence to conclusively assign responsibility for the violation to one of the two parties.
The parties to the conflict documented by SNHR as having as committed extrajudicial killings in this report are: 1- Main parties: Syrian regime forces (army, security, local militias, Shiite foreign militias) All armed opposition factions/Syrian National Army (SNA).
2- Other parties
While we at the SNHR are keen to accurately attribute incidents to the responsible parties, we exclude two types of attacks from the process of assigning responsibility, namely anti-personnel landmines, and remote explosions, including suicide or forced suicide attacks. We discussed this issue previously in detailed reports.
https://sn4hr.org/?p=55646 https://snhr.org/?p=57639
As for the anonymous victims whose names we haven’t yet been able to determine or on whom we have so far been unable to find any identifying information or any picture or video footage, these cases are catalogued in a separate archive until any information confirming those victims’ identity is received which would enable their cases to be transferred to the victims’ archive, with their names and other details registered accordingly.
Through use of SNHR’s extensive database, we can catalogue the victims according to the governorate where they were killed, as well as by their governorate of origin. However, we choose in our monthly report to document the death toll of victims according to the governorate in which they were killed, rather than by their place of origin.
In this report, we record only the death toll of civilians whose deaths we were able to document during the last month. SNHR does not document the deaths of fighters and militants killed during the conflict, while some of the victims documented may have been killed months or even years ago, as in some cases of death due to torture; in these cases, where the deaths have only recently been confirmed, we include two dates, the date when we were able to document the victim’s death, and the date on which we think the death occurred. The methodology adopted by SNHR in documenting the victims can be found at this link.
This report draws upon the constant daily monitoring of news and developments by SNHR’s team, and on information from our extensive network of various sources that has been built up over the course of our work since 2011. The SNHR also provides a special form that can be completed by victims’ relatives with victims’ names and personal information so that the Victims Documentation Department can follow up on the information provided, verify its accuracy and then include it in the database. http://sn4hr.org/document-a-victim/
We note that the death toll of victims detailed on SNHR’s database includes extrajudicial killings perpetrated by the controlling forces which occurred as a violation of either international human rights law or international humanitarian law or both, but does not include cases of natural deaths or those which occurred because of disputes between members of society or other such issues.
Our investigations confirm that all of the attacks included in this report that were carried out by the parties to the conflict and the controlling forces in Syria targeted civilian areas where we documented no military presence or armories before or during the attacks. Also, the perpetrators of the attacks failed to issue any warnings to civilians prior to any of the attacks as required by international humanitarian law.
This report only represents the bare minimum of the actual severity and magnitude of the violations that occurred. Also, it doesn’t include any analysis of the profound social, economic, and psychological ramifications.
II. The Syrian Regime Has Failed to Register Hundreds of Thousands of Citizens It Killed Since March 2011 in the Death Records of the Civil Registry
Although hundreds of thousands of Syrian citizens have been killed, ‘disappeared’ or gone missing since the early days of the popular rising in March 2011, they have not been officially registered as dead by the relevant official state departments, namely the Civil Registry Department. The Syrian regime unconscionably controls the issuance of death certificates, which are not made available to any of the families of the victims, whether they were killed at the hands of the Syrian regime or by other parties, or to the families of the missing and forcibly disappeared. The regime only allows death certificates to be issued for those who meet the narrow criteria set by the regime and its security services. In many previous reports, we have discussed the phenomenon of the regime’s forcing victims’ families to sign false statements written by the security authorities beforehand, stating falsely that ‘armed terrorist gangs’, rather than the regime, killed their loved ones, if they wish to obtain a death certificate. The Syrian regime has not only failed to launch any investigations into the causes of death for hundreds of thousands of Syrians but has also failed to hold to account even one member of its security or military forces for their involvement in these killings. In order to obtain a death certificate, the Syrian regime relies on three things: Medical reports prepared by regime personnel, citing a false cause of death, such as a heart attack for those forcibly disappeared in its detention centers, or claiming falsely that the victim died as a result of injuries from war munitions. Statements from the local neighborhood headman or ‘Mukhtar' and from any witnesses, who are asked to confirm the death. Acknowledgement from the victims’ families, who often urgently need to obtain a death certificate; for this reason, family members understandably feel they have no choice but to remain silent about the true cause of death and the identity of those responsible for it.
Through our exhaustive monitoring and investigation process, we have been able to document three methods used by the Syrian regime to register the deaths of a limited number of its victims who were killed, or forcibly disappeared then subsequently killed, which we detailed in a report we issued on August 19, 2022, entitled ‘The Syrian Regime, Through Its Security Services and State Institutions, Controls the Incidents of Registering the Deaths of Victims Killed/’Disappeared’ in the Armed Conflict Since March 2011’. https://snhr.org/?p=58319
It is worth noting that the vast majority of victims’ families are unable to obtain death certificates from the Syrian regime, for fear of linking their name with that of a person who was detained by the regime and killed under torture, which implies that their deceased family member had been a dissident who had opposed the Syrian regime, or had been registered as a ‘terrorist’ if he or she had been wanted by the security services. Additionally, many victims’ families have been forcibly displaced outside the areas controlled by the Syrian regime.
On August 10, 2022, the Syrian regime government’s Minister of Justice issued Circular No. 22 specifying the procedures for the conduct of proceedings related to registering deaths at Sharia courts. The circular included new conditions stipulating that five items of evidence must be submitted to and approved by the relevant judges in proceedings related to registering the death. It also requires that all relevant courts involved in death registration cases comply with the circular’s content. The circular also gave security clearance to judicial authorities to register death cases, increasing the security services’ intrusion. We issued a report in which we analyzed the constitutional and legal violations contained in this circular’s text and the consequences thereof. https://snhr.org/?p=58319 https://drive.google.com/file/d/1gOmQHwQIqisEFn31Tkzmddt3RJ1Jvea9/view