‘They Killed Us Twice’: Finding Loved Ones at Last Among Syria’s Tortured Dead
By
Reuters, Wire Service Content Aug. 7, 2020,
BY SULEIMAN AL-KHALIDI, Khalil Ashawi and Joseph Nasr
AMMAN/IDLIB/BERLIN (Reuters) - Some families say it is better to know and mourn. Others say finally learning what happened is worse than dying themselves.
Hundreds of victims of Syria’s torture chambers are only now being discovered, thanks to a new effort to identify bodies from tens of thousands of photos smuggled out of Damascus seven years ago. For their families, an image of a broken body with a number tag is all that lies at the end of the quest.
“They died starved and naked,” said Um Munzer Yaseen, 58, who, after sifting through countless photos of emaciated corpses, finally found her son, Jamil, last month.
