Houla:Abdulrazaq Families

By all measures, the largest portion of the Houla Massacre's 108-ish victims were from several households of the Abdulrazaq family (alt. Abdel Razzaq, Abed-al-Razaq, Arabic: عبدالرزاق). Most reports put the number of victims from this family at 62 or near that, and a huge majority of the children of all ages were from these homes. A closer analysis however suggests that number is of those with the Abdulrazaq name - of all those intermarried to, living with, related to but living elsewhere, who were apparently singled out, it's more like 85-90 victims.

Opposition sources and alleged witnesses for a government/Shabiha attack claim this was another Sunni family, with noting but maybe its proximity to Alawite villages that set them apart to be killed - it was random, apparently. On the other hand, the alleged witnesses for a rebel attack say the Abdulrazaqs were targeted especially by the anti-government "terrorists" because they had converted to become Shi'ites. That's discussed at the page: Abdel Razaq family: Sunni or Shi'ite?

Main Area: Saad Street
Around 60 of the victims belonged to this family, including most of the children. Several families of this clan lived in a cluster of houses at the south end of Saad road, near the dam, some with multiple families in the same house. Human Rights Watch was told by alleged survivors that the family "owns the land and farms next to the national water company and the water dam of Taldou, and lives in eight or nine houses next to each other, two families to a house."

Human Rights Watch reported that "local activists" handed them "a list of 62 dead members from the Abdel Razzak family." HRW also spoke to three alleged survivors of this family: a 10-year-old boy, his mother, and an elderly woman. The DCRHS victim list is dominated by names containing Abdul Razaq, a total of 60 entries out of 107. These include one of the soldiers (#107), possibly unrelated. The rest are clustered into four groupings (entries 1-21, 35-45, 50-68, 82-89)

Victim Records Correlation
The various homes targeted, reported names, and even death toll are complex and a little confusing. In the effort to sort them out, first some details of the opposition version.

Testimony by "Akrama Bakour, Free Syrian Army," via the phone lines to the BBC, shows much knowledge of the crime scenes. He breaks up the whole clan victims into sub-families killed at at least three distinct locations.
 * "They then entered the house of Samir Abdul Razaq. He was killed with his children - Sawsan, Houda, Jouzila and Nada. And his daughter-in-law Halloum El Khlaf, six months pregnant, with her son Ala'a Abdul Razaq, and Samir's sister-in-law Khaloud El Khalaf, and her daughter, Rahaf Al Hussein - but her daughter Zahra Al Hussein was shot twice but survived.
 * "Samir's wife was hit with the back of the rifles but she fainted and is now still alive. Also among the victims in this house were four kids whose father is Fadi al-Kurdi.
 * "The next house they entered was the house of Qutayba Abdul Razaq, he survived and his one-year-old daughter was injured. He lost his wife and five of his children.
 * "All of those I'm counting died by gunshots, direct fire. They were gathered in one room and shot. There was one kid however whose head was skinned with a knife. The knife was found among the bodies and we have its picture.
 * "The third house belongs to Nidal Abdul Razaq, his wife and four of his children were killed, and he and one of his children are still alive.
 * "Adel Abdul Razaq - his whole family, a wife and six children.
 * "Mustafa Abdul Razaq was killed with his four daughters, his wife and his daughter in law.
 * "Ayman Abdul Razaq - all of his six children were killed as was his wife, one of the children was disabled.
 * "Abdul Khalek Abdul Razaq - his wife and daughter survived gun shots but he lost six other children and his daughter-in-law and her three children.
 * "Abdul Rahman Abdul Razaq lost his wife, his five daughters and 11 grandchildren as well as his six daughters-in-law and four of his sons. He still has two who are still alive; one is called Firas and the other Rateb. This massacre was of 27 people in the same room.
 * "Also killed in the massacre were Yaacoub Hussein Abdul Razaq, Mohammad Shafiq Abdul Razaq, Mohammad Abbara and his daughter Amina and her family of seven."

A total of 8 households in the main area (alley 1515W), the entrance to the neighborhood, and the site of Abbara-Amina family massacre - apparently at the overrun clocktower post. This lists 82 murdered at the main site, and 9 elsewhere, for 91 people killed in the Abdulrazaq or related families.

Further opposition sources considered:
 * "Arabic correlated list" 113 entries, some duplicates
 * "2014 list" with family breakdowns (alleged), ages, and images of most of them, most of which were new to ACLOS. Very informative, if its added details are reliable.
 * The Violations Documentation Center (VDC) database

Intermarried Families
The original reading has the victims in 4 groups with Abdulrazaq families (app. 62) the largest, the Al-Sayeds and Other/unclear civilian roughly tied at about 15-20 each, and then rebel fighters (about 6), with defending soldiers not even mentioned, of course. Turns out on examination most of the “other” civilians are clearly intermarried with the Abdulrazaqs, and the rest might be, making their category a vast majority of the Houla Massacre death toll – about 85-90 of the 108 or so. They are to the Houla Massacre what the Biassis were to the Al-Bayda Massacre a year later.

How Syrians do their names seems complex, and opposition records add wrinkles of their own. Middle names tend to be the father's first name – wives tend to be listed under their 'maiden names,” showing the family they came from (why some and not others is unclear). So clearly, just counting all names “Abdulrazaq” (that's the usual tally of about 60-65) won't cut it to identify who was killed in this portion of the targeted family assassinations. Correlating details is what will establish that, and it drags in just about all stray names.

Al-Kurdi/Arouq: 9 entries - Ismael: 2 more - Zegahi/Moussa: 2 more - Al-sweiee: 4 boys - Abbara: 2 more entries - Bakour: 1 = 20 additional people apparently killed for marrying into this family -m and some of them it seems were tracked down across the Houla area, not just in the Saad Street homes. SOme of them have been presented as those random shelling victims, but don't appear to be random at all. Each link explained as possible below. Further Abdulrazaq victims appear as well over time and correlating lists - some may be phantoms, others ones left out at first, hunted down later, etc.

Al-Kurdi
This is too complex to explain in full yet, but they have 2 or 3 points of intermarriage with the Samir Hussein (father) and Alaa Samir (son) Abdulrazaq households – two Kurdi women Haloum (and her daughter Rahaf Hussein) and Safira, pregnant.

One intermarried Kurdi man - Fadi Mahmoud - had his 3-4 children killed at Samir's house, his unnamed Abdulrazaq wife shot but alive rebels say, and his own parents killed; Akrama Bakour says the father, Mustafa, was a shepherd killed at the entrance to Saad street, his kids and daughter-in-law either with him or at Samir's house or both. Other sources say Mahmoud was from Aqrab, north of Houla (see Aqrab Massacre there six months later), and his wife was named Zainab Arouq, also from Aqrab, killed with him in the Houla Massacre. But perhaps that part of it happened to them at home in Aqrab: The 2014 list drops Zainab but says for Mr. Kurdi “he was resident of Aqrab village and lived in place where massacred happened.“ A straight reading says there was a massacre there too. Some Aqrab fighters were involved, with a whole unit coming down to Taldou that day. [citation needed]

Ismael
This name has 2 points of connection. Haloum Ismael (age 52) married Abdelrahman Khaled Abdulrazaq (57), and had at least three children: son Mahmoud 22 and daughter Salma 21, killed with them, plus a son Firas Abdelrahman, age unsure, who married a Safira Ismael, age 27. They had at least two kids age 5 and 9 who were killed along with her – and horribly (the flayed-open skull kid, and one of the ripped-off-jaw kids). Safira is also shown dead in blood, one of the few women shown. (image links in the 2014 list PDF) Firas himself survived or wasn't home, apparently. This one has no known geographic implications.

Zegahi/Moussa
The “Rebel Defector” told Marat Musin (ANNA News) the units he was with "oopened fire on the building of the military intelligence. The bullets hit the building, but also neighboring houses. One of the armed rebels fired from a bazooka, but missed the target. He has hit the house next door, killing two members of the family Al-Zegahi, which, as it is said, just have been sitting down and peacefully drunk tea."

Opposition lists have only one fatality of that name: Raed Ishaq Al-Zikahi (it's probably the same name), age 27, married with 4 children. He was killed by random shelling by most sources, not execution. Maybe he's not from the same group, who should live on Main Street by the Defector's narrative. The 2014 Houla Massacre Facebook page has one post suggesting Read is one of the four Saad Street RPG Incident victims they also discuss - intriguingly as RPG victims from about 6:00 - here. A good guess might be the young guy with his legs blown off, a wedding ring, and “Don't Stop the Rock” T-shirt. The same page shows a boy - Hasan Ahmad Al-zukahi, 12 years old - with half a leg amputated but alive (along with an Abdulrazaq boy missing half a leg – both with names suggesting they aren't in any of the known targeted sub-families of May 25, meaning ...?).

There's a second dead victim after all, but not killed there. Badria Qadour Mousa was the wife of Faisal Shafiq Abdurazaq and the mother of some dead children, prior records show. The 2014 list agrees, listing 4 children (14-year-old Shafiq had his right arm torn off) with their 45 year old mother, but here given as Bedreih Abed Al-Kader Al-zukahi'. So she's called both Moussa and Zukahi, and interestingly, the other Zegahi was once given as Raed Ishak Mousa, 27 years old. So Moussa = Zegahi/Zukahi, and they were linked to the main target family. It wasn't likely an accident, but rather a part of the premeditated targeting all those who dared intermarry with this family, even blowing the legs off of relatives across town, wherever exactly they lived, and maybe even at later dates.

Harmoush
Shalaan Abdelkhalek is another of majority of the Abdulrazaq men rebel sources say did not die. But the 2014 list says his 25-year-old wife Fadia Ashraf Harmoush was murdered, along with 3 daughters (aged 8, 6, and 3) and a 4-year-old son. So Harmoush is another name that, if it appears among random shelling victims, it probably isn't. It was somewhere else - Ouqba Meysar Harmoush's house – where they say Ouqba's wife Fadia Abed Al-Hakeem Harmoush (often Harfoush), 35 years old, was killed by shelling that day.

Further, this name popped up when geo-locating the day's videos. Two of the famous views of shelling by the regime (and shooting by his own side from the roof above) were filmed in a house the Wikimapia label says belongs to an “Ali Harmoush.” Was this another targeted home? In case it's connected, the videos were timed at about 1:44 PM local – early in the violence by all measures. (explanation forthcoming)

Al-Sweiee
The 2014 list has them (but not the Abbaras) listed among the Abdulrazaqs, and the Mother, it says, is one. Where they were killed, etc. is unclear. Family of Bassam Khaled Al-Sweeai: 21-Omamah Abed al-Rahman Abed Al-razaq,32 years old, mother. 22- Jaber Bassam Al-Sweeai, 10 years old, son 23- Hatem Bassam Al-Sweeai, 9years old, son 24- Hazem Bassam Al-Sweeai, 11 years old, son No one else lists Omamah, but the VDC does say the boys (4) had a mother named Amama, who wasn't listed. Other agree there were four children, but the new list drops one as it adds the mother.

Despite what this says, they may relate another way – as the rest of the kids in a possible Amina Abdulrazaq-Mohammed Abbara marriage - re-named or oddly-named (2nd marriage, whatever). (explanation forthcoming)

Either way, these children add 4 more to the list one would get just looking at the last name alone.

Abbara
Complex and confusing, poss. Al-Sweiee link – forthcoming.

Other
Raghda Saeed Bakour - as listed in records - married Ayman Hussein Abdulrazaq, and their 5 children were all killed with her. Ayman aka Hassan aka Abu Firas allegedly survived by hiding nearby, but he's a questionable too-prolific witness who probably died, and mis-names his wife as Ghaida (see below) Bakour is a common name, so it's presumed there's no relation to Talal Bakour, a rebel fighter who died under leadership of his brother, Nidal Bakour.

All “other” entries that don't seem to be rebel fighters that don't clearly connect to the Abdulrzaqs: Three women, possible 'maiden-name' wives like usual - Fatima Abdulaal (poss. Al-Sayed family link), Dallal Abbas (unknown), and unidentified (obviously unknown).

Questionable Survivors
Akrama Bakour's testimony says several male heads of household survived, by escaping or not being home, unclear. Most of these somehow managed to save one young child, but no more. Hardly a single home had no alleged survivors. These have spoken up on rebel videos and elsewhere blaming Shabiha and could be:
 * real survivors telling the truth (the UN's investigators presumed this)
 * real survivors made into virtual zombies, saying whatever rebels tell them to say
 * rebel-activist impostors.


 * Hassan Abdel-Razzaq also calls himself Abu Firas ("father of Firas") and others mainly call him Ayman Abdul Razaq, who survived but lost a wife - Raghda Seed Bakour - and 5 children. The children - one eldest named Firas, his twin brother, and one a son named Abdullah with Cerebral Palsy, a teenage daughter and an infant daughter - had the middle name Ayman in all listings. Abu Firas/Hassan claims he took the photos of his dead family, run by the Daily Mail with his interview, because “I wanted the world to see.”  But the images – including one of Abdullah with the back of his skull hacked open and his brain fallen out - are part of the general set taken by activists at the Ali bin al-Hussein mosque on the 26th.

There's some disagreement on Ayman's survival - Major Jihad Raslan says the third and final house he inspected after the Shabiha left was that of “Abu Firas." "He was the only man in the house,” Jihad says, and “he was literally slaughtered.” "Abu Firas" as he once called himself was the only man of the house and the only plausible match - but he says he survived unharmed and most others agree. He says he hid nearby, thinking he was the danger, but his wife (named Ghaida, he says, not Raghda) and his 5 children (only Akrama Bakour says 6) were executed anyway. However, A video of what seems like 7 wrapped bodies includes one seen - Safaa - and suggests Major Jihad's version is closer to true (see here). It's possible this video is why Bakour insisted Ayman had six children, not five.