Queiq River Massacre

On the morning of January 29, 2013, another massacre was revealed in Syria's largest city of Aleppo (Halab). Opposition reports, photos, and videos came in of a minimum 65 dead men and boys, bound with plastic ties, executed by gunshots to the head, and dumped in Queiq river. Later, the accepted death toll was 110, as young as (a reported) 14 years-old. A few were older, but most were of working and/or fighting/resisting age. All but a very few are clearly in nothing but civilian clothing.

Opposition fighters and civilian supporters said the dead were suspected opposition people but mostly neutral, killed by the evil and insane government, and dumped from a government-held area (presumably, "the park"), three or four kilometers upstream. They were dredged out of a short section of the river next to the rebel-held district of Bustan Al-Qasr and photographed by rebels for propaganda purposes. It was a powerful scene, aptly described by the Guardian's Martin Chulov, in a March 10 report following an investigation, as "one of the defining images of the Syrian civil war."

Family members of the dead, riven with grief, are cited as declaring one or more victims as lost family members. After that, however, most families were content to let the rebel fighters there bury their martyrs in the anonymous mass graves. Even Chulov noted this "highly unusual" in Islamic culture, and chalks it up to the desparate times, where there isn't enough money, electricity, or anything.

The government, in contrast. claims the dead were loyalists or non-rebels taken captive and executed by rebel forces right there in Bustan Al-Qasr, and presumably just dumped right there. The fact that bodies this freshly killed do not float supports that interpretation, let alone for kilometers around 90-degree turns in a low-current (see map at right) It was allegedly Jabhat Al-Nusra that killed the victims, although the specific evidence for that in particular remains unclear.

Until this front page is better filled in, please see the start of an investigation on the discussion page, notably on {{Talk:Queiq River Massacre#March Massacre|the second mass killing discovery on March 10]]. The very day Mr. Chulov's article appeared. Surely the regime's revenge against those who spoke up so truthfully?