Syria: Ghouta Chemical Massacre(s): Body Recycling

Ghouta Chemical Massacre(s): Body Recycling 
June 7, 2015
(last edits June 21)

In the first days after the August 2013 incident, a number of claims were made about the victims, including that the same ones kept being shown in different spots to inflate the apparent death toll. I can think of 2 cases we noted and considered at ACLOS, both now shown wrong:

 

* Swedish Expatriates Analysis: girls in gray and yellow confused - errors explained here.

* Another (boy in black and red) is captured in this image, wherever it was published, and mentioned by in this article - this match is disproven with a better match of the same child below (see match 3).

At the risk of sounding arrogant, here are the real matches rolling in - six graphic plates of several images / victims each yield 3 men, and 29 children for 32 victims total seen laid out in at least 2 different displays, often 3 or even 4. First laid out in overall victim analysis context here at ACLOS but put here too for good measure.

Morgue Match 1: Ahmad Ghazi, a Palestinian among several relatives killed, per VDC records, had that distinct torn undershirt and blue plaid over just the shoulders.  He and another guy were seen in 3 spots together, with another man between them in two spots. Bottom left outside view: location unclear, Douma stamp. Upper right, "gray brick C" where the VDC face-shot was probably taken.

Morgue Match 2: identified child victims Diaa Idrees and Ahmad Zaidan plus 4 others seen in gray brick A and in the WhiteMorgue, plus a boy seen in the WhiteMorgue and previously somewhere else in a different body array.

Morgue Match 3: 7 kids matched between Hamouriya pool scene and the WhiteMorgue

Morgue Match 4: 2 girls seen in unknown, gray brick A (not shown) and WhiteMorgue - two others seen at unknown, gray brick A, and WM.

Morgue Match 5: a man not noticed elsewhere, at the WM, amongst five more children seen in the Hamouriya pool.

Morgue Match 6: 4 older boys laid out with men at the WhiteMorgue: 3 are seen in the Hamouriya pool, one of those and another seen earlier in the Saqba schoolyard scene (geo-located - Petri explains here)

 

Note how all these wind up in the WhiteMorgue, app. 200 bodies total (187 min., maybe well over 200 at fullest). The purpose: those body batches that wind up here can't honestly be added straight across by per-scene headcount. Shared members being identified suggests maybe the whole smaller batch in just a sub-set of the larger batch. However, some victims in the smaller scenes may get split-off and not included in the WhiteMorgue, and so should be added separate of that tally. But we can't say much yet about how many that is.

But other large body arrays do not seem, so far, to feed into the WhiteMorge total and should be added. Kafr Batna's set, Irbeen's hospital basement set, the Moadamiyeh victims, some 30-ish photographed victims buried in Ain Tarma, etc. appear not to be part of any other groups. So for totals, the visual record alone probably supports a minimum 400-500 victims, as it seems so far. I'm thinking the total is a bit higher, but not way higher, than this range - lower than I used to think before I noted this definite body repetition.

Another point to the matches here is that it helps all-but-rule out a Latakia connection. As proposed by many, the hundreds of Alawite civilians recently kidnapped by rebels in Latakia province, near Turkey, were in fact the people rebels gassed and showed on video. That almost requires the victims be killed in Syria's north, as the distance to Ghouta is too great to smuggle so many. Logic suggested these captives - or victims anyway -  came from nearer places. In plate 6 we can see a WhiteMorgue match to two bodies seen at a site that was geo-ocated by Petri Krohn at ACLOS in Saqba district. That means all 200 or so there are also in or near the Ghouta area.

Other sizeable batches of bodies are in Ghouta as well: the 85-100 in Kafr Batna's SunMorgue were also placed also by Petri where they said. The Irbeen hospital victims - app. 63 in number - had NBC News visit the site a week later, in Irbeen, and film it looking the same - unless they lied about what part of Syria they were in. These plus the 78-88 in Moadamiyeh, unlikely to be recycled anywhere else = app. 420+ victims seen in the Ghouta area, and that's almost all of them we can see anywhere. The remainder probably belong as well. That's not proven, but it's apparently not a massive question 

Anyone wanting to dig for their own matches: note that kids are the best to check (various different sizes and more unique clothing combinations) - videos are okay but photos should be checked first where available - matches tend to come in groups, so if you might have one, check for #2 and 3, and if you find those, you're probably onto a real match.