Douma Market Attack: Boy Victims

Douma Market Attack: Victim Analysis: Boy Victims
August 31, 2015

I started with an incomplete list of 117 victims, most identified, with 109 being listed as adult men and only 5 as boys. The three women have little imagery or info I've seen, but at least 4 allegedly-connected girls not listed by VDC are covered here. But the boys category is also bigger than it seemed, and by a bigger degree.

Identified by Name and Face: 
(total 5)
VDC lists, Jihad Walid Hijazi and Mustafa Walid Hijazi as boys, dying alongside their father, Walid Yassin Hijazi.All three are shown together on video DID34 (partly de-stretched stills below: Mustafa on the left, Jihad on right). All are somewhat marked as if by shrapnel and/or smoke-stained. The father's left eye situation is unclear but troubling.


One missed by VDC but listed by LCC and shown on video DID33: infant or newborn boy Ahmed Jaroudi, probable relative of adult male victim Fayez al-Jaroudi.

Two others are listed by both VDC and LCC and shown on video as boys, bust mis-identified by VDC as men:

* Khaled al-Tout - covered at the burned faces post - he has a horrible case - shown again at right.

* Zuhair al-Masri, video DID23, a boy with only a puffy face, seen from the right side, showing and no clear injuries.

At left is a photo showing Zuhair al-Masri, with Mustafa Hijazi behind him. He has a missing front tooth, maybe natural or from the bombs/a rifle butt some time ago. It might be a bad infection that swelled his face so badly, possibly related to that tooth. Whoever was taking care of him this last part of his life didn't do well - he could have died from the infection, for all we can see.

Are there any others listed wrong? It's likely, but likely a low number. Only about 40 of the 100+ victims get these ID videos, which seem to show 5 boys, one woman, and otherwise just men.

Identified just by name
(total 3)
VDC lists 2 of those above, and 5 victims total, as boys. The other 3 they list as boys are:

* Ali Omar al-Sheikh Omar (entry has (alive) photo, aged about 13)
* Hassan Ibraheem al-Marhoum  (no photo or info, as usual)    
* Hussam Ibraheem al-Marhoum   (same)

Non-Identified, seen in Images
(total 7-8)

In the front row of men and boys' bodies gathered by 2:50 PM, we can make out five boys, with possible 16-17-year-olds among the others. These are extracted from different photos; the four younger ones on the left fared better than the men in getting to keep their pants up, or at least the belt part. The older one on the right has his pants halfway pulled down like most of the men. He's also grouped with them, though offset (arranged lower), like the four younger boys in their own group several bodies to the left.

Tallying these in is tricky; they might partly collapse with named boys victims without pictures, or might not. But at least two of these must be unlisted by VDC or misidentified as men.

Another clear fatality is the mangled boy who's different from any others so far seen above or below (although he could be one of the unseen 3, or those listed as men). This one was seen on video MB2, one of the few bodies seen in situ, partly burned, with leg and arm mostly detached, in a puddle of blood (that is, consistent with - but not proving - some shelling deaths at the market).

#7 is a younger victim, aged maybe 4, possibly a girl but by clothing more likely a boy. He has a clear bloody head injury, no other visible marks or signs of shelling damage, covered with the head-hacked girls he was presented with, after being treated the same (cropped photo at right).  

A possible inclusion is the pulled-apart boy. As drastic as his injuries were, they seem to me survivable,. But that doesn't always matter, for whatever reason, in rebel medical facilities. He'll be left off the small total, added to the large one.

Conclusions
min (3 loose names compress w/3 images) 12
max (none of those match) 16

It's not clear how much this adds to the reported death toll. The named 8 help make the list of 122-123 - unidentified may well include a couple already listed as men, and/or a few not listed.  

Comparing the men and boys with the youngest boy, shown alongside girls, helps illustrate gender segregation not just of the dead, but also of their manner of death. Somehow under this alleged jet strike, men and boys wind up looking generally roughed-up, some with burned faces, some unmarked but necks covered. And somehow, girls and younger boys wind up hardly ruffled but head-hacked in the end. The way women were treated by these missiles is unclear - one is seen in video DID16, and her death did involve a bloody injury to the upper body. 

Note above, of the five boys in the big display, the one highlighted on the far left is quite young, barely older than the one included with girls, but apparently just old enough to be included with, killed like, and displayed with the men and older boys.