Regular armies, militias, terrorist organizations, opposition factions, international powers and rights organizations, all use dead bodies of civilians, soldiers and police personnel during armed conflicts in the Middle East and beyond for various reasons. Identification of dead bodies has become a dilemma for conflict-hit countries such as Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Libya and Mali, due to prevalent security chaos and the destruction of healthcare infrastructure. Moreover, involved parties tend to announce a minimized official civilian and combatant toll using only the numbers of corpses that could be carried to hospitals.
Various Drivers
The ongoing developments in the region and its surroundings indicate the following twelve drivers behind the use of dead bodies:
1- Political Rift between Warring Parties. The discovery of an open mass grave in a quarry containing 36 bodies, on October 28, 2017 in Al-Abyar City southeast of Benghazi, has heated up dispute between the Libyan National Army (LNA) commanded by Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar, and the UN-backed Government of National Accord (GNA) led by Prime Minister Fayez al-Sarraj. Following the discovery of the mass grave, reported by several security services, Haftar demanded an investigation to identify the bodies and perpetrators, especially because his army retook control of Benghazi back in July.
The Presidential Council of Libya, also led by al-Sarraj, in cooperation with the public prosecution, launched an urgent investigation into the crime to bring perpetrators to justice. The Justice and Construction Party, an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood, became involved in the dispute. In a statement, the party described the mass grave of tens of bodies as a war crime and a violation of the universal principles of human rights and international humanitarian law. It further demanded the Presidential Council take urgent action to launch an official inquiry and punish perpetrators while supporting the ministry of interior minister in Benghazi to ensure security in the city.
2- Collapse of ISIS. Several domestic and international parties including the US-led Coalition to Defeat ISIS, Russia, the Syrian government regular army, the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), the Iraqi regular army and the Shiite militias, seek to attack ISIS in its main strongholds in Iraq and Syria and eliminate it. The result was mass graves and bodies strewn on streets in areas held by the group.
According to the US-led Coalition to Defeat ISIS, an estimated 80,000 ISIS militants have been killed since the group was established in mid-2014 to mid-October 2017. Iraqi forces discovered a mass grave containing bodies of ISIS militants who were likely killed in airstrikes months ago. Domestic and international efforts managed to reduce ISIS influence in Libya. On October 6, the Libyan prosecutor-general announced that 21 bodies were recovered from a site where Egyptian copts were killed by ISIS in February 2015. A captive ISIS leader revealed the site in Sirte, where a footage showing the execution of 18 prisoners in orange jumpsuits was recorded.
3- Terrorists Reprisal Attacks against Civilians who Back Regular Armies. During 20 days after seizing al-Qaryatayn in central Syria, ISIS remnants took revenge on civilians accused of collaborating with the al-Assad regime. After the regime forces forced out ISIS militants, eyewitness accounts of the executions noted that residents found bodies inside houses and on the streets and that most were shot or stabbed to death.
The majority of ISIS militants who carried out the surprise attack were sleeper cells, knew the town and its residents and who is with or against the regime. Some civilians were targeted by landmines planted in Raqqa, Deir Ezzor and other areas, increasing the number of dead bodies buried under the rubble.
4- Selfies with Dead Bodies. The general command of the Libyan National Army vowed to investigate violations by soldiers in late March 2017 after a video emerged showing them parading exhumed decomposed bodies in Benghazi after the city was liberated from terror groups.
In Syria, Kenana Alloush, a journalist working for Addounia TV, the mouthpiece of the Bashar Assad regime, posted a selfie of herself with dead bodies following battles between the regime forces and the opposition fighters in northern Syria. The sickening selfie with dead bodies angered public opinion.
5- Healing Past Wounds and Reviving Memories. On September 29, 2016, and to mark the 12th anniversary of the Charter for Peace and National Reconciliation, the Algerian state TV channel aired a 30-minute documentary about the 1990s civil war that showed bodies of dead children and people. The aim was to employ the wounds of the tragic war, also known as the Black Decade, between the army, security forces and terrorists. The conflict broke out after the army cancelled the first round of elections when Islamists appeared to be on track to win an absolute majority in the second round.
The Algerian government’s use of scenes of dead bodies was perhaps aimed at giving special importance to its policy for addressing threats posed by terrorist groups. Other views have it that the scenes were used to counter speculation and controversy about President Abdelaziz Bouteflika's health as well as preparations for the presidential elections. The certain message that the government sought to send out is that those who brought about civil peace should be supported in the forthcoming elections.
6- Bargaining Deals between Militias and Terror Organizations. Lebanon’s Hezbollah group and the Jabhat Fateh al-Sham Jabhat Fateh al-Sham (formerly al-Nusra Front) sealed a deal to exchange bodies of dead militants in a first stage of an agreed ceasefire on the Lebanon-Syria border in late July. After bodies were exchanged, Hezbollah prisoners were released and Fatah al-Sham fighters and a group of civilians left Lebanon for northern Syria. The deal followed intensified fighting between the two groups inside Lebanon and on the border with Syria.
On August 31, Hezbollah received bodies of soldiers from Iran Revolutionary Guard Corps, who were killed in battles with ISIS in Syria. The bodies were transported from Lebanon to Damascus and later to Iran. No further details, including the number of prisoners or dead bodies, were disclosed.
7- Establishing Communication Channels between Governments in Conflict-Hit Countries and Foreign Fighters’ Countries. In late July, after Sirte City was liberated from ISIS with support from the US Air Force, Al Bunyan Al Marsous forces, a militia loyal to the government led by Fayez al-Sarraj, announced that security authorities have bodies of hundreds of ISIS militants from 24 Arab and other countries. The governments of these countries refused to recover the bodies.
The militia’s statement came after receiving complaints from residents who returned to their city and found dead bodies buried under the rubble of buildings destroyed in the fighting. It noted that hundreds of dead bodies were kept refrigerated and DND samples were collected from them after refrigerators failed due to power failures. The statement failed to specify the exact number of bodies or the states that refused to retrieve them.
8- Death Boats and Risks of Illegal Migration. More migrants are drowning in Tunisia’s territorial waters near the Libyan border while heading to Europe. A large number of boats take off from al-Rowais in Southern Tunisia carrying migrants.
Studies indicate that 126 people of various nationalities were rescued and the bodies of 44 others were recovered off al-Rowais since early 2017. In December 2016, the number of migrants who drowned in the Mediterranean trying to reach Europe has reached 5,000, the highest annual total yet, according to International Organization for Migration (IOM).
Residents of that area refuse to bury bodies of dead migrants in their family graves and the Tunisian coast guard cannot carry out the mission because they are not specialized rescue forces and lack sufficient resources. The situation resulted in increasing demands for building graves to bury migrants’ bodies.
9- Fragile Peace and Backing Peacekeeping Forces in Armed Conflicts. In early August 2017, the United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali (MINUSMA) announced, in a statement, that it uncovered mass graves in a region in northern Mali where fighting between the rebel Coordination of Azawad Movements (CMA) and the pro-government Gatia were locked in a bitter power struggle in northern Mali in July.
The intensified fighting between the Tuareg groups threatened to derail a 2015 peace agreement. The UN peacekeeping mission said that it investigated reports of human rights abuses, including in the village of Anefis, about 100 km (60 miles) southwest from the town of Kidal by the two groups. The UN mission said its teams were able to observe on site the existence of individual graves and mass graves in Anefis but were not able to establish at this stage either the number of people buried or the circumstances of their deaths.
10- Burning Bodies to Avoid Accountability for Mass Executions. This is exactly what the regime of al- Assad is doing in Syria. The regime carrying out systematic mass killings of thousands of prisoners and burned dead bodies to avoid evidence.
At a large military prison in outside the capital Damascus, a crematorium was built where thousands of bodies have been burnt. In February, Amnesty International said between 5,000 and 13,000 people were hanged at the Saydnaya prison between 2011 and 2015. Amnesty branded the killings a crime against humanity and called for independent investigation by the Security Council. Stuart Jones, the acting Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs, said US officials believe that many of the bodies have been disposed in mass graves outside the capital Damascus without informing their families of their whereabouts.
11- Politicizing Deaths for Electoral Purposes. The aim is to avoid angering public opinion. A death certificate issued in October by the Russian consulate in Damascus, Syria, shows that at least 131 Russian citizens died in Syria in the first nine months of this year, a number included private military contractors, according to Reuters.
The official death toll of Russian military personnel in Syria this year is 16. A casualty figure significantly higher than that could tarnish President Vladimir Putin’s record five months before a presidential election which he is expected to contest. Russia claims that there are Western attempts to denigrate its role in Syria.
The number of Russian private contractors known to have been killed in Syria this year, stands at 26. Russian authorities have not publicly released any information this year about casualties among Russian civilians who may have been caught up in the fighting. Moreover, bodies of dead Russian citizens fighting with the armed opposition or terrorist organizations are not sent to Russia.
12- Foreign Investment Inflows Conditional Upon Domestic Stability. In such cases, foreign investment in a country is suspended to avoid potential loss and casualties, although there are investors who prefer to do business in high-risk countries. In October, British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson quipped that Libya can be turned into a new Dubai by British investors if it can clear the dead bodies from the city of Sirte.
It can be argued that the number of dead bodies in battlefields, deserts and the Mediterranean sea has only increased due to conflicts driving illegal migration. Some foreign fighters involved in conflicts have only nom de guerres making it difficult to know the real toll. Insufficient resources and time, security restrictions and some group’s inclination to revenge, all block involved relief agencies to know the exact human toll of ongoing conflicts and even allow the manipulation, abuse and exploitation of deaths for political purposes.
