Forensic doctor Sara Melhem has been tirelessly working with her colleagues at the morgues of Damascus Hospital and Al-Mouwasat University Hospital hoping to help families find the remains of their loved ones in Syria.
Following the toppling of President Bashar al-Assad on 8 December 2024, Syrian rebel groups broke into the regime’s detention facilities and freed incarcerated people across the country.
Dr Sara was torn between searching for her cousin, who had been imprisoned in 2013, and helping others identify their missing loved ones — the 27-year-old doctor chose the latter.
More than half a million have been killed in Syria since 2021, according to a report released by the Syrian Observatory For Human Rights (SOHR). The report by the rights group stated that the death of thousands of people was confirmed after the brutal regime of Bashar al-Assad was ousted and detention centres, prisons and mass graves were discovered and opened.
Many Syrians were likely killed, executed, or sent on ‘death military missions’ by the Assad army. Relatives were rarely informed, and the bodies were rarely returned, leaving families in a state of shocking uncertainty.
In hopes of helping families heal from this trauma, Dr Sara and her team came up with resourceful methods to assist families in identifying missing loved ones, such as sharing photos of the corpses with a Telegram group run by medical students or taping the pictures on the wall outside the Damascus Hospital emergency department entrance.
Speaking to The New Arab about the state of the bodies she was dealing with, Dr Sara explained, “The natural decaying process of the bodies was significantly disrupted because they had been stored in refrigeration units for an extended period. This resulted in several conditions, with some bodies reaching advanced stages of decay, while others exhibited signs of mummification or saponification.”
She added that the frequent power outages had also caused fungal growth, making it extremely difficult to determine the time of death.
“During my visit to a mass grave, I met a man searching for his son. I tried to explain the importance of preserving the site as it was for forensic investigation, but his desperation overwhelmed any logical argument. He was convinced he could identify his son from a single photograph he has, despite me telling him how difficult it is to identify remains after a long period,” Dr Sara said.
Lack of specialists
Dr Sara and her colleagues have been working to the point of exhaustion. For decades, Syria has experienced a severe shortage of forensic medicine specialists, with 54 practising nationwide and only 10 based in Damascus and its countryside. This critical shortage has forced authorities to use non-forensic doctors to perform these specialist duties.
The injustices of the Assad regime, coupled with the low-income forensic doctors earn, resulted in a severe lack of interest in specialising in this field.
“I chose forensic medicine with a strong passion for the field, despite being aware of the potential security risks and the limited scope of practice outside of state institutions,” Dr Sara told The New Arab.
Intense process of identification
Corpses and skeletons were brought in a few days after the fall of the Assad regime, originating from prisons, a military hospital, and recently discovered graves.
The weight of expectation, fuelled by the constant influx of bodies and the desperate pleas of families, weighs heavily on Dr Sara.
“We began to identify the bodies one by one. It was an incredibly difficult process, especially under such extremely challenging circumstances,” Dr Sara continues.
“There was no security team to protect us, and people were constantly entering the morgue to search for their loved ones. They would take pictures of the bodies. We tried to prevent people from entering, but it was very difficult,” she adds.
“We would find bodies piled on top of each other; 35 bodies or more in a single refrigerator. Other bags contained human bones and skeletons. These bodies were then transferred from the military hospital to Damascus Hospital for investigation and identification.”
Talking more in-depth about the process itself, Dr Sara explains: “We conduct a thorough examination of each corpse after fully undressing it. We take tissue samples from the thigh muscles and the skin. Sometimes we pick a tooth, bone or pull out hairs to be tested for DNA.”
The involvement of odontologists in the identification process is crucial as they use techniques, such as panoramic X-rays, which help estimate the age of the dead person. Another team of forensic odontologists examine teeth to identify corpses.
In Damascus, there are only two morgues: one in Damascus Hospital and the other in the Al-Mouwasat University Hospital.
“When the bodies arrived, forensic doctors were joined by dentists to identify and document dental records. Dentists also examined specific areas of the skull. However, due to a shortage of medical personnel, dentists within the morgue were tasked with other duties to compensate for the lack of specialists,” Dr Sara said, explaining that the bodies may have been stored for up to six or seven months in the state refrigerators.
“Some people believe that forensic doctors become desensitised to the horrific scenes they deal with, developing a ‘cold heart’, however, what many fail to realise is that while we may become accustomed to the visual aspects of our work, we never become desensitised to the human stories behind each case,” Dr Sara adds.
“At the end of the day, I am still a human.”
Azhar Al-Rubaie is a journalist and researcher based in Iraq. He has been working in the field of media since 2014. His writing focuses on a variety of issues, including politics, health, society, human rights, water scarcity, climate change and environmental issues
Follow him on X: @AzherRubaie
Sebastian Backhaus is a German freelance photographer
Follow him on Instagram: @sebastian_backhaus
