Tuesday
Aug162011
Syria Special - Hama: A City of Graves (Abouzeid)
Hama, original site of the 1982 massacre at the hands of Bashar al Assad's father, has a long, sad history of military aggression, and public burial. Rania Abouzeid writes for TIME Magazine:
There's a small, grassless public garden in a residential area just off Hama's Street 40, delineated by a modest metal fence and full of olive trees, their leafy branches laden with unripe fruit. There are also nine fresh graves, for locals whom residents say were killed during the Syrian security forces' recent bloody assault on this scarred rebel city. The dead were buried here, they say, because it was difficult to get the bodies to the cemetery, just a few kilometers away. The heavy shelling and tanks in the streets got in the way, the locals explain, and so this garden had to do.
tagged 1982, 2011, Arab Spring, Hama, Hama Massacre, Ramadan Massacre, Syria, graves, public burial
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