Al-Bayda: anatomy of a war crime

F R I D AY 13 SEPTEMBER 2013 At least 169 people, inclu in! "o#en an c$il %en, "e%e &ille in a #assac%e in t$e S'%ian to"n o( al)Ba' a ea%lie% t$is 'ea%* +a%nin!, t$is e-clusi.e .i eo contains e-t%e#el' ist%essin! (oota!e* Warning: the video below contains extremely distressing footage from the beginning

video
At seven in the morning of 2 May this year, Syrian government forces entered the village of al-Bayda, an opposition enclave nestled in the hills by the Mediterranean coast in the western governorate of Tartus, writes James Braba on! Al-Bayda was a sleepy place. Not much happened there, and until this spring was unremarkable except for one defining fact: it was a predominantly Sunni illage, entirely surrounded by pro-regime Alawite and !hristian territory. "he Syrian go ernment didn#t consider al-Bayda to be a threat. $n %ay &'(( they rounded up all the men in the illage s)uare and beat many of them up to remind them *resident Assad was in charge - and then more or less left it alone. "here was no permanent Syrian army force there, no big checkpoint and no fighting. +egime forces came and went as they pleased. No-one attacked

them. S$ootout "he only function that al-Bayda played for the opposition was to help smuggle out indi idual deserting go ernment soldiers who#d run away from their bases on the coast and were trying to reach rebel-held territory. So when the Syrian army arri ed in %ay - to arrest a group of three Syrian army deserters who were being hidden in the outskirts illage by supporters of the opposition to *resident Assad - no-one could ha e guessed what would happen. ,irst, there was a shootout. "he deserters and a group of around a do-en opposition fighters who went to their assistance - local men with light weapons - opened fire on the army. +esidents said that later they saw the bodies of at least a do-en dead Syrian Army soldiers, their corpses trapped in the burned-out remains of their ambushed ehicle. "aking no chances, the regime forces called in reinforcements. By (pm the firefight was o er. "he deserters were either killed, or fled along with the opposition fighters up into the ca es far outside the illage. Massac%e Now go ernment fighters massed around al-Bayda: regular Syrian Arab army units. uniformed national defence force paramilitaries /the so-called shabiha0. and Syrian army special forces operators. ,rom the outskirts where the skirmish had taken place, the army and paramilitaries mo ed in. ,rom three axes, in coordinated deployments, they swept through al-Bayda, mo ing from house to house. T$e "o%l s$oul pa' attention a/out "$at is $appenin! in al)Ba' a* +$' is e.e%'one asleep0 +$' on1t t$e' o so#et$in!0 #Sara# At (.1'pm the killing began. %en and women were separated in the houses.

"he 2men2 - which included teenage boys - were either executed immediately, or marched to the illage s)uare to be killed en masse. %ost were shot. Some were hacked to death with long kni es or clea ers. At least one young boy, 3u)man al-4iris, was beheaded - in front of his mother. $n the house of %ustafa Biyasi, 1' women and children were herded into one room and then executed - shot at point blank. Saffa Biyasi cuddled her baby boy, 4am-a Biyasi. "hey lay dead next to each other, serene despite their in5uries. Afnan Biyasi and another small child spooned each other on the bed they were shot on, perhaps holding each other for comfort in the last moments before the bullets ripped through their tiny bodies. By 6pm the massacre was o er. "he Syrian army had killed at least (78 ci ilians in four hours. "he erified final death toll is likely to reach beyond &6'. Bu%ne Bodies were stacked up in the local cellphone shop and burned, making them hard to identify. 9m %ohammed, an eye witness to the massacre, was able to identify the charred remains of her son only by the chipped fingernail he#d broken earlier. "he next day go ernment forces returned and burned al-Bayda. "he sleepy illage which once had a population of around 6,''' people was empty. +efugees fled to rebel-held areas of Syria and then on to "urkey and 3ebanon. It use to /e calle al)Ba' a 2 t$e "$ite .illa!e* 3o" t$e' call it al)Sa" a ) t$e /lac& .illa!e*#Sara# $f the go ernment#s strategy has been to cleanse al-Bayda of its Sunni %uslim residents then they were successful: with the exception of a few

elderly people too old to lea e, only the !hristian )uarter remains inhabited. "hirteen members of ,attou family, who did try to return were wiped out in their home by Syrian security forces on &( :uly. 1T$e Blac& 4illa!e1 ;hile the in estigation into the regime#s alleged use of ner e gas continues, the & %ay massacre in al-Bayda remains the single, most extensi e erified act of the killing of ci ilians carried out by go ernment forces since the war began. But what perhaps is as shocking as the eyewitness accounts of murder by uniformed go ernment troops is that the massacre at al-Bayda was almost entirely unreported in the mainstream media: a few short news pieces, a lot of web traffic and a report and brief o er iew at the time in the western press is really all the attention that al-Bayda recei ed. 2Sara2 - a (&-year-old girl who sur i ed the massacre and who was inter iewed for this programme, found the body of her tortured and murdered father. ;hen asked if there was anything she#d like to say to the people abroad who might see this film she replied: 2"he world should pay attention about what is happening in al-Bayda. ;hy is e eryone asleep< ;hy don#t they do something< 2;e had one nursing baby who died in his mother#s lap. ;hat has he done< =id he o erthrow the president< *eople should stand up to them, to our enemies. 2>ou cannot 5ust keep )uiet. "his is not right. "hey ha e slaughtered all of us. "hey ha e emptied al-Bayda. "here is no-one there any more. $t used to be called al-Bayda ? the white illage. Now they call it al-Sawda ? the black

illage.2