Amid thousands of numbered graves and the absence of official statistics, the people of the Sheikh Maqsoud and Ashrafiyeh neighborhoods carry memories of forced displacement and unnamed victims, stories that have left unhealed wounds in the collective memory of the community.
Dilyar is a pseudonym used by a resident of the Sheikh Maqsoud neighborhood who did not want to reveal her real name. The number “4,800” is etched in Dilyar’s memory. It is not personal information, but the number of graves he searched through while looking for the body of her brother, who was killed during the latest attacks by groups affiliated with the Syrian interim government on the Sheikh Maqsoud and Ashrafiyah neighborhoods of Aleppo.
Victims of the attacks and forced displacement
According to a report by ANHA, Dilyar said that she and her children were forcibly displaced on January 8 due to shelling and attacks, as well as the siege imposed on the Sheikh Maqsoud and Ashrafiyah neighborhoods between January 6 and 10, along with more than 250,000 other people.
According to the latest data from the General Council of the Sheikh Maqsoud and Ashrafiyeh neighborhoods, about 450,000 people lived in the two districts. A significant portion of them were people who had been forced to flee Afrin after the Turkish state’s attacks in 2018.
It was also reported that Turkish military technology was used in the attacks on the two neighborhoods. These attacks severed all of Dilyar’s family ties, especially his connection with his brother. He later learned that his brother had been killed by groups affiliated with the interim government that carried out the attacks.
Searching for a body
According to Dilyar, the search for her brother’s body began at a security checkpoint in the neighborhoods. She was then directed to the Aleppo morgue.
From there, she was sent to Al-Neqarin Cemetery in eastern Aleppo. This cemetery contains a special section dedicated to the recent events in Sheikh Maqsoud and Ashrafiyah. There are more than 4,800 numbered, unnamed graves there.
These graves belong to civilians killed in the attacks, members of the Internal Security Forces (Asayish), and also individuals from foreign armed groups affiliated with the Syrian interim government who had no relatives in Syria.
Mourning forbidden
Dilyar said that when she arrived in the Al-Neqarin area, a morgue employee took her to a section where the numbered graves were located. The graves were only a few centimeters deep and the bodies had been placed in plastic bags.
Opening the bags for identification was prohibited. Instead, the bodies were removed, placed in coffins, and the coffins were sealed.
Dilyar took her brother’s body to a town in occupied Afrin. However, groups affiliated with the government did not allow the body to be buried in the village cemetery. The reason given was that the body was one of the “victims of Sheikh Maqsoud and Ashrafiyah.”
The family was asked to bury the body in an area outside the village. This was seen as discrimination against the victims. Armed groups also did not allow Dilyar’s family to set up a condolence tent or hold a funeral ceremony in the village.
Messages of intimidation
Another person from the Sheikh Maqsoud neighborhood who did not want to reveal his name and introduced himself as Ibrahim, said that four days after groups affiliated with the interim government entered the neighborhoods, specifically on January 14, people were allowed to return.
However, when they returned, they encountered dozens of bodies that had not yet been removed from the streets around the Maarouf Al-Karkhi Mosque in Sheikh Maqsoud.
In a phone statement, Ibrahim said that the bodies of civilians and fighters left in the streets were a message of intimidation to the population. He said the message implied that the interim government would respond to any objection with a massacre and that those returning should be aware of this.
Ibrahim said that when he returned home he recognized some of the bodies in the streets. One of them was his 70-year-old neighbor Iwesh from the village of Aqibe in Afrin. He also said that another person, 32-year-old Basil, was a civilian who ran a mobile phone shop in eastern Sheikh Maqsoud.
Those who spoke emphasized that the resistance in Sheikh Maqsoud and Ashrafiyah, and its deep impact, shows that Syria’s future can only be built through dialogue, justice, and equality for all Syrians.
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