SHAH ALAM – A clip of a 2013 massacre allegedly took place in Tadamon, Syria had resurfaced showing blindfolded civilians ordered to run forward to an execution pit before shots were fired towards them, and the bodies were later ignited.
In the one minute and 48 seconds video posted online, a man dressed in military clothes identified as an intelligence officer of the infamous branch 227 was seen leading a civilian towards the execution pit before pushing him into the hole which was filled with other bodies.
It was then followed by another man in military clothes directing a blindfolded civilian with his arms tied behind his back to run forward, and he was shot dead by the military man as he ran and stumbled into the same pit.
The exact process was repeated, with at least 41 innocent civilians laid dead in the mass grave before the man dressed in military garbs poured gasoline into the pit filled with bodies and burned it to hide the evidence.
The video was date-stamped April 16, 2013, which means the massacre took place nine years ago.
The Guardian reported that the video was first discovered by a recruit to a loyalist Syrian militia who was handed a laptop belonging to one of President Bashar al-Assad most feared security wings.
He had curiously clicked on a video file on the laptop, where he found the massacre video.
Aghast with what he saw, he decided that the footage needed to be seen elsewhere after fleeing war-torn Syria.
He first leaked the video to an opposition activist in France, followed by University of Amsterdam’s Holocaust and Genocide Centre researchers Annsar Shahhoud and Prof Uğur Ümit Üngör, where the massacre was eventually revealed.
Following the emergence of the video, The Guardian reported that families had come forward to identify their loved ones in the massacre.
"A total of six men shown in their last moments of life in the gruesome video have now been identified. Many were Palestinians from the nearby Yarmouk refugee camp.
"Several more were local residents. Their families have little clue about why they were captured. But for the first time since the outset of the war, officials are under pressure to provide responses to a seething Syrian street,” the report stated.
Family members of the Tadamon victims were finally able to hold vigils of their own, for men they had long believed were lost, and among them were the parents of Wasim Siyam.
"I was expecting everything, that he’d have lost an eye, that he’d have been tortured, but I wasn’t expecting that they do this to him. It’s the absolute worst.
"I thought he was held by the regime. He left the house at 6am. I gave him his clothes, I had them hanging to dry, he wore them and I told him: please don’t go.
"At 12.40 his phone dropped off the cell network. We asked the government for a family record and they had him down as alive. Justice must be served,” his mother was quoted by the British newspaper.
Wasim’s father was reported to have recognised his son by how he ran.
"My friend who lives in the Netherlands sent me this video and I watched it once, twice, three times and I noticed one of them ran in a familiar way and it was my son,” the news outlet reported.
Al Jazeera news channel also reported that his mother recognised him by his body shape, hair and the pants he wore, while his sister recognised his voice.
Wasim was 33 years old when he was murdered and had two daughters, who are now 15 and 13.
The Guardian reported the next three victims identified were the Turkmen Syrians Shaman al-Daher and his sons Omar and Mutlaq.
It was reported that Omar and Shaman were identified to be executed by family members who refused to provide their names.
They also identified Mutlaq, whom they said was already dead in the pit.
Shaman was 63 years old and was arrested with his sons during a raid at his house on the day of the massacre.
Action Group for the Palestinians of Syria identified the fifth victim as Louay al-Kabra, another resident of the Yarmouk refugee camp.
Louay was a first responder and had been reported missing earlier that month.
A 27-year-old barber, Said Ahmad Khattab was another Palestinian victim from Yarmouk. He was reported to be the grandson of a leader of a 1936 Palestinian revolt against the Ergun.
"Today, 74 years after that massacre, I forced myself to watch this video... and saw Said the grandson get executed the same way his grandfather was but this time by Arabs who claim they are resistance,” his friend tweeted.
The Syrian regime had long held up Yarmouk as a showpiece of its commitment to the Palestinian cause.
But regime raids later in 2013 forced most of its residents into exile, some for a second time. Many remain in Lebanon, afraid to return.
Al Jazeera reported the chilling footage explicitly revealed gruesome crimes that Syrian activists and international human rights organisations have accused the Syrian government and its allies of committing in the country’s uprising turned-civil war.
Over the past 11 years, an estimated 500,000 people have been killed and millions displaced.
Syria today is reeling from a crippling economic crisis, while Bashar al-Assad in Damascus remains in power with military support from Russia, Iran, and Lebanese Hezbollah.