After militias called for the so-called remnants of the Assad regime to be ‘crushed’, massacres were turned into memes. Families fear they’ll never get justice
The widows saw their men forced to bark like dogs before they were killed. Hundreds of thousands of Syrians saw their final degradation, too, as well as the faces of the killers, as the deaths were broadcast on social media.
When Hadeel Nakher saw her husband Qais, 50, and son Ahmed, 30, for the last time on the screen of her phone, they were kneeling by a verge with two other captives, her brother-in-law and a neighbour, being beaten with belts and kicks by a group of armed men. “Bark, bark, bark, you bastards!” a jeering Sunni fighter yelled into their faces as the blows rained down. “I don’t hear you barking.”
