Op-Ed: Remains in the rubble: Integrating rights of the missing into Syria’s reconstruction policies

Ever since my eyes fell upon photos of my childhood home in Damascus—now reduced to rubble, a silent witness to the Syrian war—I have been haunted by thoughts of what its debris might hide. 

Nothing remained of it but blocks of cement and iron, but this destruction could not erase my childhood memories. The images flooded my mind, more vivid: friends we used to play with, the faces of our neighbors. With this painful summoning of memories, a shocking question crept in: How many of my companions and neighbors lie missing now, sleeping beneath this rubble?

The ruins of Mansour al-Omari’s childhood home in Damascus, which was reduced to rubble during the Syrian war. This location was situated on the front lines and was subjected to intense airstrikes and barrel bombs, 12/2025 (Mansour al-Omari)

The area where our house stood was on the front lines, a witness to the cruelty of barrel bombs and the whims of airstrikes. Its silent ruins are more than merely scattered debris; they may conceal the remains of missing people whose families are still searching for them. This lifeless rubble may conceal, within its layers, bodies and remains that cry out not to be pulverized in a stone crusher, imprisoned forever in a concrete mold or paved into an asphalt road.

For many years, through thousands of video clips, Syrians witnessed the desperate attempts made by the Civil Defense and local residents to pull the living and the dead from beneath the ruins and wreckage of buildings destroyed by aerial bombardment and barrel bombs.

With the fall of the Assad regime on December 8, 2024, and the country opening up to its tragedy, scenes of massive destruction have become part of our daily view. The rubble has become a silent testimony to a deep human tragedy, and—especially in frontline areas and locations subjected to heavy bombardment—may contain the remains of many missing people, along with answers for their families.  

The discovery of bodies, remains, and bones continues across Syria—not only in dedicated mass graves but in wells, pharmaceutical warehouses, military sites, residential basements, agricultural lands and more.

Despite this tragic reality, no national plan has been announced for a systematic search for bodies and human remains. Chance remains the primary driver of discoveries made by citizens, putting forensic evidence and human remains at risk of permanent erasure and undermining efforts to find the missing.

Among the risks is the indiscriminate removal and recycling of rubble without inspecting it for human remains. Failing to inspect the rubble violates the state’s duties toward its citizens, international standards regarding the management of the dead in disasters and conflicts and Syria’s other international obligations related to the missing and the rights of victims and families.

Massive amounts of rubble are generally concentrated in major battle zones that faced intensive shelling. With efforts to remove, treat and recycle rubble underway across Syria as a vital step toward reconstruction, a major ethical and humanitarian dilemma emerges: How can we definitively ensure that this rubble is free of the remains of the missing before it is processed and reused in construction? How can we ensure this before traces of the missing disappear from the face of the earth, before their remains are mixed with cement and poured into blocks, buildings and roads?

As rubble removal and recycling operations continue and accelerate—with major projects announced to recycle debris for construction—there is an urgent need to regulate these processes. These projects, which breathe life back into Syria, must account for human remains and the rights of victims and their families. 

In November 2025, the Syrian Civil Defense—with Saudi funding—launched a project to remove rubble in Eastern Ghouta. The project is not limited to transporting debris; it aims to recycle tens of thousands of cubic meters, with part of the removal and recycling carried out by private companies.

In local news, interviews, and reports discussing reconstruction and rubble recycling, there has been no mention of any procedures related to screening for human remains, despite their near-daily discovery in various regions across Syria.

To address the risks of violating both victims’ rights and Syria’s international obligations, a national roadmap must be prepared to move immediately from the methodology of indiscriminate removal and accidental discovery to safe removal and systematic searching through the following steps:

Establishing a national rubble registry: Building a comprehensive database that integrates shelling records with testimonies from survivors and residents of affected areas to accurately identify and classify sites according to the probability of the presence of human remains. 

Developing technical instructions: Requiring companies and agencies involved in rubble removal to inspect and treat debris using technical methods to ensure it is free of human remains before any recycling begins. This would prevent the remains of the missing from becoming part of new building materials and preserve the possibility of truth for families. 

Enacting legislation: To ensure compliance with the national plan, laws must be passed imposing deterrent penalties on companies that do not follow instructions for detecting remains. This legislation should legally classify the neglect of inspection as an obstruction of justice and forensic investigation, warranting prosecution and fines.

Civil Defense machinery working to remove rubble in the Damascus countryside as part of a recycling and rehabilitation project funded by the King Salman Humanitarian Aid and Relief Center, 26/11/2025 (SANA)

A mandatory plan related to construction and reconstruction can be established, including for companies working in rubble removal. Techniques for detecting human remains using drones, sensors and ground-penetrating radar have been used in many countries, such as Spain and Mexico. Specialized detection and screening techniques prior to removal include:

Geophysical and radar scanning: Using ground-penetrating radar (GPR) to send electromagnetic waves deep into the wreckage. Analyzing the reflections allows for the detection of voids or changes in density that may indicate the presence of objects, including human remains.

Thermal imaging and chemical sensors: Using thermal cameras and drones can help in recently destroyed areas by detecting thermal signatures from organic decomposition. Specialized chemical sensors can also be used to detect Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs) specifically resulting from the decomposition of human tissue.

Methodical mechanical and manual sorting: Despite the scale of the work, organized manual or slow mechanical sorting cannot be dispensed with in high-priority sites, such as basements and shelters.

Missing persons database and predictive modeling: Using Geographic Information Systems (GIS) technology, frontline data and shelling patterns to create probability maps of where bodies are likely to be located.

The massive accumulation of rubble in Syria presents a complex, double-edged problem: Necessary reconstruction requires the removal and recycling of debris, even as a humanitarian and ethical dilemma arises over how to handle rubble that may contain the remains of many missing persons. This underscores the urgent need for a national plan that ensures reconstruction while respecting the search for human remains. 

This article is also available in Arabic.