Thread by @WIRED

Starting in 2014, the Syrian city of Raqqa was ruled by ISIS. But after it was liberated, over 165,000 displaced residents returned to a shell-pocked city that's stippled with makeshift graves. This is the story of the body-pullers. 1/ wired.trib.al/CBqNEa1

The US-led coalition freed the city—the de facto capital of the Islamic State—from the militants after months of urban warfare in 2017. Air strikes killed some 1,200 civilians and countless ISIS fighters, many of whom were hastily buried. 2/
wired.trib.al/CBqNEa1

These men have been hired as body-pullers, tasked with exhuming, identifying, and either reburying the bodies of the dead or returning them to their families. 3/ wired.trib.al/CBqNEa1

They've been doing this work for over a year with limited resources—no DNA-processing equipment and no cameras. Their only tools of identification are those that are most universal—sight and blind faith that all burials should be, if not monumental, at least sufficient. 4/

Sometimes remains are released to relatives who may identify their family member based on a tooth or a shoe. Unidentified bodies should be placed in long-term storage—say, a mortuary beneath a hospital. But there's limited power in Raqqa and not enough for fridges and freezers 5/

The first thing they have to do is locate the graves. Some they hear of through word of mouth. They also uses Google Maps and satellite images. From above, it is easy to spot the graves: They appear as rows of upturned dirt in local fields and in vacant lots across the city. 6/

Once an area is marked as a potential site, the teams use Facebook and WhatsApp to crowdsource more information. As they start to dig the bodies free, information from families arrives haphazardly. 7/ wired.trib.al/CBqNEa1

Raqqa leaders are seeking further financing from the international community and organizations to help with the removal and relocation of the human remains, but the work of the body pullers remains an unacknowledged aspect of reconstruction. Read more: 8/ wired.trib.al/CBqNEa1

Don't miss important stories like this one:
✅ Sign up for our daily newsletter here: wired.trib.al/Iv67krf
✅ Subscribe to get our magazine and full access to our website: wired.trib.al/HvxyACb