The Al-Otaiba massacre marked its eight anniversary in February that left 175 people dead in the eastern enclave of the Syrian capital, while trying to escape starvation and the indiscriminate killing by the Syrian regime forces and allied militias.
The ambush took place in 2014, after dozens of people, mostly women and children, left the city of Douma towards the village of Al-Otaiba, which is the only exit from Eastern Ghouta suburbs to the Syrian Badia desert .
After walking for two hours between the town of Mayda’a and Al-Otaiba, there were 3 explosions caused by the detonation of explosive devices, mines and two lines of explosives on the convoy road at exactly two o’clock in the morning of that day. As soon as military reinforcements arrived, they liquidated the wounded, and executed them on the spot.
Later, evidence emerged that reinforced doubts about the identity of those who died in the Al-Otaiba ambush, including photos taken by a pro-regime journalist that showed a “teddy bear” lying among the bodies of the dead, who were supposed to be soldiers on their way to carry out a military operation - according to the regime’s claims at the time - while another wrapped body appeared. With the black flag carried by Jabhat al-Nusra, which was also not affected by any scratches, like the rest of the clothes of all the dead.
The videos broadcast by the regime’s media channels showed that the bodies were arranged in an orderly manner, with regular distances between them, and all remained on the road, without showing traces of scattered body parts, or corpses scattered outside the road, as is supposed to be a huge explosion as shown by the pro-regime channels, while Documented evidence confirmed the responsibility of the Lebanese Hezbollah for planning and carrying out the ambush. As one of them raises the voice of one of them, demanding “Alaa”: “Oh, Abu Abdullah, detonate, O Alaa.” All that is left of Alaa is to press the detonation button while he calls out, “Oh, Abu Abdullah.”
Activists on social media broadcast a video that includes a meeting with one of the survivors of the massacre, Ammar, a resident from Douma, who was wounded by shrapnel from a mortar shell that fell on his house: “We were 175 people, about 30 wounded, and 40 members of the Free Syrian Army, most of whom were defectors from The regime and what was left were civilians who left Eastern Ghouta because of the siege, starvation, and the lack of medical personnel.”
The only survivor added: "We left Douma through Al-Otaiba and walked in the desert, and after two hours of walking, the first explosion started, which was about 100 meters away from us, and then the second explosion occurred, which occurred in the middle of the column. About 12 explosions, then they opened heavy machine gun fire on us, and it took us about 6 hours to get back because we got lost and didn't know where to go at night.
In turn, the activist Abu Omar Al-Ghoutani indicated to Zaman Al-Wasl that the convoy was not a military one, as the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights claimed at the time, but rather a convoy of civilians carrying only their personal belongings, including some revolutionaries and their families with their children and some fighters who were seriously injured, including - as The source says - his cousin, who was injured when a "Vozdika" shell fell next to him and led to the amputation of his hand and one of his eyes and distorted the features of his face, and his treatment was difficult in Ghouta, so he risked his life as the convoy road posed a danger to those who passed by because it was monitored from both sides.
The Syrian conflict has claimed 540,000 lives and has displaced 13,2 million people since it erupted in March 2011 with the brutal repression of anti-regime protests.
Faris al-Rifai
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