The men from the collection point for the nameless dead always come during the morning. They descend from a major intersection in the Bustan al-Qasr district to the small Quweiq River and bring the bodies that have washed up overnight to a courtyard, where they are wrapped in white sheets and photographed before being left there for a day. This is the place where people looking for missing relatives come to find them.
For weeks now, the river has brought new bodies almost every night. The corpses arrive without any identification and the hands are generally tied together with plastic strings. The men have all been shot.
The week before last, the river carried three bodies on some days, and seven on others. Last Monday there were five, but on Tuesday there were almost 80. There had been heavy rain in the night, the river level had risen, and now corpses were lining the muddy river bank
As it turns out, many of the dead were students who lived in other towns, and had come to take exams at the University of Aleppo. The campus is in an area still controlled by Assad's troops, and unfortunately, had to pass through their control posts.
"It appears that Assad's people arrested the men, brought them to jail and shot them before throwing them into the river."
