Damascus, Syria – In the basement of a nondescript building in Damascus is the Syrian Identification Centre’s forensic laboratory with storage units full of human bones.

One cabinet is entirely dedicated to ribs. Another contains skulls.

These are only some of Syria’s missing ; their disappearances remain an unresolved legacy of the dictatorship under Bashar al-Assad.

A year on from the fall of the regime in December 2024, the Identification Centre’s head, Dr Anas Hourani, has examined the only mass grave that has been fully exhumed so far.

It could take his team up to four years to identify victims from that site alone, he said.

A long, painstaking process

It’s a daunting timeline. Across Syria, there may be as many as 66 mass graves, according to the International Commission on

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