Searching for truffles initially requires security approvals from the regime or the so-called “Syrian Democratic Forces” (social networking sites)
The Syrian Network for Human Rights said that 78 civilians were killed in Syria last February, including 18 killed while harvesting truffles.
In its report issued today, Friday, the network added that among the civilian deaths in Syria last month were 7 children and 4 women, and 9 people due to torture, including a child.
The network pointed out that its 20-page report monitored the death toll last February, and highlighted in particular the victims who died due to torture, and the toll of massacres that were documented at the hands of the parties to the conflict and the controlling forces in Syria.
He stressed that the report relied on continuous monitoring of incidents and news, and on a wide network of relationships with dozens of diverse sources, in addition to analyzing a large number of pictures and video clips.
Truffle victims
The report indicated that harvesting truffles (a rare and expensive type of mushroom) caused the death of 18 civilians, including two children, during the past month, without explaining how they were killed, but over the past years there have been repeated incidents of killing residents of the desert and the cities and towns adjacent to it east of the country. Syria during their search for truffles as a result of landmine explosions or attacks by regime forces, militias loyal to it, or ISIS.
Over the past years, the journey to search for truffles in Syria has come to entail risks that may lead to death in order to reach this distinctive fruit that grows along the Syrian desert in the countryside of Homs and Hama (central) and Deir ez-Zor and Raqqa (east), with an area of 75 thousand square kilometers.
After collecting truffles was available to the residents of the desert and the cities and towns adjacent to it, and usually accompanied by rain every spring, this weather was affected by the struggle over military influence between the warring parties in this country.
Searching for truffles requires security approvals from the regime of President Bashar al-Assad, or the so-called "Syrian Democratic Forces."
But these approvals do not protect their holder from death by landmines, being liquidated, or being robbed of money and truffles at best.
The Syrian Network for Human Rights was founded in 2011, and describes itself as an independent human rights institution concerned with documenting victims and violations in Syria after the outbreak of the revolution against the regime in March of the same year and the ensuing armed conflict and intervention by several parties and countries that continues to this day.
Source: Al Jazeera + agencies