In Syria, Where Burials Have Become A Luxury"Funeral processions once served as a rallying point for thousands of people to renew their pledge to topple the regime and follow the path of the revolution. The ceremony would start with a prayer at the neighborhood mosque, and then attendees would carry the coffins to the cemetery and bid the fallen their final farewell.
All of that changed when a funeral procession was infiltrated by the shabiha and ended in the killing of 17 people, with dozens of others missing. That would be the last public procession.
Sometimes, the ferocity of the bombardments take away any need or hope for burial. Attempts to retrieve the dead are futile when the army drops TNT-laden barrel bombs or fires surface-to-surface missiles, capable of leveling four-story buildings. Their bodies are left where they have fallen to decompose."