About 40 dead bodies with signs of torture were found by pro-regime Syrians in the morgue of a hospital in the Syrian capital, in Damascusas reported yesterday, Monday (09.12.24) by the French News Agency.
“I opened the door of the morgue with my own hands and saw a gruesome sight: about 40 corpses were piled there with signs of gruesome torture,” said Mohammed Al Hajj, deputy from the south, speaking by telephone from Damascus.
AFP obtained dozens of photos and videos that Mohammed al-Haj said were taken by him, showing bodies with obvious signs of torture: gouged out eyes, pulled teeth, bloodstains, exhumations.
The visual material from the hospital in Harasta also illustrates piece of fabric with bones, as well as a decaying human thorax.
Bodies were placed in white plastic bags or wrapped in pieces of cloth, some with blood marks, numbers and sometimes names.
Many of the victims appeared to have been recently killed.
WARNING HARD IMAGES
18+ : Dozens of bodies of Syrian detainees have been found from Sednaya Prison in Harasta Hospital. The hospital is filled with bodies of those executed or tortured to death, many of whom remain unidentified.
Rescue teams there urgently need assistance to search for detainees in… pic.twitter.com/v3bd6URqY0
— Nedal Al-Amari (@nedalalamari) December 9, 2024
Pro-establishment spearheading the radical Islamist organization Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS, al-Qaeda’s former Syrian arm) took power in Syria last Sunday, overthrowing the former president Bashar al-Assadwhose family ruled Syria with an iron fist for over five decades.
At the heart of the system of power Bashar al-Assad inherited from his father Hafez al-Assad was a network of prisons and detention centers used to stamp out dissent or imprison people who broke the line of the ruling Baath party.
Thousands of people hoping to find their loved ones who disappeared in the regime’s cells had gathered last night in front of the notorious Saidnaya prison, near Damascus.
Mohammed al-Hajj clarified that deputies were informed by a hospital worker about the bodies.
“We informed the military command of what we found and coordinated actions with the Syrian Red Crescent, which took the bodies to a hospital in Damascus so families could go to identify” the victims, he added.
THE Diab Serie A, co-founder of the Association of Prisoners and Missing Persons of Saidnaya Prison, said that the bodies probably belong to prisoners in that particular detention center.
They will release a list of torturers
The rebels who have now seized power in Syria will release a list of “top officials involved in torture against the people”, their leader announced today Abu Mohammad al-Julani.
“We will make public the first list that will include the names of the highest-ranking officials who are involved in torture against the Syrian people,” said the head of the rebels, who has also been using his real name for a few days, via Telegram. Ahmed al-Shareh.
“We will offer rewards to anyone who provides information about senior military and security officers involved in war crimes,” he promised.
“We will prosecute the war criminals and ask for their extradition from the countries where they fled to receive their just punishment,” he continued, while Lebanese media reported that many former officials of the state apparatus of ousted President Bashar al-Assad fled to Beirut. where they have the protection of Hezbollah, a key ally of the overthrown Syrian regime.
“We pledge to show tolerance towards those whose hands were not dipped in the blood of the Syrian people, and we granted amnesty to all those who had been forced into military service,” added the leader of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS, al-Qaeda’s former Syrian arm).