Syrian rebels say bodies showing signs of torture were found in the hospital

Syrian opposition fighters said they found about 40 bodies with signs of torture in a military hospital morgue in a suburb of Damascus after the overthrow of President Bashar al-Assad.

Videos and photos showed bodies wrapped in white shrouds, stained with blood, and stacked inside the cold room at Harasta Hospital on Monday.

Many of the bodies appeared to have cuts and bruises on their faces and torsos. Pieces of tape bearing numbers and names also appeared.

Muhammad al-Hajj, a member of an opposition group from southern Syria, told AFP: “I opened the door of the morgue with my hand. It was a horrific sight.”

He added that the rebels went to the hospital after receiving a report from an employee about bodies being dumped there.

He added, “We informed the (rebel) military leadership of what we found and coordinated with the Syrian Red Crescent, which transported the bodies to a hospital in Damascus so that the people could come and identify them.”

It is not clear how long the bodies had been stored in the morgue, but they were in various stages of decomposition.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a UK-based monitoring group, says nearly 60,000 people have been tortured and killed in Assad government prisons.

Human rights groups say more than 100,000 people have disappeared since Assad ordered a brutal crackdown on pro-democracy protests in 2011 that sparked the civil war.

A Syrian non-governmental organization said that the bodies in Harasta were likely to be detainees from the notorious Saydnaya prison, located north of Damascus.

Diab Sariya, one of the founders of the Association of Detainees and Missing Persons in Saydnaya Prison, told AFP, “Harasta Hospital served as the main center for collecting the bodies of detainees.”

He added, “The bodies will be sent there from Saydnaya Prison or Tishreen Hospital, and from Harasta they will be transferred to mass graves.”

The discovery of the bodies came as the Syrian Civil Defense, whose rescue workers are widely known as the White Helmets, announced that it had ended a search for potential detainees in secret cells or basements in Sednaya Prison without finding anyone.

Five specialized teams, aided by two K9 canine units and individuals familiar with the prison’s layout, checked all the buildings, basements, courtyards, ventilation shafts, sewer systems, surveillance camera cables and surrounding areas on Monday, as crowds gathered there hoping to find their missing relatives.

The Syrian Civil Defense said: “The search did not reveal any open or hidden areas inside the facility.”

He added: “We share the deep disappointment felt by the families of the thousands who are still missing and whose fate remains unknown.”

Meanwhile, ADMSP shared what it said was an official document, dated October 28, saying 4,300 detainees were being held in Saydnaya.

Among them were 2,817 judicial detainees held in the prison’s “White Building,” and 1,483 detainees held on terrorism-related charges and military courts in the “Red Building.”

“This approximate number represents the detainees who were released at the time of the prison’s liberation,” ADMSP said. The BBC was unable to immediately verify this information.

Opposition fighters entered Saydnaya Prison and Harasta Hospital as they advanced into Damascus over the weekend, prompting President Bashar al-Assad to step down and flee the country.

ADMSP said in a 2022 report that Saydnaya “effectively became a death camp” after the Syrian civil war began in 2011.

It estimates that more than 30,000 detainees were either executed or died as a result of torture, lack of medical care, or starvation in the facility between 2011 and 2018.

It also quoted released prisoners as saying that at least 500 other detainees were executed between 2018 and 2021.

ADMSP also described how “salt rooms” were set up to serve as a rudimentary morgue to store bodies before they were transported to Tishreen Hospital for registration and burial in cemeteries on military land.

Amnesty International used the phrase “human slaughterhouse” to describe Saydnaya and claimed that the executions had been authorized at the highest levels of Assad’s government, and that such practices amounted to war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Assad’s government rejected Amnesty International’s claims as “baseless” and “devoid of truth”, insisting that all executions in Syria followed due process.

On Monday night, the leader of the extremist Islamic group, whose attack led to the end of Assad’s 24-year rule, said that former senior officials who supervised the torture of political prisoners would be held accountable.

Abu Muhammad al-Julani of Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham said that the names of those responsible would be published and efforts would be made to return those who fled abroad. He added that rewards would also be offered to anyone who provided information about his whereabouts.