Syrian rebels say they have found around 40 bodies showing clear signs of torture stuffed into body bags inside a military hospital morgue in Damascus.
Mohammed al-Hajj, a member of a rebel group from southern Syria, said he witnessed the horror firsthand as his team documented the atrocities inside the refrigerated room at the Harasta Hospital.
“I opened the door of the morgue with my own hands, it was a horrific sight, about 40 bodies were piled up showing signs of gruesome torture,” al-Hajj told the AFP.
The bodies were found with their eyes and teeth gouged out, most of them bruised with blood splattered on their clothes and skin, according to the footage al-Hajj and his faction took.
Some of the bodies were also naked, with one corpse showing a rib cage peeking through the skin.
The rebel fighter said his group had received a call from the hospital following the ouster of President Bashar al-Assad, with health workers claiming bodies had been dumped at the medical facility.
Al-Hajj’s group found the bodies wrapped in blood-stained shrouds piled up inside the morgue, with pieces of tape slapped on bearing either numbers or the name of the dead.
The rebels suggested that some of the bodies appeared recently killed.
“We informed the military command of what we found and coordinated with the Syrian Red Crescent, which transported the bodies to a Damascus hospital, so that families can come and identify them,” al-Hajj said.
Diab Serriya, who cofounded the Association of Detainees and the Missing in Sednaya Prison (ADMSP) watchdog group, said the bodies found in Harasta were likely from the notorious Saydnaya prison, known as the “human slaughterhouse.”
“Harasta Hospital served as the main center for collecting the bodies of detainees,” Serriya said.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a UK-based group, estimates that as many as 60,000 people were tortured and killed in the Assad regime’s prisons, with Saydnaya serving as the most infamous one.
