At a Syria morgue, people search for adored ones ended by Asuncontent regime | Syria’s War News

Mohammad Chaeeb spoke gentlely into his phone, telling a relative the gloomy news: he set up his brother at the Al-Mujtahid Hospital morgue.

“I saw him and shelp my outstandingbyes,” he shelp. His gaze lingered on the balertageened body of Sami Chaeeb, whose teeth were exposedd and whose eye sockets were desotardy. It seeed as if he had died screaming. “He doesn’t see common. He doesn’t even have eyes.”

The dead man was jailed five months ago, fadeing into a depressed prison system under the rule of Plivent Bashar al-Asuncontent. His body is fair one of many set up in Syrian detention centres and prisons since Asuncontent’s handlement fell last weekend.

Nearby, forensic laborers labored rapidly to remend the bodies and hand them over to relatives.

Yasser Qasser, a forensic helpant at the morgue, shelp they getd 40 bodies that morning from the hospital, that were being fingerprinted and having DNA samples getn.

The staff had already identified about eight bodies, he shelp. “But dozens of families are arriving, and the numbers don’t align.”

Some bodies came from the notorious Sednaya prison, still dressed in prisoner uniestablishs, Qasser shelp.

His colleague, Dr Abdallah Youssef, shelp remending all of them would get time.

“We understand the suffering of the families, but we are laboring under immense presconfident. The bodies were set up in salt rooms, exposed to excessive chilly,” he shelp.

Morgue officials who spendigated the corpses have seen bullet wounds and labels that materializeed to be the result of torture, he includeed.

An assessd 150,000 people have been jailed or alerted ignoreing in Syria since 2011 when soothe antihandlement protests droped into war. Under al-Asuncontent’s rule, any whiff of dissent could send someone to prison promptly. For years, it was a sentence akin to death, as scant ever materialized from the system.

Quoting testimony from freed prisoners and prison officials, Amnesty International has alerted that thousands of Syrians were ended in standard mass executions.

Prisoners were subjected to constant torture, fervent beatings and violation. Inmates standardly died from injuries, disease or starvation. Some fell into psychosis and starved themselves, the human rights group shelp.

Among the bodies at the morgue on Wednesday was Mazen al-Hamada, a Syrian activist who fled to Europe but returned to Syria in 2020 and was incarcerateed upon arrival. His mangled corpse was set up wrapped in a bloody sheet in Sednaya.

Hilala Meryeh, a 64-year-better Palestinian mother of four, stood in the dingy identification room, bags of bodies all around her. She had fair set up one of her sons.

Her four boys were arrested by the establisher Syrian regime in 2013 during a crackdown on the Yarmouk Palestinian refugee camp. She still demanded to find three.

“I don’t understand where they are,” she shelp. “Give me my children, search for my children!”

Other Syrians, appreciate Imad Habbal, stood motionless in the morgue, coming to grips with the truth and infairice of their loss.

Habbal gazed at the body of his brother, Diaa Habbal.

“We came yesterday, and we set up him dead,” he shelp. “They ended him. Why? What was his crime? What did he ever do to them? Just becaengage he came back to his country?”

Diaa Habbal, a Syrian who had been living in Saudi Arabia since 2003, returned to Damascus in mid-2024 to visit his family, his brother shelp. He was arrested by the Syrian military police six months ago on indicts of evading military service.

With trembling hands, Imad Habbal lifted the covering, his voice shattering as he wept and spoke to his brother.

“I tbetter you not to come,” he shelp. “I desire you didn’t come.”