Syrian rescue teams found the bodies of Fifteen civilians murdered “under brutal torture” in the prison of Sednayalocated about 30 kilometers north of Damascus, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
According to this NGO, located in the United Kingdom but which has a wide network of collaborators on the ground, rescuers continue the search for survivors in this prison.
The Syrian Civil Defenseknown as the white helmets, arrived this Monday at this prison, which was managed by the Syrian Military Police and known for the use of torture against thousands of prisoners, to rescue those detained in hidden underground cells.
The rest of the teams are expected to arrive gradually, delayed by the difficult security conditions on roads and severe traffic congestion, said rescuers operating outside Damascus control.
Meanwhile, Syrian rebels said they found some 40 bodies with signs of torture in the morgue of a hospital near Damascusinserted into body bags with numbers and some with names.
“I opened the door of the morgue with my hands, it was a horrifying image: there were about 40 corpses stacked with horrible signs of torture“, he declared to AFP by phone from Damascus the fighter Mohamed al Hajjfrom a rebel faction in southern Syria.
The AFP observed dozens of photos and videos that Hajj claims to have taken himself that show bodies with obvious signs of torture: eyes and teeth torn out, blood spattered and bruises.
The images taken in the Harasta Hospital They also show some bones wrapped in cloth and a decomposing body with ribs poking through the skin.
The bodies were put in plastic bags or wrapped in white cloth, sometimes with blood stains.
The bodies had pieces of cloth or tape with numbers and sometimes names.
Some people seemed to have died recently.
Hajj said the fighters received information from a worker at the hospital about the bodiesand that they later informed the military command of what they found.
They also coordinated with the Syrian Red Crescent“which transported the bodies al hospital of Damascus so that families can identify them.”
Diab Serriyaco-founder of the Association of Detained and Missing Persons of Saydnaya Prison (ADMSP) said that the bodies They could be prisoners of that jail.
“The bodies were sent (to the hospital) from Saydnaya or Tishrin Hospital, and from Harasta they were transferred to mass graves.”he added.
Islamist-led rebels seized power on Sunday after overthrowing President Bashar al-Assad, whose family ruled Syria with an iron fist for more than five decades.
On Sunday, the insurgents declared Damascus “free” and the Syrian dictator, Bashar Al Assad fled to Moscow with his family in the framework of an insurgent offensive that began on November 27 and was led by the Levant Liberation Agency (Hayat Tahrir al Sham or HTS, in Arabic), heir to the former Syrian subsidiary of Al Qaeda.
With control of each city, the group opened the doors of the prisons, where numerous political prisoners were held, as human rights organizations, including Sednaya, have been denouncing for years.
This prison, which would have housed between 10,000 and 20,000 detaineesaccording to Amnesty International estimates, became infamous for its use of torture and excessive force following a prisoner riot in 2008.
Since the beginning of the crisis in Syria in 2011, the prison had become the final destination for both peaceful opponents of the authorities and military personnel suspected of opposing the regime.
(With information from EFE and AFP)
