Al Jazeera: Shocking photos of eyeless bodies piled up in a hospital in the Damascus countryside
On Monday evening, Al Jazeera broadcast exclusive footage of bodies in Harasta Military Hospital in the countryside of the Syrian capital, Damascus, believed to be those of detainees from Sednaya prison, some of whom were defectors and opponents of the regime of ousted President Bashar al Assad.
According to Al Jazeera correspondent Omar Al Hajj, more than 40 unidentified bodies were found, most likely arriving from Sednaya prison and some of them having been killed recently in the few days before the fall of the Assad regime.
Sednaya Prison is located 30 kilometers north of Damascus, and was built in 1987 and is divided into two parts.
The first part is known as the Red Building, which is designated for political and civilian detainees, while the second part is known as the White Building, which is designated for military prisoners.
This prison is one of the most fortified Syrian military prisons, and is called the human slaughterhouse due to the torture, deprivation, and overcrowding inside it.
It was nicknamed the red prison due to the bloody events it witnessed during 2008.
The bodies were covered with adhesive tapes with symbols, numbers and dates written on them, but without names.
They belonged to prisoners who died in Sednaya prison and were tortured to death, according to Al Jazeera’s correspondent.
Some of the bodies were black in color due to poor preservation, and there was no one to preserve them due to the power outage.
The bodies were in a state of extreme emaciation, had foul odors, and were piled up in an inhumane manner.
On this regard, the Syrian civil defense “White Helmets organization” announced on Tuesday that search operations in Sednaya prison, where it suspected the presence of secret cells and undiscovered dungeons, had ended without finding any additional detainees.
“The Syrian Civil Defense (White Helmets) announces the end of searches for potential detainees in undiscovered secret cells and dungeons inside the notorious Sednaya prison, without finding any secret cells and dungeons that have not yet been opened,” it said in a statement.
Thousands of people have been gathering around the prison since Sunday, waiting for news about their missing relatives.
