Syrians flock to morgues in search of loved ones who died in Assad’s prisons News, Sports, Jobs

A woman leaves the morgue at Al-Mojtahed hospital in Damascus, Syria, Wednesday, Dec. 11, 2024. Syrians gather at the morgue, hoping to identify their slain loved ones who are missing or have been imprisoned under the president. Bashar Assad, whose government collapsed over the weekend. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)

DAMASCUS (AP) – Mohammad Chaeeb spoke softly on the phone as he told a relative the grim news: He had found his brother at the morgue.

“I saw him and said goodbye” he said. His gaze lingered on the blackened body of Sami Chaeeb, whose teeth were bared and whose eye sockets were empty. He looked like he died screaming. “It doesn’t seem normal. It doesn’t even have eyes.”

The dead man was imprisoned five months ago, disappearing into a closed system in the dark under the rule of President Bashar al-Assad. His body is just one of many found in Syrian detention centers and prisons since Assad’s government fell last weekend.

Some of the prisoners died just a few weeks ago. Others perished months earlier. Syrians around the world are now circulating images of the bodies in the hope of seeing their slain loved ones whose fate had been a mystery.

At the morgue The Associated Press visited Wednesday in Damascus, families huddled against a wall where some of the images were pinned up in a haunting gallery of the dead. Relatives desperately scanned the images for a recognizable face.

Mohammad Chaeeb never knew why his brother had been imprisoned. “I heard stories – cannabis, organ trafficking, drugs, arms trade. But he had nothing to do with all that.” he said.

He rushed to the morgue after another brother living in Turkey sent him a photo of a body that looked familiar. He could identify his brother by a mole under his ear and a half-amputated finger, an injury from when he was 12.

Standing over the body, he raised the flag and gently removed his brother’s left hand, examining it carefully. “Here,” he said pointing to the stump.

Nearby, medical examiners worked quickly to identify the bodies and hand them over to relatives.

Yasser Qasser, a coroner at the morgue, said they received 40 bodies that morning from the hospital, which were fingerprinted and DNA samples taken. Staff had already identified about eight, he said. “But dozens of families arrive, and the numbers don’t add up.”

Some bodies came from the notorious Saydnaya prison, still dressed in prisoner uniforms, Qasser said.

His colleague, dr. Abdallah Youssef, said that identifying them will take time.

“We understand the suffering of the families, but we are working under immense pressure. The bodies were found in salt chambers, exposed to extreme cold. he said.

Mortuary officials who examined the bodies saw bullet wounds and marks that appeared to be the result of torture, he added.

An estimated 150,000 people have been detained or disappeared in Syria since 2011. Under Assad’s rule, any hint of dissent could send someone immediately to prison.

For years, it was akin to a death sentence, as few ever made it out of the system.

Citing the testimonies of freed prisoners and prison officials, Amnesty International reported that thousands of Syrians were killed in frequent mass executions. Prisoners were subjected to constant torture, intense beatings and rapes. Detainees frequently died of wounds, disease, or starvation. Some fell into psychosis and starved to death, the rights group said.

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 jailed on arrival. His mutilated body was found wrapped in a bloody sheet in Saydnaya.

As they surveyed the morgue, some families moved among the bodies, weeping quietly and pausing to look for familiar features. The bodies lay covered in white shrouds, each marked with a number and some bearing the label “unknown.”

Hilala Meryeh, a 64-year-old Palestinian mother of four, sat in the filthy identification room with body bags around her. She had just found one of her sons.

He paused, closed his eyes and turned his face to the ceiling, murmuring a prayer. Her four boys were arrested by the former Syrian regime in 2013 during a crackdown on the Palestinian refugee camp in Yarmouk. He still needed to find three.

“I don’t know where I am” she said. “Give me my children, seek my children!”

“Why did he do this to his people?” cried Meryeh. “Lock them up, we wouldn’t have objected. Try them, but slaughter them?”

Other Syrians, like Imad Habbal, sat motionless in the morgue, coming to terms with the reality and injustice of their loss.

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

“I came yesterday and found him dead” he said. “They killed him. Why? What was his crime? What did he ever do to them? Just because he returned to his country?”

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

With trembling hands, Imad Habbal lifted the wrapper, his voice breaking as he cried and spoke to his brother.

“I told you not to come” he said. “I wish you wouldn’t come.”