Families Seek Closure at a Damascus Morgue

At al-Mujtahid Hospital in Damascus, families are desperately searching for their missing loved ones, confronting the atrocities committed by the regime of Bashar al-Assad. Just moments inside the complex in the capital are enough to reveal that what awaits them will leave an indelible mark.

From the first exchanged glances, the tearful eyes reddened by grief betray the horror that lies at the end of a dark corridor, leading to the morgue. But even that doesn’t prepare you. 

Behind the hall that welcomes visitors, a first stretcher emerges. A woman consoles a teenager bent over a shroud covering the body of a prisoner. He is inconsolable, just like his relative, who sits a few meters away, staring blankly into space.

We don’t stop. The scene is unbearable. Their pain is exposed for all to see; no one tries to hide the grief. At the reception, a nurse directs us to a door leading to several mortuary rooms. We enter another world, moving cautiously, our eyes fixed on the ground.

Those who raise their heads warn us to wear masks. “Here, take mine,” says a journalist, visibly affected by the sight. “I can’t go in there; I’d rather wait in the corridor,” she mutters.

Inside, the smell is unbearable. The men’s T-shirts and the women’s veils are pulled up to their noses for protection.

Corpses fill the rooms, illuminated by a white light as cold as the bodies that litter the floor. Others lie on autopsy tables stained with blood turning brown.

“We estimate that most of them died about a month ago, based on their state of decomposition,” Dr. Yasser al-Kassem, assistant head of the hospital’s Forensic Science department, tells us. 

Since the fall of the Assad regime on Dec. 8, hundreds of Syrian corpses have been transported from the jails recently liberated to hospitals in the Syrian capital.

Al-Mujtahid Hospital is just one of the many health facilities in Damascus that collect the remains of thousands of detainees from Syrian prisons. In northern Damascus, Hastara Hospital is overwhelmed with them.

“We received 35 bodies today because they didn’t have refrigerators to store them there,” explains al-Kassem.

With his team, al-Kassem collects DNA samples, takes dental impressions, lists tattoos and looks for any unusual marks that could help identify the victims.

Families often search for relatives who disappeared at the start of the civil war in Syria. Most of the disappearances date back to 2012, when the regime went on a killing spree to silence opposition voices.

“The problem is that those who entered the jails more than 10 years ago have changed a lot over time. Families struggle to recognize them,” he says. “We ask families for old photos where their loved ones are smiling because, as a body rots, the face starts to smile.” 

Some of the bodies no longer look human, except for the familiar outline of their silhouettes. “Their state of decomposition suggests they were malnourished and infected with cholera or tuberculosis,” a colleague adds.

Although hope is slim, the entire medical team works tirelessly to identify the bodies. Several doctors pause to offer us additional information. 

When we ask more questions, al-Kassem gently stops us. He knows what needs to be said. Despite being overwhelmed, the medical staff understand the importance of sharing this information with the world, he tells us. 

The staff at al-Mujtahid have provided forms to be filled out by families to help identify the bodies. Each new corpse is photographed by medical staff before being posted on a Telegram channel followed by nearly 80,000 people, who eagerly await each new publication. “At al-Mujtahid, 15 to 20 bodies have been identified so far,” he says.

On a wall, dozens of photos of faces — many completely disfigured — are posted. Everyone scrutinizes them, but few find the answer they are searching for. The macabre journey continues. Relatives of the prisoners lift countless mortuary tarpaulins, terrified of finding one of their own.

A doctor insists on showing us a room at the back of the building. No bigger than a cell, it contains the height of horror. The smell of decay intensifies, seeping through our surgical masks. Faces stiffen when a man lifts a blanket, revealing a decapitated body.

I can’t help but take a step back. A young teenager taps my arm and points to my heel. “Be careful,” he whispers. At my foot, a single leg, wrapped in a plastic bag, lies on the floor. At the back of the room a man in a white coat opens a large bag. He plunges his hand inside and pulls out a skull. Below it lies a pile of unidentified bones. No names, only a number: 36.

At al-Mujtahid Hospital, this is the fate reserved for countless prisoners exterminated by the regime. On the white sheets, which only reveal the toes and fingertips of the corpses, the medical team assigns a number to each body. They have no choice; this is the most efficient way to proceed.

In Syrian prisons, humans are reduced to a number. Many of those who have been liberated no longer remember their own name. Those who did not survive the tortures met the same fate; nameless, they may forever remain mere numbers if they cannot be identified. 

In the courtyard outside the hospital, there is a collective sense of shock. A man runs out, on the verge of vomiting. A few meters away, Mohammed Fati Halas smokes a cigarette to calm himself after breaking down in despair. “I’m looking for my son. He disappeared in 2012 during an identity check at an army checkpoint because he refused to give them money.”

Mohammed knows the hell of Syrian jails all too well. At age 80, he spent two months in the infamous Branch 227, the military intelligence department under the Assad regime. 

Filled with sadness and disappointment, Khadija Ali, her face buried in her hands, jumps when she hears his story. She suffered the same fate. “I was there, too. They put us in barrels filled with water, then plunged electric cables into them,” she tells us, tears in her eyes.

Not all of the survivors speak, but those who do share the same horrific stories. The hospital courtyard reveals the deep suffering of Syrians under the Assad regime. Every person we speak to seems to know someone who has disappeared. For years, the disappearances were not spoken about. People feared to talk, terrified that they might be next. Now, they speak freely and are beginning to realize the extent of the insanity. 

“I only told my best friend yesterday that I had a brother, he disappeared 10 years ago, we never spoke about him afterward,” says Tambi, with a mournful smile. “It turns out he also had a missing family that I never knew existed either.”

The atmosphere is heavy. Cigarettes are smoked one after another. The excitement and hope of the early days of liberation have disappeared for some. The brutal reality of the regime’s cruelty has set in. Not a hint of happiness crosses their faces. They are closed off, dejected.

“We have lived miserably for so long, and we still don’t know if our children are alive or dead, or what happened to them,” laments Heida al-Musa. Her two sons were taken in the night when a group of heavily armed men stormed their home.

“No one has ever done this, not even the Nazis,” she fumes. “There is no justice here.” Each conversation brings back the incomprehension of why their loved ones disappeared. “Do they do this in your country? Do they kidnap, beat and torture prisoners?”

As al-Musa calls out to us, a group of men emerges from the hospital, lifting a coffin to place it in the back of a pickup truck.

The scene repeats itself throughout the morning. Some begin to shout their hatred for the former bloodthirsty dictator, their grief transforming into black rage. Others freeze, only allowing their necks to swivel, observing the scene in silence — a silence that speaks volumes. 

The macabre ballet of al-Mujtahid Hospital is a choreography no one should ever witness.

The remains of prisoners are pouring in from the various prisons liberated by the insurgents. Many come from Sednaya, described as a “human slaughterhouse” by Amnesty International. Located about 18 miles north of Damascus, around 30,000 people were executed there between 2011 and 2018, according to the organization.

The majority of the bodies bear the unmistakable marks of torture: broken noses, swollen eyes and fingernails several centimeters long. The ordeal these detainees endured is beyond imagination. 

Some reports describe a system where prisoners are transferred between prisons without questioning, plunged into darkness, living in constant fear of execution with each new transfer. The uncertainty itself becomes a form of torture.

While Sednaya may be the worst, it is not the only prison from which corpses are arriving at al-Mujtahid Hospital. The medical team has quickly become accustomed to these arrivals.

“We can tell where they came from based on the uniforms they wear,” says al-Kassem. Each prison has its own distinct uniform. However, this information is of little use to families who often don’t know where their loved ones were held. 

Many had sold their homes to bribe Assad’s prison guards, hoping for some shred of information about their family members’ fate. A minority managed to extract information from the guards while the others gave away their everything for nothing.

Having information is a precious privilege. Few are lucky enough to know the fate of their loved ones. In this quest undertaken by so many Syrians, knowledge is a luxury that drives hope on the path to the truth, just as it can shatter in an instant when the truth is revealed. Is it better to hope, or to know?

Labib Sanadiki contributed to this report.

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