Syrian Civil Defence rescuers find bodies and human remains inside pro-Iranian militia site

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(18 Dec 2024)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY:

ASSOCIATED PRESS
Damascus, Syria - 18 December 2024
1. Aerial of rescue teams with the Syrian Civil Defense, also known as White Helmets, moving body bags onto a truck
2. SOUNDBITE (Arabic) Ammar Al-Salmo, White Helmets official:
++SOUNDBITE PARTIALLY COVERED++
"We were able to document more than 20 corpses, about 21 complete corpses. Some of them were just skeletons, others were incomplete. In addition, there were bags of small bones that we do not know to how many victims they belong to. We documented them all, as well as anything else in those bags, especially clothes, since they still have marks. After documenting them, we put them in body bags -- and now we will send them over for additional procedures. This site was a center for (pro-) Iranian and Iraqi militias. There was a field kitchen here, and there it was a morgue. Syrians citizens were not able come here. We are getting several reports of mass graves and unidentified corpses in farms, in official places for the former regime, as well as non-official sites where bodies of militias could have been buried in. Damascus became a mass grave."
3. Rescuers searching inside building
4. Human remains on ground
5. Various of rescuers searching inside building, moving body bags
6. People watching nearby
7. Truck with bags of bodies and human remains driving away
STORYLINE:
The Syrian Civil Defense group, known as the White Helmets, uncovered at least 21 corpses as well as incomplete human remains on Wednesday in the Sayyida Zeinab suburb of the capital Damascus.

The discovery was made at a site previously used by Lebanon’s Hezbollah and Iran-backed Iraqi militias, both allies of deposed President Bashar Assad during the country’s civil war.

The site included a field kitchen, a drugstore and a morgue, according to Ammar al-Salmo, an official with the White Helmets, a volunteer organization that operated in areas that were controlled by the opposition.

Rescue teams in white hazmat suits searched the site, located not far from the revered shrine of Sayyida Zeinab, the granddaughter of Prophet Mohammad.

The remains were placed into black bags and loaded onto a truck as bystanders from the neighborhood looked on.

“Some of them (remains) were just skeletons, others were incomplete. In addition, there were bags of small bones that we do not know to how many victims they belong to,” al-Salmo said.

“Damascus has become a mass grave,” he said, pointing out the growing reports of war-related graves and burial sites in the capital and other places in Syria.

Iran and Hezbollah provided Assad’s government with military, financial and logistical support during the civil war.

AP video shot by Ghaith AlSayed

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