A Syrian civil defence official has said that White Helmets rescuers discovered unidentified bodies and remains in a medicine warehouse in a Damascus suburb, 10 days after Bashar al-Assad’s ouster.
A video journalist at the scene said the warehouse strewn with medicine boxes was located just around 50 metres from the Sayyida Zeinab shrine, a revered site for Shiite Muslims.
“We received a report about the presence of bodies, bones and a foul smell at the site,” White Helmets official Ammar al-Salmo said.
South Damascus’s Sayyida Zeinab suburb was a stronghold of pro-Iran fighters including Lebanon’s Hezbollah militant group before Islamist-led rebels took the capital on 8 December in a lightning offensive.
“In the warehouse, we found a refrigerated room containing decomposing corpses,” Salmo said, adding that some appeared to have died more than a year and a half earlier.
He said human bones were also scattered on the ground, estimating there were around 20 “victims”.
Men in white suits were seen removing bodies and remains in black bags and placing them onto a truck.
Mr Salmo said the words Aleppo-Hraytan, Syria’s second city in the north and a nearby location, and numbers were written on bags where the unidentified bodies were found.
“We are going to establish the age of the victims” then take samples for DNA tests “and try to locate their families,” Mr Salmo added.
The reason for the presence of the remains or the identities of the bodies is yet to be ascertained.
Since Mr Assad’s ouster, a number of mass graves have been uncovered in the country.
The fate of tens of thousands of prisoners and missing people remains one of the most harrowing parts of the Syrian conflict, which has claimed more than 500,000 lives.
In 2022, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor estimated that more than 100,000 people had died in prison, mostly due to torture, since the war began.
War monitor says 21 pro-Turkey fighters killed in flashpoint town
A Syria war monitor said 21 pro-Turkey fighters have been killed after they attacked a Kurdish-held position near a flashpoint northern town despite a US-brokered ceasefire extension in the area.
“At least 21 members of pro-Turkey factions were killed and others wounded by fire from the Manbij Military Council after they attacked a position at the Tishreen Dam, some 25 kilometres from the town of Manbij,” the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
The Manbij Military Council is affiliated with the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces.
UN special envoy calls for ‘free and fair elections’
United Nations special envoy Geir Pedersen has called for “free and fair elections” in Syria and urged humanitarian assistance to the war-torn country after Bashar al-Assad’s ouster this month.
Addressing reporters in Damascus, Mr Pedersen said, “There is a lot of hope that we can now see the beginning of a new Syria”, which he expressed hope would also include a “political solution” in the Kurdish-held northeast.
The UN envoy called for “a new Syria that, in line with Security Council Resolution 2254, will adopt a new constitution… and that we will have free and fair elections when that time comes, after a transitional period.”
Resolution 2254, adopted in 2015 at the height of the civil war, set out a roadmap for a political settlement in Syria.
After rebel forces captured Damascus on 8 December and toppled Mr Assad’s rule, Mr Pedersen expressed his hope the Syrians can rebuild their country and that “the process to end sanctions” imposed under the former government could begin.
“We need immediate humanitarian assistance, but we also need to make sure that Syria can be rebuilt, that we can see economic recovery,” he said.
Northeast Syria ‘one of the biggest challenges’
Mr Pedersen noted that “one of the biggest challenges is the situation in the northeast”, amid fears of a major escalation between the US-backed Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and Turkey-backed armed groups.
Turkey accuses the main component of the SDF, the People’s Protection Units (YPG), of being affiliated with Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) militants at home, whom both Washington and Ankara consider a “terrorist” group.
The United States said it had brokered an extension to a fragile ceasefire in the flashpoint town of Manbij and was seeking a broader understanding with Turkey.
“I’m very pleased that the truce has been renewed and that it seems to be holding, but hopefully we will see a political solution to that issue,” Mr Pedersen said.