White Helmets announce discovery of new bodies and bones near Damascus

This organization of Syrian rescuers made this discovery near the mausoleum of Sayyida Zeinab, a site revered by Shiites south of the capital.

The White Helmets, a Syrian rescue organization, announced on Wednesday December 18 the discovery of bodies and bones in a warehouse in the suburbs of Damascus, where such discoveries are increasing after the fall of Bashar al-Assad. Located about fifty meters from the mausoleum of Sayyida Zeinab, a site revered by Shiites in the south of the Syrian capital, the warehouse was full of boxes of medicine ripped open on the ground, noted an AFP journalist.

“We have received reports of putrid odors emanating from this site. In the warehouse, a fridge was found with decomposing bodies lying there.”announced to AFP Ammar al-Salmo, a leader of the White Helmets. Human bones were also scattered on the ground, he added, estimating the number of “victims” has “no more than twenty”. “On the bags where the bodies were located was written Aleppo-Hraytan,” accompanied by a number, said Ammar al-Salmo. These are the names of the large city in northern Syria and a neighboring town.

No other indication of the identity of the dead people has been found. “We will try to establish the age of the victims and then take samples from these bodies to carry out DNA tests and try to find their families”declared the head of the rescuers. AFP was not immediately able to confirm the information provided by the leaders of the White Helmets, while bodies have been discovered in several mass graves across the country since the fall of Bashar al-Assad, on December 8.