In Syria's Sweida, bodies wait to be identified at overwhelmed hospital

Straits Times

a day ago

Find out what's new on ST website and app.
Medical workers clean and disinfect a hospital bed outside Sweida National Hospital in southern Syria's predominantly Druze city of Sweida on July 20.
SWEIDA, Syria - At the main hospital in south Syria's Sweida city, dozens of bodies are still waiting to be identified as the death count of
days of sectarian clashes continues to rise.
'We have handed 361 bodies over to family members, but we still have 97 unidentified corpses,' a forensic medicine official at facility said on condition of anonymity.
Clashes
erupted on July 13 in Syria's Druze-majority province of Sweida between local fighters and Sunni Bedouin, spiralling and drawing in government forces, tribal allies of the Bedouin and the military of neighbouring Israel.
Witnesses, Druze factions and a monitor have accused government forces of siding with the Bedouin and committing abuses including summary executions when they entered Sweida last week.
More than 1,100 people, most of them Druze fighters and civilians, have been killed, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor, whose toll also includes several hundred government security personnel.
Health authorities have not released a comprehensive death toll.
More than 450 bodies had been taken to Sweida's main hospital by the evening of July 20 , while bodies were still being collected from streets and homes in the city.
'The dead bodies sent a terrible smell through all the floors of the hospital,' said nurse Hisham Breik, who said he had not left the facility since the violence began.
'The situation has been terrible. We couldn't walk around the hospital without wearing a mask,' he said, his voice trembling, adding that the wounded included women, children and the elderly.
Medical personnel have been working in tough conditions at the hospital, which has seen clashes around it and has been flooded with wounded, some of whom were lying in the corridors.
Bodies have yet to be removed from villages in Sweida province's north and west, the hospital administration and health workers said.
The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said that hospitals and health centres in Sweida province were out of service, with 'reports of unburied bodies raising serious public health concerns'.
Humanitarian access to Sweida 'remains highly constrained', it said a statement late on July 20 .
'Catastrophe'
The Sweida national hospital has remained open despite the dire situation that has also included supply shortages and water and power cuts.
A first Syrian Red Crescent convoy entered Sweida on July 20 carrying UN humanitarian assistance including food, water, medical supplies and fuel, OCHA said.
A Red Crescent official told AFP the supplies included body bags.
Another convoy facilitated by the Red Crescent was to leave Damascus on July 21 , OCHA said.
But as the supplies were unloaded on on July 20 , activist Moatasem Aflak, who works for a body affiliated with the Sweida health department, told AFP that the aid 'doesn't cover everything required'.
'We received water and medical supplies but we need more because we are facing a medical catastrophe,' he said, adding that a list of requirements had been handed to the Red Crescent.
'We haven't yet been able to count the bodies' and some families have been unable to arrive to identify their loved ones, Mr Aflak said.
'We are trying to cooperate with the Red Crescent to put the bodies in bags and establish a mass grave to transfer them to,' he added.
According to the United Nations, the violence has displaced more than 128,000 people, an issue that has also made collecting and identifying bodies more difficult. AFP