'They shot patients in beds' – BBC hears claims of massacre at Suweida hospital
The stench hit me before anything else.In the car park of the main hospital in Suweida City, dozens of decomposing corpses are lined up in white plastic body bags.Some are open to the elements, revealing bloated and mutilated remains of those who were killed here.The tarmac beneath my feet is greasy and slippery with blood.
In the sweltering sun, the smell is overwhelming."It was a massacre," Dr Wissam Massoud, a Neurosurgeon at the hospital tells me."The soldiers came here saying they wanted to bring peace, but they killed scores of patients from the very young to the very old."Earlier this week, Dr Massoud sent me a video which he said was in the immediate aftermath of the government raid.In it, a woman shows you around the hospital. On the ground in the wards are dozens of dead patients still bundled up in their bloodied bed sheets.
Everyone here, doctors, nurses, volunteers say the same thing.That last Wednesday evening, it was Syrian government troops targeting the Druze community who came to the hospital and carried out the killings.Kiness Abu Motab, a volunteer at the hospital, said of the victims: "What is their crime? Just for being a minority in a democratic country?""They are criminals. They are monsters. We don't trust them at all," Osama Malak an English teacher in the city told me outside the hospital gates."They shot an eight-year-old disabled boy in the head," he said."According to international law, hospitals should be protected. But they attacked us even in the hospitals."They entered the hospital. They started shooting everybody. They shot the patients in their beds as they slept."All sides in this conflict have been accusing each other of committing atrocities.Both Bedouin and Druze fighters as well as the Syrian Army have been accused killing civilians and extra judicial killings.
There is not yet a clear picture of what happened at the hospital. Some here estimate the number of people to be killed last Wednesday at more than 300 but that figure cannot be verified.On Tuesday night the Syrian defence ministry said in a statement it was aware of reports of "shocking violations" by people wearing military fatigues in the country's predominantly Druze city Sweida.Earlier this week Raed Saleh, the Syrian Minister for Disaster Management and Emergency Response, told me that any allegations of atrocities committed by all sides would be fully investigated.
Who are the Druze and why did Israel attack Syria?Bedouins tell BBC they could return to fighting Druze in SyriaBBC sees fragile ceasefire holding in Syria's battle-scarred Suweida province
Access to Suweida City has been heavily restricted meaning gathering first hand evidence has been difficult.The city is in effect under siege with Syrian government forces restricting who is allowed in and out.To get in we had to pass through numerous checkpoints.As we entered the city, we passed burned out shops and buildings, cars that had been crushed my tanks.Suweida City had clearly seen a serious battle between Druze fighters and Bedouin gunmen.It was at that point that the Syrian government first intervened to try and enforce a ceasefire.
Although numerous Druze villages in Suweida province have been recaptured by government forces, Suweida City, home to more than 70,000 people, remains under full Druze control.Before we left the hospital, we found eight-year-old Hala Al Khatib sitting on a bench with her auntie.Hala's face is bloodied and bandaged. She appears to have lost an eye.She tells us that gunmen came and shot her in the head at she was hiding in a cupboard in her home.She doesn't know it, but both Hala's parents are dead.
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BreakingNews.ie
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The Guardian
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Saving their lives and averting avoidable mortality can only happen by providing adequate treatment.' Earlier this month, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) reported an alarming rise in malnutrition at its clinics, warning that 25% of the children and pregnant and breastfeeding women that it screened were malnourished, adding that cases of severe malnutrition in children under five had tripled in just two weeks. Speaking on Wednesday from Deir al-Balah in Gaza, the MSF doctor Mohammed Fadlalla 'categorically rejected the cynical and cruel narrative' that there is no hunger in Gaza. 'Malnutrition is affecting everyone, the sick, the healthy and the old because no one is eating enough. But the people who are most affected tend to be the most vulnerable: children from 0-five, the elderly, those with pre-existing conditions like diabetes,' he said. 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It continued: 'Acute malnutrition – the second core famine indicator – inside Gaza has risen at an unprecedented rate. In Gaza City, malnutrition levels among children under five have quadrupled in two months, reaching 16.5%. This signals a critical deterioration in nutritional status and a sharp rise in the risk of death from hunger and malnutrition.' The sense of urgency is driven by the fact that impact of famine on the body proceeds slowly at first, then very rapidly as the body uses available fat before beginning to break down muscle cells, which release chemicals, including potassium, chloride and sodium, and cellular debris into the bloodstream, rapidly triggering more serious health issues, including severe malnutrition in young children. Israel's prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has tried to suggest untruthfully there is 'no starvation in Gaza'.
