In Syria, some 150,000 people are believed to have disappeared in the Assad regime's notorious prisons. Now, thousands of Syrians across the country are desperately flocking to morgues in search of their loved ones. Warning: Report contains graphic images.
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00:00Ummaher is standing in front of the coffin that contains her son.
00:08She tells us he was killed two weeks ago when Assad regime forces raided his home.
00:16She wants to save her this moment.
00:19At last she can bury him and say goodbye.
00:24They said they wouldn't give me his body and that he's a terrorist and should be buried
00:29anonymously and given a number.
00:31I thank God I can finally come to his grave.
00:35Maher's body is just one of many found in Syrian detention centres and prisons since
00:40Assad's government collapsed.
00:44This is the morgue of the Al-Mujtahid hospital in central Damascus.
00:50It's supposed to be a hospital.
00:53It looks like a slaughterhouse.
00:55There's a bunch of bodies of detainees and people visiting all the time looking for their
01:02relatives or brothers or loved ones.
01:07It's an extraordinary scene as people inspect dozens of bodies looking for tattoos or birth
01:13marks to identify their relatives.
01:17So far only a few have found loved ones.
01:25The detainees suffered from emaciation and mistreatment as they were exposed to cold
01:33weather and overcrowding that led to the death of most of them.
01:39Some of them had bruises that may have caused their death because they suffered from internal
01:43injuries.
01:45You mean signs of torture?
01:47Yes, indeed, especially the ones who died recently.
01:51Outside the hospital, hundreds of Syrians are looking for their loved ones.
01:56This is all they have to go off, pictures with just numbers, no names.
02:02Nabil Diab is desperate.
02:04He is looking for his son Suhail, missing in Assad's notorious network of prisons for
02:09more than a decade.
02:13I still know nothing about him.
02:16I asked every security agency and didn't get an answer.
02:20I am still looking for him everywhere.
02:25His mother had a thrombosis yesterday and she can't move now.
02:30What did you find here?
02:32I found nothing, nothing at all.
02:37No one has answered me.
02:42I am still searching.
02:46What will you do?
02:49I am leaving it to God's will.
02:51If he's dead, I want his body.
02:53I want to know where he is buried.
02:55I want to see it with my own eyes.
02:58But not everyone here will be lucky enough to find the final resting place of their loved
03:03ones after enduring so much under Syria's brutal dictatorship.