PHOTO: A visitor gazes at some of the “Caesar” photographs of dead Syrian detainees
Human Rights Watch has issued an 86-page report with more information on almost 7,000 detainees who died in the Assad regime’s prisons in Syria.
In August 2013, a military photographer, “Caesar”, defected with 53,275 photographs, including those of the detainees. Human Rights Watch obtained the full set of images from the opposition Syrian National Movement, and pursued further information about the victims.
HRW establilshed that most of the prisoners were held by five intelligence agency branches in Damascus, with their bodies were sent to at least two military hospitals in the capital between May and August 2013.
The Syrian Network for Human Rights has documented the arrest and detention of more than 117,000 people in Syria since March 2011.
Speaking with families of 27 victims, 37 former detainees who witnessed deaths, and four defectors who worked in the facilities, HRW concludes that there was “widespread torture, starvation, beatings, and disease” in the prisons.
Forensic pathologists from Physicians for Human Rights confirmed the findings from study of the photographs.