ArabSaga: Darayya in Syria’s "Killing Fields"

Sunday, 26 August 2012

Darayya in Syria’s "Killing Fields"

I agonized the whole morning about publishing here grisly images of civilians executed by Syrian government forces in the town of Darayya yesterday.

Please forgive my heavy-hearted decision to go ahead and publish the images if only because in showing the brutality of the Syrian regime, “a picture is worth a thousand words.”

Newswires, broadcasters, activists, watchdogs and eyewitnesses say more than 300 bodies have been discovered in Darayya’s houses, basement shelters, cemeteries, alleyways and on the streets.

“Assad’s army has committed a massacre in Darayya,” an opposition member told Reuters.

The forces of President Bashar al-Assad launched an assault on the working-class Sunni Muslim township to the southwest of Damascus on Saturday, after days of heavy bombardment.

The BBC’s Barbara Plett in Beirut says the attack was part of a wider campaign to reclaim the southern outskirts of Damascus, where rebels have been regrouping since being driven out a month ago.

Video footage from activists showed numerous bodies of young men side-by-side at the dimly lit Abu Suleiman al-Darani mosque in Darayya, many with what looked like gunshot wounds to the head and chest.

“A massacre,” said the voice of the man who appeared to be taking the footage. “You are seeing the revenge of Assad's forces ... more than 150 bodies on the floor of this mosque.”

Syrian state TV said Darayya was being "cleansed of terrorist remnants.”

Syria’s semi-official Addounia TV posted video footage of a woman reporter going walkabout in Darayya, pointing at dead bodies on the streets, in alleyways and at a cemetery and saying all victims were “killed by the terrorist gangs.”

WARNING: GRAPHIC IMAGES