Syrian rescuers find human remains at site used by Hezbollah and other Assad allies

DAMASCUS — The Syrian Civil Defense group, known as the White Helmets, uncovered at least 21 corpses as well as incomplete human remains on Wednesday in the Sayeda Zeinab suburb of the capital Damascus.

The discovery was made at a site previously used by Lebanon’s Hezbollah and Iran-backed Iraqi militias, both allies of deposed president Bashar Assad during the country’s civil war. The site included a field kitchen, a drugstore and a morgue, according to Ammar al-Salmo, an official with the White Helmets, a volunteer organization that operated in areas that were controlled by the opposition.

Rescue teams in white hazmat suits searched the site, located not far from the revered shrine of Sayeda Zeinab, the granddaughter of Prophet Mohammad. The remains were placed into black bags and loaded onto a truck as bystanders from the neighborhood looked on.

“Some (of the remains) are skeletons, others are incomplete, and there are bags of small bones. We cannot yet determine the number of victims,” al-Salmo says.

“Damascus has become a mass grave,” he says, pointing out the growing reports of war-related graves and burial sites in the capital and other places in Syria.

Iran and Hezbollah provided Assad’s government with military, financial and logistical support during the civil war.