After Al-Julani's Massacres, Sweida Hospital Reeks of Death
Days after Syrian government forces raided the central hospital in Sweida, the stench of death lingers everywhere. Body bags line the parking lot, and doctors are struggling to process the horror. “They’re criminals, monsters. They shot everyone,” staff told the BBC during a fragile ceasefire that still holds.
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In the parking lot of Sweida’s main hospital, in a predominantly Druze city, dozens of decomposing bodies remain, arranged in rows inside white bags. Some bags are half-open, revealing mutilated, bloated corpses. The hospital reeks, and the access road is slick with blood. “It was a massacre,” said Dr. Wissam Massoud, a neurosurgeon. “The soldiers came claiming they’d bring peace, but they killed scores of patients, from the youngest to the oldest.”
Dr. Massoud shared a video, allegedly filmed right after the raid, showing a woman walking through hospital wards where dozens of dead patients, wrapped in blood-soaked sheets, still lie. Other doctors, nurses, and volunteers echoed this account, saying Syrian regime forces stormed the hospital last Wednesday and carried out the killings.
Walla reported that Kiness Abu Motab, a hospital volunteer, asked, “What was their crime? Just being a minority in a democratic country?”
“They’re criminals. They’re monsters. We don’t trust them at all,” said Osama Malak, an English teacher, outside the hospital gates. “They shot an eight-year-old disabled boy in the head. International law says hospitals should be protected, but they attacked us even there. They entered and started shooting everyone, patients in their beds as they slept.”
According to Walla, the exact toll remains unclear, with some estimates claiming over 300 killed in the hospital attack alone, though this figure is unverified.
According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, over 1,000 people, many unarmed Druze, died in clashes with Bedouin fighters and Damascus regime forces. Both Bedouin and Druze fighters, as well as the Syrian army, face accusations of civilian killings and extrajudicial executions.
Al-Sharaa (who used to be terrorist Al-Julani, until he put on a suit and declared himself a whole new man), says that he will find those repsonsible for the massacres and punish them for their crimes.