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Letters

Hangings in Syria
As part of an extermination policy ordered by the highest levels of the Syrian government, over 13,000 opponents of President Bashar al-Assad were secretly hanged in Saydnaya military prison. On Monday and Wednesday nights, prisoners in the military jail are taken to a basement, tortured, and after a two-minute ‘‘trial’’, are hanged. Up to 50 people at a time have been put to death in this way. The bodies are taken to the nearby Tishreen military hospital, where the cause of death was typically registered as repository disorder or heart failure. They are buried on military land in Jajha, south of Damascus, and at Qatana, a small town to the west. In the recent siege of Aleppo, over 100 civilians were shot at point-blank range, by Assad’s troops. Many hundreds, including around 100 children were killed during Syrian and Russian bombardment. Hospitals and rescue workers have been targeted. Barrel bombs, sometimes spiked with chlorine, have been rolled on to targets, by Syrian aircraft. Cluster and incendiary bombs have been used. Over 1000 people have been killed in Syria, in chemical warfare attacks. In Assad’s war, towns have been starved into submission, since uprisings began six and half years ago.
A Reader, Kolkata

Frontier
Vol. 50, No.1, Jul 9 - 15, 2017