The Syrian government has now built a crematorium because it has mass executed so many thousands of people, it can no longer dispose of the corpses quickly enough.
The site of the mass murders is the infamous Sednaya military prison, which Amnesty International described as a "human slaughterhouse." Both unarmed civilians and members of the opposition are held at Sednaya, without differentiation. Prisoners are subjected to systematic torture, including beatings, electrocution and even rape. Guards at Sednaya kill as many as 50 detainees per day. Many have died via mass hangings.
When prisoners are killed in extrajudicial executions, the government used to pile their bodies in mass graves. But now the level of government-sponsored murder has exceeded its ability to manage the huge number of bodies.
These atrocities are unforgivable, and are in addition to the Syrian regime's indiscriminate bombing of civilians in rebel-held areas. From 2011 to 2015, the government forcibly disappeared more than 65,000 people, and approximately 18,000 of those who were abducted died.
World leaders MUST come together to condemn this genocide. The heads of the G7 countries — Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the UK, and the US — and the European Union have a moral responsibility to speak out about these horrors. If the combine their political weight, they could yield intense power. It's time for them to do the right thing!
The photo above is from a Nazi crematorium. The world has been here before. We cannot let this happen again. Future generations will ask us where we stood.
