Dubai: The Syrian regime's brutal crackdown, which included severing power supply to three major hospitals, in the central city of Hama has cost the lives of at least 30 premature babies, it was revealed to Gulf News yesterday.
Mohammad Al Humaid, a four-month-old child in incubation at the Al Assad Medical Complex in Al Hader district north of the city, died along with four other babies. Amira Al Khoder, the 26-year-old mother, said she had lost her daughter who was kept in the hospital a few days after her birth. She was alerted by the management to come and collect her baby's body.
"The power supply to the hospital was cut off for five days and there was no diesel to run the generator," said Amira, who was in tears.
Mass graves
Doctors at Al Horani Hospital said more than 17 premature babies died in neonatal incubators a day before the army stormed the city searching for protesters. "We could run the emergency generators for three days but on August 4 we ran out of diesel and when we urged the army to allow the supply of diesel they said they cannot allow diesel tanks to enter the compound," a doctor, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told Gulf News.
Meanwhile, Hama attorney-general, Adnan Al Bakour, said that he has defected to the opposition after reporting the killings of 72 protesters inside one central jail by the security forces. The raid and the killing of the prisoners took place on July 31, according to Al Bakour. Al Bakour appeared in a YouTube footage saying that he had resigned because security forces killed prisoners and protesters and buried them in mass graves in public parks.
He said he saw the bodies of 420 people and was ordered to issue death certificates for 14 of them in which he was asked to state that terrorist groups have killed them.
"I can't continue in my position any more. I know that the bodies of the prisoners were buried in a site near the military intelligence headquarters in Khalidiya," Al Bakour said.
