The State Department said Monday it believes that about 50 detainees are hanged each day at the Saydnaya military prison, a 45-minute drive north of Damascus. He accused the government of President Bashar al-Assad of sinking “to a new level of depravity.”The Syrian government forcefully denied it. Western monitors and watchdog groups say they have accumulated evidence of mass killings in Syrian prisons, though there have not been any substantiated allegations so far of the use of a crematorium. The accusations cast a shadow over Syria peace talks Tuesday in Geneva, where Syrian government and opposition representatives met separately with the UN envoy. Syrian opposition spokesman Salem Meslet said the US allegations about the use of a crematorium to cover up the mass killings were “credible” and not surprising.

Source: Egypt Independent May 16, 2017 17:03 UTC