Grisly Syria heart-eating video sparks outrage
Latest update: 14/05/2013 - By Leela JACINTO - via France24
A video which appears to show the Syrian rebel Abu Sakkar carving out the heart of a dead soldier and putting it into his mouth has shocked journalists who met him in Homs in 2011 and 2012 and sparked widespread condemnation.
On Saturday, May 11, as French journalist Sofia Amara was surfing the web, she chanced upon a video clip that left her shocked, sickened, angry, and ultimately so despairing, the seasoned war reporter collapsed crying.
The gruesome video appeared to feature a Syrian rebel commander, dressed in camouflage trousers, cutting open the corpse of what appeared to be a soldier loyal to Syrian President Bashar al Assad.
The rebel then proceeds to carve out the heart and liver out of the corpse.
I swear to God, soldiers of Bashar, you dogs we will eat your hearts and livers, he says, looking into the camera. At the end of the 30-second clip, the rebel commander puts the corpses heart in his mouth, as if hes about to eat it.
The second I played the video, I recognised him, said Amara in a phone interview with FRANCE 24 from the Lebanese capital of Beirut. I recognized him because of his voice, his mannerisms, his clothes he was always wearing those clothes.
FRANCE 24 has decided not to post the disturbing footage of the rebel mutilating the corpse although the clip is available on the Internet.
Amara was reporting in the Baba Amr district of the western Syrian city of Homs in December 2011, when she said she met the rebel, who she identified by the nom de guerre, Abu Sakkar.
In her documentary, At the heart of the Free Syrian Army - which was aired on a French TV station last year Amara says Abu Sakkar features in the second part of the two-and-a-half hour documentary.
Grisly Syria ?heart-eating? video sparks outrage - SYRIA - FRANCE 24
Latest update: 14/05/2013 - By Leela JACINTO - via France24
A video which appears to show the Syrian rebel Abu Sakkar carving out the heart of a dead soldier and putting it into his mouth has shocked journalists who met him in Homs in 2011 and 2012 and sparked widespread condemnation.
On Saturday, May 11, as French journalist Sofia Amara was surfing the web, she chanced upon a video clip that left her shocked, sickened, angry, and ultimately so despairing, the seasoned war reporter collapsed crying.
The gruesome video appeared to feature a Syrian rebel commander, dressed in camouflage trousers, cutting open the corpse of what appeared to be a soldier loyal to Syrian President Bashar al Assad.
The rebel then proceeds to carve out the heart and liver out of the corpse.
I swear to God, soldiers of Bashar, you dogs we will eat your hearts and livers, he says, looking into the camera. At the end of the 30-second clip, the rebel commander puts the corpses heart in his mouth, as if hes about to eat it.
The second I played the video, I recognised him, said Amara in a phone interview with FRANCE 24 from the Lebanese capital of Beirut. I recognized him because of his voice, his mannerisms, his clothes he was always wearing those clothes.
FRANCE 24 has decided not to post the disturbing footage of the rebel mutilating the corpse although the clip is available on the Internet.
Amara was reporting in the Baba Amr district of the western Syrian city of Homs in December 2011, when she said she met the rebel, who she identified by the nom de guerre, Abu Sakkar.
In her documentary, At the heart of the Free Syrian Army - which was aired on a French TV station last year Amara says Abu Sakkar features in the second part of the two-and-a-half hour documentary.
Grisly Syria ?heart-eating? video sparks outrage - SYRIA - FRANCE 24
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