Turkish hospitals traffick injured Syrian citizens’ organs

Turkish hospitals which receive the wounded Syrian citizens steal their body organs to be sold in the black market. According to a report by the Lebanese al-Safir daily, trafficking the injured Syrian people’s body organs is a phenomenon which has intensified in Turkish governmental hospitals. Ahmad Abdulkarim Muhammad, a 19-year-old young Syrian, is one of the victims of this phenomenon. He was injured in Syria in January and was transferred to Antakya hospital in Southern Turkey and died after a few days. Despite being transferred to the hospital for head injuries, a video released after his death shows that his abdomen has gone under surgery operations which indicates stealing of his vital organs, including kidneys, liver, etc. Earlier reports also said that Turkish authorities are engaged in trafficking body organs of injured Syrians that are taken to Turkey for treatment. The Lebanese newspaper al-Diyar reported that Turkish authorities transfer young injured Syrians to certain hospitals in the Turkish cities of Antakya and Iskenderun. The report added that the Turks leave the injured Syrians alone to die after their body organs are removed in the hospitals. The dead are later sent to the Syrian border region to be buried. Turkish doctors have confirmed that out of 62,000 injured Syrian civilian and military people who were transported into Turkey, body organs of over 15,600 of them were excised and their bodies were sent back into Syria to be buried, al-Diyar stated. Turkish officials have made no comments over the issue so far. The Lebanese newspaper also states that the body organs, including livers, kidneys and hearts are given to people waiting for treatment in Turkey. Al-Diyar said European scientific websites acknowledged that body organ transplantation operations had increased in Turkey over the past two years, since the beginning of the crisis in Syria.