Bahrain Mirror (Exclusive): After March 16, ward 63 in the 6th floor of Salmaniya Hospital turned into a place shrouded in mystery and horror. Word had it that a number of the wounded and the clinically dead were detained there after the army had taken control of the hospital. They had been transferred there from the other hospitals and health centers. It was said that the wounded and detained were being tortured and abused especially at nights. People were not allowed to visit Ward 63. It was heavily guarded by the military. No one knew what was going on there, or the number of patients detained there. The record files of ward's patients have disappeared, especially after the reported cases of the missing people whose fate was still unknown since the start of the crackdown. People who are admitted there go missing and leave it only to jail or grave.


The case of the sixty year-old Abu Idrees

Salman Abu Idrees, a man in his sixties was admitted to Ward 63, after which his family knew nothing about him until he was allowed out of the ward a dead man.

His story is wrapped in mystery, he died on June 3rd leaving his wife, a nurse, and his five children (three daughters and two sons). The Ministry of Interior and an official source in the Ministry of Health announced that his death was natural. They explained that he had visited Noaim Health Center on March 16, and there he was diagnosed with high sugar level and abodminal trouble that required his transfer to Salmaniya Hospital in the ambulance. He was admitted to the hospital since then till he died of a cardiac arrest.

That was the unsual detailed suspicious report. However, people who knew him said that he was driving his car in the dawn of March 16 when he was stopped by security forces in Qufool area where he lived. They interrogated him and took his cell phone, wallet and car. Then they kicked him and beat him brutally with their rifles. They hauled him in their SUV and threw him in the Pearl Rounabout area.

According to these sources, some young people took him to Noaim Health Center. He talked to his family over the phone and told them what he had gone through. The beating caused him internal bleeding in the bladder, explosion in the spleen and damage in the lung. He was transferred to the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) in Salmaniya Hospital where he was operated upon to stop the internal bleeding. He was on the respiratory devices and under anesthesia for two months. The security forces denied his relatives any visitations throught that period.

After two months Abu Idrees was able to breathe normally. He was transferred to Ward 63. He was not allowed to see his relatives who came to ask about him. One time, a police sarcastically said to his relatives that he would leave to jail. No one knew what Abu Idrees had suffered in that place. After his death and during the preparations for his burial ceremony, traces of beatings were found on his body, and there was a dark red color around his neck which implied suffocation.

One of his female relatives said: “We didn't know of his death, the hospital didn't tell us. We heard the news from the Internet as some one had leaked it. After that they didn't allow us to gather in the hospital to confirm the news. They allowed only one person to enter. She added: “They threatened us as we waited outside not to chant any slogans. We were also prevented from marching out on the third day of his mourning [a Shia custom]”.


The Young Hameed

Has the young man Hameed Rabea been abducted into Ward 63?

Hameed was a young man in his twenties. On March 15, security troops in plain clothes attacked Nuwaidrat area. Hameed tried to save an injured old man. The troops did not like that, and they fired a couple of rounds of birds gunshots at Hameed. The gunshots struck him in the neck down to the lower back. He was moved to the close Kanoo Health Center. That health center was not able to accommodate a high number of injuries so he was transferred in an ambulance to Salmaniya Hospital. Despite his great pain, he was concious and able to talk. His family visited him in the hospital.

Hameed disappeared on the day the Salamaniya Hospital was attaked by the military troops in an operation named “Salmaniya Cleansing”. Nothing was known about him. He was not on the records in Salamaniya Hospital. He was not in the Military Hospital,  neither was he in the police stations. His old father searched for him until he was completely exhausted Was he hidden in Ward 63? No one knew!

In the beginning of June, his relatives received a phone call from a lawyer telling them that Hameed was in Salmaniya Hospital. The old father hurriedly went to see his loved one. A policeman stopped him: “How did you know?” The father kept silent, his daughter replied that a lawyer had told them. The policeman got angry and yelled: “I'm talking to the man, and you reply?” and asked “What's his problem?”, the father answered: “he was injured by birds gunshots”. The policeman said deridingly: “Go! If he is a Muslim God will heal him ”, the father asked: “Are you saying we were not Muslims?”, the policeman replied: “Anyone who marches in demonstrations is a Jew, not a Muslim”. Then the policeman ordered them to leave before he let go of his dogs on them.

Hameed is still missing. The leaked information has it that he is in a coma and that after his abduction he was beaten on the head and hung upside down till blood clotted in his head. He underwent surgeries in the head. And now he is lying somewhere between life and death!