UNITED NATIONS — The bodies of the young men in the photographs are emaciated, their bones protruding. Starvation was only one form of torture they endured. Some bear the marks of strangulation. Others have vivid bruises and welts from being beaten.
On Tuesday, the Security Council met privately to view projected slides of the dead, who offer mute testimony to the savagery of a Syrian civil war in which more than 150,000 have died.
Ten of the photos were publicly released in January in a study known as the "Caesar Report," which was funded by the government of Qatar, a major backer of the opposition and one of the countries most deeply involved in the Syrian conflict. More will be seen Tuesday by the council.
The photos could not be independently confirmed.
France, which is hosting the closed meeting, says the photos to be displayed are part of a collection of 55,000 digital images of Syrians who were tortured and slain by Syrian President Bashar Assad's regime. France says a majority of them were collected by a Syrian military police photographer code-named "Caesar," who smuggled them out on flash drives when he defected.
