The fall of Syria’s Assad regime has led to the discovery of the notorious Saydnaya prison, where thousands suffered torture and executions. Families of the disappeared gathered outside, hoping to reunite with loved ones.
Hours after insurgents swept across Syria to bring an end to the Assad family’s 50-year rule, hundreds of prisoners spilt out of Assad’s detention system, some to tearful reunions with relatives who believed they had been executed years earlier.
The development came as those celebrating in Damascus found a door on the city’s outskirts. According to The Guardian, beyond the door, there lay a vast underground complex, five storeys deep, containing the last prisoners of the Assad regime, who were gasping for air.
The report quoted Amnesty International and said there were nearly 20,000 prisoners trapped underground that needed rescuing.
Rebel fighters tried to stop people from entering the Saydnaya military prison, commonly known as the “human slaughterhouse”, firing rounds in the air. However, thousands of men and women broke into cells and security facilities to free political prisoners and many others who disappeared since the conflict began back in 2011.
The Saydnaya military prison lies just north of Damascus, wherein screams of women detainees, some with their children, could be heard as locks on their cell doors broke open in the early hours of Sunday.
The Associated Press quoted Amnesty International and other groups as saying that dozens of people were secretly executed every week in Saydnaya, estimating that up to 13,000 Syrians were killed between 2011 and 2016.
As the notorious prison was discovered, families of detainees and the disappeared skipped celebrations of the downfall of the Assad dynasty. Instead, they waited outside prisons and security branch centres, hoping their loved ones would be there.
Inside, people roved about the labyrinthine facility, moving from cell to cell, searching for any clue that could tell them where their relatives and friends might be. They feared that the prisoners, some also their relatives, could be starving without food and asphyxiating from lack of air, The Guardian stated.
SYRIA’s SAYDNAYA MILITARY PRISON
The Guardian stated that the prison was seemingly built to induce a sense of placelessness.
At its centre is a spiral staircase that from the ground floor appears endless.
The staircase is ringed by metal bars and, beyond them, large identical vault doors, through which lie the facility’s three wings. The report quoted rebel fighters and stated that each wing specialised in a different form of torture. There are no windows to the outside world.
The narrow cells, no more than a few meters across, had been stuffed with more than a dozen people at a time, leaving no space to lie down, the report quoted rights groups. The screams of prisoners being tortured could be heard echoing down the hallways, it claimed.
Most of those trapped underground were imprisoned after secret sham trials that lasted no more than a few minutes.
Some survivors of the prison told The Guardian they were subjected to brutal daily beatings, and torture including rape, electric shocks and more. Many were tortured to death.
Some also said the prison guards had enforced a rule of absolute silence within the prison. The detainees could only write to communicate. Hence, the cells of the walls were covered in scrawled, handwritten messages.
“Enough already, just take me,” one of the messages read, the report claimed.
Another note was found written by a 63-year-old prisoner who mentioned he saw another prisoner fall and hit his head during a seizure.
Moments later, shouts could be heard and people were seen running, according to the report. This was after a door broke open.
Rumours spread on Sunday that thousands more inmates were still imprisoned in underground cells that could not be reached. People were still seen coming towards the prison until late on Sunday, in the hopes of finding their missing loved ones.
By Monday afternoon there was no sign of more prisoners, news agency Reuters reported.
Over the past 10 days, insurgents freed prisoners in cities including Aleppo, Homs, Hama as well as Damascus, AP reported.
TWO PRISON OFFICIALS CHARGED FOR TORTURE
On Monday, a day after the prison was discovered, US prosecutors accused two senior Syrian officials of overseeing the notorious prison that tortured peaceful protesters and other political prisoners, including a 26-year-old American woman who was later believed to have been executed.
The indictment was unsealed Monday, two days after a shock rebel offensive overthrew Syrian President Bashar Assad. The US, UN and others accuse him of widespread human rights abuses in a 13-year battle to crush opposition forces seeking his removal from power.
The indictment, filed on November 18 in federal court in Chicago, is believed to be the US government’s first against what officials say were networks of Assad intelligence services and military branches and other allied groups that detained, tortured and killed thousands of perceived enemies.
It names Jamil Hassan, director of the Syrian Air Force’s intelligence branch, who prosecutors say oversaw a prison and torture centre at the Mezzeh Air Force base in the capital, Damascus, and Abdul Salam Mahmoud, who prosecutors say ran the prison.