The anti-establishment forces in Syria they managed within eleven days to reach Damascus and force him Bashar al-Assad to run away while they then decided to release the political prisoners from the notorious Sednaya prison.
This is a prison, which was known throughout Syria and has been described as a “slaughterhouse”, since it was the place that Bashar al-Assad used to imprison or even “disappear” those who his regime considered to be a threat. , even small children.
Rebels who arrived at Sednaya prison stormed and immediately began freeing prisoners, with the footage shocking. A man captures the scene on his phone as armed militants break the locks of prison cells that have long been the site of abuses and crimes by the Bashar al-Assad regime. Men, women and children come out overwhelmed, hesitant, struggling to believe that President Assad has actually been toppled.
Syrian woman freed from Assad regime prison reunites with her children in Homs after 3 years. pic.twitter.com/UotVZS6enH
— Clash Report (@clashreport) December 9, 2024
«You are free people, come out! It’s over, Bashar is gone, we crushed him“, the man can be heard shouting on the mobile phone, a few hours after the rebels entered Damascus and Bashar al-Assad fled to Russia. Dozens of men, skeletal silhouettes of people, some carrying their fellow prisoners because they are too weak to walk alone, emerge from the cell.
REUTERS/Amr Abdallah Dalsh
No furniture to be seen, only a few thin blankets thrown on the floor. And walls eaten by moisture and dirt. “What happened?». The question returns to the lips of the now free prisoners. As soon as Assad was toppled, the rebels rushed to the prisons. In Sednaya, around 30 kilometers from Damascus, the release of the prisoners appears to be more difficult.
Chaotic scenes from the infamous Sednaya Prison, where people are going through layers freeing the prisoners. pic.twitter.com/LGGQktcNEE
— Clash Report (@clashreport) December 8, 2024
Rescue group the White Helmets say they are searching for “hidden underground cells” of this bleak prison. So far the searches have yielded no results. And members of the White Helmets group have been knocking down walls and corners since yesterday Sunday (08.12.2024) with sledgehammers or iron bars in an attempt to locate the hidden cells.
Specialized White Helmets teams are continuing search in Sednaya Prison, notorious for holding thousands of detainees and being one of the world’s most horrendous prisons. They are looking for hidden doors or undiscovered basements reportedly connected to the facility, which… pic.twitter.com/WkZffAzm1M
— The White Helmets (@SyriaCivilDef) December 9, 2024
In another wing, the women’s cells. In front of the door of one of them waits a child, lost. Perhaps he has never seen this corridor, behind the door. “I’m scared,” several women scream in quick succession, visibly terrified at the idea of being trapped or attacked by the gunmen roaming the corridors.
REUTERS/Amr Abdallah Dalsh
«Overturned, you can leave“, insist those who came to free them. Since the start of the “revolution” in 2011, more than 100,000 people have died in prisons, mostly due to torture, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights estimated in 2022.
Clarification
Regarding the false news circulating on social media about the presence of detainees in secret locations inside Sednaya Prison.
1 – We confirm that there are no detainees left inside the prison. Everyone was released last night and this morning.
2 – We do not have… pic.twitter.com/Lh6NrKH2CH— ADMSP (@sednayamissing) December 9, 2024
At the same time, the Observatory reported that about 30,000 people were being held in Sednayaof which only 6,000 have been released. Amnesty International, for its part, has recorded thousands of executions and denounces “a real policy of extermination” in Sentnaya, speaking of a “slaughterhouse».
On the streets of the capital today, the prisoners come out in waves. They stand out from afar because they still bear signs of what made Sednaya the most notorious prison in Syria: torture, disease and above all hunger. Some cannot articulate a word. Not even their name or place.
Others they speak like losers, scarred by torture. Some have been there for a while. Others had disappeared since the time of Hafez al-Assad. In the chaos, few know where to go, who to look for.
Beware harsh images:
18+ : Dozens of bodies of Syrian detainees have been found from Sednaya Prison in Harasta Hospital. The hospital is filled with bodies of those executed or tortured to death, many of whom remain unidentified.
Rescue teams there urgently need assistance to search for detainees in… pic.twitter.com/v3bd6URqY0
— Nedal Al-Amari (@nedalalamari) December 9, 2024
Aida Taher, 65, is still searching for her brother who was arrested in 2012. She said she “ran through the streets like crazy” on the way to Sednaya:But I found out that some prisoners were still in the basements, there are three or four basements” and “they said the doors don’t open because they don’t have the right codes.” “We have been oppressed long enough, we want our children to returnshe says angrily.
REUTERS/Amr Abdallah Dalsh
Online, families are posting black-and-white photos of young men or protesters under the flags of the “revolution” that flourished in the rebel provinces in 2011. They ask if anyone has seen the men. If he was in Sednaya. Or if they are really dead, in the 14 years of chaos in Syria, with no hope of ever seeing them resurface on the street corner, emaciated but alive.