Reports Emerge of Individuals Trapped in Subterranean Cells at Notorious Syrian Prison

The Syrian civil defense organization, known as the White Helmets, has stated it is looking into claims from survivors of Syria’s infamous Saydnaya prison regarding the detention of individuals in concealed underground cells. The group announced on X that it has dispatched five “specialised emergency teams” to the facility, who are receiving assistance from a guide familiar with the prison’s layout. Saydnaya stands as one of the correctional facilities that have been liberated following the rebel takeover of the country. Authorities in Damascus province indicated that efforts to free prisoners were ongoing, with some reportedly “almost choking to death” due to inadequate ventilation. The Damascus Countryside Governorate has utilized social media to appeal to former soldiers and prison staff from Bashar al-Assad’s administration, requesting that they provide rebel forces with the access codes for electronic underground doors. They have stated their inability to open these doors to release “more than 100,000 detainees who can be seen on CCTV monitors.” Footage has been circulating online and via news outlets, including Al Jazeera, depicting what appears to be attempts to reach the lower levels of the prison. In one such video, a man is seen using a pole-like object to break through a lower wall, revealing a dark void beyond. Other videos have documented the release of prisoners, including a young child held with his mother. This child is featured in a video showing women being freed, which was shared by the Turkey-based Association of Detainees and The Missing in Saydnaya Prison (ADMSP). “He [Assad] has fallen. Don’t be scared,” a voice in the video states, seemingly aiming to reassure the women of their newfound safety. Video verified by AFP depicted Syrians hurrying to ascertain if their family members were among those released from Saydnaya, a site where thousands of opposition supporters are reported to have suffered torture and execution under the Assad regime. Rebel forces have advanced across Syria, releasing inmates from government detention centers as they progressed. Throughout the civil war, which commenced in 2011, government forces incarcerated hundreds of thousands of individuals in detention camps, where human rights organizations assert that torture was widespread. On Saturday, the Islamist militant group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) declared it had released over 3,500 detainees from Homs Military Prison upon seizing control of the city. The group was established in 2012 under the designation al-Nusra Front. It was initially allied with al-Qaeda but subsequently severed these ties, although the US, the UK, and several other nations continue to classify it as an affiliate of the jihadist organization. In 2016, the group adopted its current name, HTS, and later merged with other rebel factions. It represents the most prominent among several opposition groups participating in this recent offensive. As rebel fighters entered the capital mere hours later, early on Sunday, HTS proclaimed an “end of the era of tyranny in the prison of Saydnaya,” a facility that has become synonymous with the gravest abuses of the Assad era. A 2022 report by ADMSP stated that Saydnaya “effectively became a death camp” following the outbreak of the civil war. The report estimated that between 2011 and 2018, more than 30,000 detainees were either executed or perished due to torture, inadequate medical care, or starvation. Citing testimonies from the few released inmates, it added that at least an additional 500 detainees had been executed between 2018 and 2021. In 2017, Amnesty International characterized Saydnaya as a “human slaughterhouse” in a report that alleged executions had received authorization at the highest echelons of the Assad government. The government at that time dismissed Amnesty’s allegations as “baseless” and “devoid of truth,” maintaining that all executions in Syria adhered to due process. Video footage cited by Reuters depicted rebels firing at the lock of Saydnaya’s prison gate and using further gunfire to open doors leading to cells, from which men then streamed into the corridors. Additional footage, which the Reuters news agency indicated was filmed on the streets of Damascus, appears to show recently liberated prisoners running through the street. In this footage, one individual asks a passer-by what has occurred. “We toppled the regime,” is the reply, prompting an excited laugh from the former prisoner. Among all the symbols representing the repressive nature of the Assad regime, the extensive network of prisons, where those expressing any form of dissent vanished, cast the most enduring and darkest shadow. At Saydnaya, thousands faced torture, sexual assault, and mass execution. Many never reappeared, with their families often remaining unaware for years whether they were alive or deceased. Omar al-Shogre, one of the survivors of this ordeal, recounted to the BBC on Sunday his experiences during three years of imprisonment as a teenager. “I know the pain, I know the loneliness and also the hopelessness you feel because the world let you suffer and did nothing about it,” he stated. “They forced my cousin whom I loved so much to torture me, and they force me to torture him. Otherwise, we would both be executed.” A Syrian human rights network estimates that over 130,000 people have been subjected to these detention conditions since 2011. However, the history of these deliberately terrifying institutions extends much further back. Even in neighboring Lebanon, the dread of being disappeared into a Syrian dungeon was widespread during the many years that Damascus held sway as the dominant foreign power. The profound animosity towards the Assad regime—both father and son—that lay beneath the surface in Syria was largely attributable to this industrial-scale system of torture, death, and humiliation designed to coerce the populace into submission. Consequently, rebel factions, during their rapid advance through Syria that led to the overthrow of President Assad, ensured that in every city they captured, they proceeded to the central prison to release the thousands held there. The sight of these individuals emerging into the light from a darkness that had enveloped some for decades will stand as one of the defining images of the Assad dynasty’s collapse.