This was the release of the prisoners from Sednaya, a prison known as the ‘slaughterhouse’ in Syria

Fearful and astonished at the men who came to break the locks on their cells, dozens of prisoners left the Syrian Sednaya prison after years of hell.

“What happened?” the prisoners asked in astonishment.

“You’re free, get out! It’s over!” shouted a man who was filming them with his mobile phone.

“Bashar is over. We have crushed him,” he said.

The dramatic release from Sednaya prison came hours after rebels took the capital Damascus and forced President Bashar al-Assad to flee the country after more than 13 years of civil war.

(Read also: Insurgents commission Mohamed al Bashir to form a government in Syria).

The video shows dozens of emaciated men, some of whom are too weak to walk. and they are carried by their companions.

There is no furniture in the cell except for some thin blankets on the floor. The doors are rusty and the walls are stained with moisture and dirt.

Search for underground cells

In another wing of the complex, the female cells were opened. In front of one of the doors there is a lost child waiting.

Several women shouted “I’m afraid”, visibly terrified by what they had experienced.

“Al Assad has fallen,” the men told them. “You can go out now.”

For hours it was said that the prison had several levels underground, and that an unknown number of prisoners could be locked there, behind sealed doors.

But the White Helmets, a Syrian rescue group, claimed to have found no such hidden cells. Since Sunday, its members have been busy knocking down walls with sledgehammers and iron bars, and using audio sensors and sniffer dogs.

“The White Helmets announce the conclusion of search operations for possible remaining prisoners in alleged secret cells and basements,” the organization said in a statement.

“The search did not result in the discovery of any areas that were hidden or sealed within the facility,” the White Helmets added.

(Also read: Citizens of Syria looted Bashar al-Assad’s palace: see the luxurious cars he had).

AFP

“Human slaughterhouse”

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an NGO that collects information on the war, estimated in 2022 that more than 100,000 people have died, many of them under torture, in Al Assad prisons since the start of the civil war in 2011.

According to the entity, 30,000 were detained in Sednaya, of which only 6,000 were released.

Amnesty International called the prison a “human slaughterhouse,” citing the thousands of executions that occurred at the site.

The freed prisoners wander the streets of Damascus, about 30 kilometers away. From afar they can be recognized by the traces of suffering on their bodies: crippled by torture, weakened by illness and emaciated by hunger.

Some cannot speak, not even to say their name or where they are from.

Many have been in Sednaya since the government of Hafez al Assad, Bashar’s father, who died more than 20 years ago.

Few of them know where to go.

AFP

The family search

After Al Assad’s escape, hundreds of Syrians went to the prison in search of their loved ones.

Aida Taher, 65, said she was looking for her brother, who was arrested in 2012.

“I ran like crazy” to get to the prison, she said.

Outside the jail, families display black and white photographs of young men.

Some carry photos of protesters waving flags of the 2011 “revolution” in rebel provinces.

They ask if anyone has seen them, if they were in Sednaya or if the years of chaos since that uprising left them lifeless.

“We have been oppressed for too long,” declared Aida Taher.

“We want our children to come home,” he added.