Syrian militants released the prisoners of the Sednaya prison. It is considered one of the symbols of the repressive machine of the overthrown regime of Bashar al-Assad.
This is reported by The Guardian.
Sednaya, 30 kilometers from Damascus, is popularly known as the "slaughterhouse for people". This is the most famous institution for brutal torture of opponents of the former government. In the center there is a latticed spiral staircase. Behind them are identical doors leading to three sections of the prison. According to the rebels, each wing specialized in a certain type of torture. The building has no windows. After the overthrow of the Assad regime, a video of the opposition freeing prisoners was circulated online.
Thousands of people rushed to Sednaya, who wanted to find their missing relatives. They wandered the corridors, looking for a hidden underground building — the so-called red wing. People were afraid that the prisoners there were starving and suffocating. So far, neither hidden cameras nor evidence that they exist have been found.
According to the human rights organization Amnesty International, up to 20,000 prisoners were held in Sednai. Survivors described daily beatings and torture by prison guards, as well as rape and electric shocks.
Enslaved people could not speak, so they communicated by notes. As The Guardian writes, people looking for relatives in prison took these notes and checked if they knew the names mentioned there. Human rights activists noted that the records should be organized in order to document the fate of about 136 000 people who suffered under the Assad regime.
What preceded
Active clashes between the rebels and Syrian troops began on November 27. The offensive was launched by the Syrian Revolutionary Forces in "response to months of continuous attacks on civilians" by the Assad regime in Aleppo province. It was the most intense fighting in northwest Syria since 2020, when government forces seized areas previously controlled by opposition fighters.
In early December, the media reported that the Assadʼs Forces had lost control of Aleppo for the first time since the start of the military conflict that began more than a decade ago. Later, it became known about the loss of the city of Hama, the fifth largest in the country, by the Assad regime. And already on December 8, the Assad regime fell after the opposition attacked the capital Damascus.
The countryʼs prime minister is preparing to hand over the functions of the transitional government to her. The Russian Foreign Ministry said that Bashar al-Assad left the post of president of Syria and left the country, adding that he gave the order to transfer power peacefully and before that held negotiations with the participants in the conflict.
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