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Bashar al-Assad was ousted from Syria on Sunday as the rebels stormed Damascus. They also freed the prisoners from Sednaya prison, known as Assad’s “human slaughterhouse”.
Sednaya prison in Syria (Photo: X)
Syria Crisis: Syria, which was freed from the barbaric rule of President Bashar Al-Assad on Sunday, was witness to a moving moment after a video surfaced showing a toddler walking out of Sednaya prison, dubbed Assad’s “human slaughterhouse”, according to media reports.
The kid was seen emerging from a prison cell which was unlocked by the rebels who charged through the corridors, letting the prisoners, including women and children, free. A man said that he was scheduled to be executed that day, Al Jazeera reported.
Assad kept women imprisoned with the kids they gave birth to while captive. There’s a little boy coming out of one of the opened prison cells. 💔pic.twitter.com/ZUDlbrZGSe— Marina Medvin 🇺🇸 (@MarinaMedvin) December 8, 2024
The Sednaya prison, located near Damascus, was infamous for torture by the Assad regime. The prison has reportedly hanged between 5,000 and 13,000 prisoners since the beginning of the civil war in 2011.
Over 100,000 people have been locked into Syrian prisons during the period of the civil war, The Guardian reported.
Sednaya Prison — Assad’s Human Slaughterhouse?
The prison was established in the early 1980s in the north of the capital city. This is where the Assad family captured all its opponents for decades, BBC reported.
The rights groups termed this prison a “human slaughterhouse” where thousands were reportedly tortured and executed since 2011.
The prison has always been heavily guarded and the inside visuals that came out in the videos on Sunday were the first and have never been seen before, BBC reported.
Sednaya: The Political Prison
The Sednaya prison has been used by the Syrian military police and military intelligence for decades. According to BBC, the first prisoners were thrown into the cell in 1987 — 16 years into the rule of Bashar’s father and then President Hafeez al-Assad.
According to the BBC report, rights groups estimate that over 30,000 detainees were either executed or perished due to torture, inadequate medical care, or starvation between 2011 and 2018. Based on testimonies from a small number of released prisoners, at least an additional 500 detainees were executed between 2018 and 2021.
- Location :
Damascus, Syria