Sednaya, Syria – For decades, Sednaya Prison has been mentioned only in hushed tones in Syria. Torture and death were known to be commonplace in this place, which everyone called the “Human Slaughterhouse.”
But all that ended on the night of December 7, when Syrian opposition fighters burst through the door and freed the prisoners.
In the blink of an eye, thousands of Syrians descended on the prison in the mountains north of Damascus, desperate for news of their loved ones they believed had disappeared behind prison walls.
“The liberation (of Syria) is an indescribable joy,” Jumaa Joub, from al-Kafir in Idlib province, said while standing in front of the prison.
“But the joy is not complete because there are (hundreds of thousands) of people missing and we have not heard any news about them.”
false hope
According to Amnesty International, as many as 20,000 prisoners may have been held in Sednaya’s two buildings.
Many of the prisoners were released a week ago, on Saturday evening and Sunday morning. But on Monday, thousands of people were still waiting for news.
The situation inside the prison was chaotic. Rumors were circulating that the prison had hidden underground sections that they could not access.
A former prisoner told Al Jazeera that military police told him that thousands of people were being held on the third basement floor. This week, people were using water conduits to find gaps in walls and floors.
At one point, a loud explosion rang out from the far wall of the prison, and screams spread throughout the crowd.
Someone could have broken in and found the entrance to the rumored cell. People started running toward the sound, shouting, “God is great!”
But after a few seconds, the screams died down and people turned away. This was a false hope. There was no entrance.
“We are waiting in hope that God will lead us to find an underground prison, because most of the previously released prisoners say that the prison has three underground floors.” Jab said. “We only saw one floor.”
Jubb said they were searching for 20 people in the village, including his cousin. All were captured between 2011 and 2013 during the early stages of the war, and are believed to have ended up in “slaughterhouses”.
However, just a few hours later, a statement was released by the Sednaya Prison Detainees and Missing Persons Association, announcing that the last freed prisoner had been released at 11 a.m. the day before.
The White Helmets, the Syrian Civil Defense Force, continued their search but ultimately ceased operations on Tuesday after failing to find any prisoners.
“The smell is indescribable.”
Syrian opposition fighters liberated Aleppo, Hama and Homs on their way to Damascus. They opened prison doors in cities and released tens of thousands of people.
But much more remains missing.
On the road to Sednaya, people drove as far as they could before being crushed, then parked and continued on foot.
Young and old, men and women, some with children in tow, made their way up the dirt slope to the infamous prison.
Under the now defeated regime, Sednaya was a military prison, and many people were held on suspicion of “terrorism”, which in reality meant they were arrested for any reason.
Many of the people Al Jazeera spoke to there said their relatives had done nothing wrong.
Some of them didn’t even know if their loved ones were here, and someone told them that their relatives “might” be here. Alternatively, other prisons have been searched, but no trace has yet been found.
Mohammad al-Baqour, 32, said his brother Abdullah was arrested in 2012 for peacefully protesting in Aleppo. I haven’t seen him since.
At 2 a.m. the previous day, around the time al-Assad fled Damascus for Moscow, al-Baqr went straight from his hometown near Aleppo to Sednaya to look for his brother.
“His children are now adults, but they won’t remember him or recognize him,” Albacour said.
He searched the prison for any trace of Abdullah.
“The smell there is indescribable. The suffering of the prisoners there is unimaginable,” he said. “Many times they wished for death, but could not find it. Death became one of the prisoners’ dreams.”
life in limbo
At Sednaya, many prisoners said they had been tortured and raped. The others were killed so the world doesn’t know what happened to them.
The body of prominent activist Mazen al-Hamada was found in the morgue of a military hospital, with signs of torture.
Another former prisoner, Yousef Abu Wadi, told Al Jazeera about how the guards treated the prisoners: And they wouldn’t let us talk. Food was scarce. They took us outside and beat us and beat us.
“Sometimes two people would hold us down and beat us. They would drag us around and take the drugs away.”
In 2016, many prisoners told Amnesty International that they were not allowed any contact with the outside world or sent goods to their families.
According to the Amnesty International report, in many cases prisoners’ families were incorrectly informed that the prisoners had died. Most inmates in the report had witnessed at least one death during their stay at Sednaya.
Many Syrians continue to live in limbo, without proof that their relatives and friends are alive or dead. Almost all said they would continue searching without official confirmation.
One of them is 50-year-old Ramis Salama. She was also in Sednaya on Monday searching for news of her son, now 33, who was detained seven years ago. And also about my brother who was arrested 12 years ago.
“My emotions are fear, fear. I want to see my son, I want to know if he is alive or dead,” Salama said. “This is the pain in my heart. If he’s dead, I can stop looking and try to accept it, but if he’s alive, I don’t know where he is. I will continue to search for him until the day I die just to find out.”
Additional reporting by Justin Salhani
