WARNING: This article contains graphic descriptions of what some prisoners experienced in Assad’s prisons.
In the shadow of Syria’s brutal civil war, one institution stands as a horrifying symbol of the regime’s systemic violence: Sednaya Prison. Referred to as the “Factory of Death” or “Human Slaughterhouse”, Sednaya became a site of unimaginable suffering.
According to reports, approximately 100,000 individuals have disappeared in Assad’s prisons, where thousands of people, including women and children, have been detained, tortured, and killed.
“Rights groups have documented that at least 10% of those detained lost their lives in these prisons, although some reports suggest the figure may be as high as 20%,” Center for Peace Communications. said Joseph Brood, founder of , an NGO. To resolve identity-based conflicts in the Middle East and North Africa, whose group gained rare access to Sednaya. “This number continues to grow as families speak out about the whereabouts of their missing loved ones, many of whom are still unaccounted for.”
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A blood-stained noose in a recently liberated prison in Syria. (Reuters)
Sednaya was not just a prison, it was a tool to crush any form of resistance or humanity. “The prison was located on a hill outside of Damascus,” former political prisoner and Syrian affairs analyst Ahad al-Hendi told Fox News Digital. “We’d see it when going to a nearby tourist area, but even if you were just driving, you were afraid to talk about it. If you said, ‘Sednaya,’ you’d end up right there.”
Al Hendi continued: “I’ve heard descriptions of the scenes from my friends who went to Sednaya this week. They found bags of bones, there was still fresh blood on the floor, the smell of death, and torture machines, most of which They saw terrible things. A friend told me that she saw a mother hugging the torture machine, believing that her son had died there, it was a tragic image, she held on to the machine. killed his son She thought she could still smell the machine. The equipment was unimaginable, like a giant metal press designed to liquefy bodies and render them unrecognizable.”
As the atrocities of the Assad regime in Sednaya become clearer, and after days of searching for survivors and realizing that some will never be found, attention has shifted to the mass graves. Brood’s team on the ground in Syria is currently collecting evidence. “We’re documenting, we’re interviewing people who were there, trying to use equipment to detect any possibility of secret underground prisons.” He said the team had recently worked at a mass grave site “where we estimate 100,000 people were buried.”
“Some of the people in these mass graves came from Sednaya and died under torture,” Al Hendi said. “Many people showed gunshot wounds, and their bodies were taken to a large area where the regime had placed old military equipment to create the illusion of a restricted military zone. Locals reported that security forces blocked roads. Blockades and security forces have seen refrigerated trucks enter the area. People have become accustomed to the smell of death for hours before the trucks stop there.”
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A photo taken at the entrance to the Queris military airfield in the eastern part of Aleppo province on December 3, 2024 shows a portrait of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and a national flag in a pile of garbage after the takeover of the area. by rebel groups. On 1 December a war monitor said Ankara-backed groups had taken control of the towns of Safrieh and Khanser, southeast of Aleppo, from government forces, and also took the Qureshis military airport. (Photo by Rami El Sayed/AFP via Getty Images)
Sednaya Prison became a symbol of the regime’s relentless repression. “It wasn’t just political rivals,” said Al Hendi, who was arrested for founding a secular anti-regime student organization. “Children and women were also held hostage to put pressure on their fathers or husbands. We found that there were children born there as a result of rape by prison guards. The regime had destroyed entire families.”
Conditions at Sednaya were inhumane. Prisoners were often starved, beaten, and tortured with electricity. “When they hang someone, they don’t feed them anything for three days before the execution. The guards say, ‘Why feed him? We’ll take food for ourselves.’ Imagine someone about to die and being starved first, denied even the dignity of a last meal,” Al Hendi said.
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Investigators, civilians and rebels search Sednaya Prison, in hopes of uncovering hidden compartments where detainees may still be held. Outside, hundreds of families anxiously await news of their missing or missing loved ones, hoping to be reunited. Sednaya was the notorious “human slaughterhouse” outside Damascus, where thousands of regime opponents were detained, tortured and killed from the early days of the 2011 uprising through the long brutal years of the civil war. Filming took place as rebels entered Sednaya, a town incongruously populated with a monastery and country villas of Syrian and Arab elites in the peaceful hills north of Damascus. Syria, December 10, 2024. Photo by Sandro Basilibaca/SIPA USA (SIPA via AP Images) (Sandro Basilibaca/Sipa via AP Images)
The atrocities committed in Sednaya were part of a broader campaign by the Assad regime to eliminate its opposition in the most horrific ways. Both Brood and Al Hendy stress the need for accountability. “What we need now is truth and reconciliation,” Brood says. “Only by acknowledging the suffering and recognizing the full scope of the atrocities can Syria heal. If we do not do so, we risk continuing the cycle of reprisals.”
Following the fall of the Assad regime earlier this month, Sednaya was freed and thousands of other prisoners were released. “The prisoners released from Sednaya were in shock, many of them could not even remember their names,” Al Hendi said. “They were detained for so long that they didn’t even know that Assad’s father had died. They thought Assad was still in power.”
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Robert Petit, head of the International, Impartial and Independent Mechanism for Syria (IIIM), visited Damascus and observed extensive documentation of the regime’s atrocities, noting in a press release the “chilling efficiency” with which these crimes were organized. Had gone. He stressed the urgent need to preserve this evidence, warning, “Time is running out. There is a small window of opportunity to secure these sites and the material they contain. Each day we make an effort to do so.” If we fail, we risk losing the opportunity for the broader.” Accountability.”
The investigations into Sednaya and the mass graves paint a horrifying picture of the regime’s violence, Brood said, but they also serve as a call for justice. “The consequences of the Assad regime’s atrocities are profound. The key question now is how the population can move forward and rebuild rather than descend into further civil conflict. There are fears of cycles of reprisals, but true reconciliation can only be achieved through truth.” And acceptance can come only through medium.”
“99% of Syria’s prison guards are from the Alawite community,” he said. “We are talking about half the young population of the Alawite sect, because most of them work in the army or the secret police. The solution proposed: Russia would surrender Assad and 100 top officials responsible for atrocities, in exchange for the rebels offering amnesty to lower-level criminals who were following orders, if Russia facilitated it. “Can help prevent further violence and bring stability to Syria.”
