In an act of determination and hope, thousands of Syrians have converged on Saydnaya military prison, north of Damascus, in a desperate search for their missing loved ones. Under the watchful eyes of civil defense workers and White Helmets teams, painstaking excavations have been undertaken inside this grim institution, searching for hidden cells or underground chambers.
For these people, their presence in this terrible facility, dubbed the “human mass grave,” is a reflection of years of terror and fear that have scarred the Syrian people. “We have detainees who have been taken away since 2011, 2012 and 2013,” said Ghazwan Hussein, a fervent searcher for his missing relatives and friends.
As insurgents advanced across Syria to end the Assad family’s 50-year rule, prisons and security facilities were stormed to free political prisoners and many of the tens of thousands of people who have disappeared since the conflict began in 2011.
Intense emotions shook the walls of Saydnaya as female prisoners, some with their children, cried out in joy as the locks on their cells were broken. The cruelty of prison conditions in Syria is notorious. Torture is systematic, human rights groups, whistleblowers and former detainees say. Secret executions have been reported at more than two dozen centers run by Syrian intelligence services, as well as at other sites.
Reports from Amnesty International and other organizations reveal that dozens of people were being secretly executed every week in Saydnaya, with estimates of up to 13,000 Syrians killed between 2011 and 2016. In 2013, a Syrian military defector known as “Caesar” managed to smuggle out more than 53,000 photographs that human rights groups said provided graphic evidence of rampant abuse, disease and starvation in Syria’s prisons.
The families’ quest in Saydnaya is both a heartbreaking testimony to the horrors thousands of people have experienced and a desperate cry for truth and justice for their missing loved ones. The indelible scars of those years of terror continue to haunt Syria, calling for the light of truth and action to end the violence and atrocities committed against innocent people.