Syria’s Damascus The dream of a nation liberated from its long-standing tyrant was clouded Tuesday in the outskirts of the capital of Syria by the growing atrocities of the Assad regime.
In an attempt to find any sign of loved ones who they believed had vanished into their invisible depths, thousands of people were racing to the maze-like prisons.
The rugged, desolate hills west of Damascus are home to the most infamous gulag.The human slaughterhouse is the name given to the labyrinth of small, concrete cells that is Saydnaya Military Prison. Evidence of savage conditions and the desperation of Syrians looking for their loved ones were discovered by NBC News during their visit there on Tuesday.
Throughout the 50 years of the Assad family’s power, armed guards patrolled a network of institutions, including Saydnaya, to make sure anyone entering could not leave. According to rights organizations, whistleblowers, and international authorities, the dictatorship utilized the jails to imprison, torture, and murder tens of thousands of Syrians, some for voicing disapproval of the government or other false accusations.
Now that Bashar al-Assad and his henchmen have left, hundreds, if not thousands, of cars clog the tree-lined Saydnaya gate. Due in part to reports that a covert wing is holding malnourished prisoners, people have traveled from all around Syria to check if their loved ones are still there.
They arrived with their bare hands, pickaxes, and pry bars. At one time, a bulldozer arrived with the intention of destroying the jail’s structure in order to uncover a secret hoard of kidnappees.
Outside the structure itself, a massive, brutalist cube stood in a run-down, off-white gathering of largely men. Some of them yelled to find out whether anyone had seen their sons, brothers, or uncles who were thought to be in the regime’s custody. A self-appointed organizer among these men yelled out names from a dirty document that was reportedly found in one of the administrative rooms.
The fact that these papers were all over the floor worries international law specialists who have emphasized how crucial it is to have these records on file in case they are used as proof of these crimes.
These locations were highly publicized by the news media, documented by rights organizations, and well-known among Syrians. However, Tuesday presented a scene of fervent emotions, with people sobbing and yelling as they witnessed for the first time what was happening behind the scenes of their overthrown police state.
Inside, there were concrete cells with white bars that could hold no more than four individuals, but it looked like dozens of people were packed in due to the debris. Civilians searching for clues in the deteriorating maze used their smartphone flashlights to illuminate piles of clothing and bedrolls.
According to one mom, her son had been absent for ten years. She claimed he was a nurse, but he was accused of being a militant.
A huge iron apparatus with two flat surfaces big enough to accommodate a prisoner and a mechanism to securely close them was located in one chamber. People here referred to it as the “execution press,” which was used to torture or crush prisoners to death.
There was a big metal rod that ran from one wall to the next in another room. Apparently, inmates would be beaten and chained to this position with their feet off the ground. A man outside was carrying at least four nooses, one of which was blood-stained, which he claimed were used to execute individuals.
Syrian rebels claimed to have released scores of captives from Saydnaya after they took over Damascus on Sunday. Video seems to show ladies reluctantly leaving their cells because they were so shocked that the tyrant who had imprisoned them had been overthrown.
The White Helmets search and rescue group, which sent its crews to seek for such a subterranean complex, and crowds of more families were drawn to the prison by rumors that it had a secret underground red wing.
The White Helmets shared the deep disappointment of the families of the hundreds who are still missing and whose fates are unknown when they announced at 1:30 a.m. local time (5:30 p.m. ET Monday) that there was no evidence of any concealed chamber or rooms.
When NBC News visited on Tuesday, however, individuals were still using hand tools to break through portions of walls and floors, probably still searching for entrances or hatches.
Although Saydnaya is the most notorious, it is by no means the only location where Assad and his father, Hafez Assad, visited the most horrific atrocities committed against their own people. Amnesty International, a human rights organization, claims that the regime constructed and ran a network of prison facilities dispersed throughout Syria.
According to the Human Rights Data Analysis Group, a San Francisco-based independent scientific human rights group, at least 17,723 persons were died in Syrian custody between 2011 and 2015—roughly 300 every week—which is most likely a significant undercount.
Based on the testimonies of survivors and other sources, Amnesty International stated in a historic 2017 report that prisoners in Saydnaya are routinely subjected to torture, typically in the form of brutal beatings and sexual assault. The widespread spread of infection and sickness is a result of their denial of proper food, water, medicine, medical attention, and cleanliness.
It claimed that complete quiet is imposed even during these torture sessions, which leads to the development of severe mental diseases including psychosis in many captives. It all seems to be intended to cause the greatest amount of physical and mental pain. It stated that their apparent objective is to demean, degrade, and humiliate people in order to eradicate any sense of dignity or hope.
An estimated 17,000 Syrians vanished between the 1980s and 2000 as a result of Hafez Assad’s strategy of systematic and covert state repression, according to Amnesty International. However, it also noted that since 2011, the scope and intensity of the government’s abuses against detainees have significantly grown.
Syrians started peacefully opposing the authorities in that year as part of the The armed rebellion that turned into the civil war began when the younger Assad brutally put down the protesters.
The United Nations reports that over 350,000 people have died in the conflict, but this number is undoubtedly underestimated. Syrians now believe that their nation can move on from the atrocities committed at Saydnaya and other tragedies.
From Damascus, Richard Engel and Gabe Joselow provided updates. From London, Alexander Smith provided a report.
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