The fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime has triggered revelations about the chilling horrors experienced in Sednaya prison, known as the “human slaughterhouse.” Located just 15 kilometers north of Damascus, this prison has for decades been the epicenter of a machinery of torture and death directed against opponents of the regime. Now, images and testimonies come to light that reveal the brutality that its walls contained.
hell on earth
Sednaya was not simply a prison; It was a space designed to dehumanize, torture and exterminate detainees. According to Raed al-Saleh, director of the humanitarian organization Syrian Civil Defense, known as the White Helmets, the prison functioned as a “death factory.” The executions were massive and frequent, hanging between 50 and 100 people daily, often after mock trials that lasted no more than a few minutes.
In addition to the executions, reports indicate that bodies were cremated in ovens within the complex, a method used to erase traces of crimes committed. Between 2011 and 2015, it is estimated that more than 13,000 people were executed in Sednaya, many of them journalists, human rights activists and other political opponents.
Discoveries after the fall of the regime
The overthrow of Al-Assad’s government has culminated in the release of thousands of prisoners in Sednaya. The White Helmets have managed to free between 20,000 and 25,000 detainees, but the exact numbers of victims and missing persons remain uncertain. According to survivors’ testimonies, within the complex there are three underground levels with secret cells. Surveillance cameras have confirmed the presence of live prisoners in these hidden spaces. After entering, they found torture rooms with a human press, which they call the “bone crusher”, a chair for electric shocks or a crematorium.
Among those released are women and children, many of whom are the product of systematic rapes that occurred within the prison and were already born in captivity. Victims describe inhumane conditions that have left them physically and psychologically devastated. Many have lost track of their identity, their age and even the country they are in.
Since its construction in 1987, Sednaya has established itself as a center of political repression in Syria. Organizations such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have documented the atrocities committed there in previous reports, calling them crimes against humanity. Unimaginable physical and psychological torture was the daily bread of the detainees, whose fate was often unknown, even to their families.
An uncertain future
Despite the hope generated by the fall of the Al-Assad regime, Syria’s future remains uncertain. The new authorities are led by Islamist factions such as Jabhat Fateh al-Sham, whose leader, Al Julani, has already established measures such as morality police in the areas under his control. The political transition faces an unknown future, with sectors advocating the implementation of sharia and others demanding democratic elections.
