2 weeks Ago By Mashable News Staff
Syria witnessed a powerful and emotional moment as the toppled a 24-year rule of President Bashar Al-Assad. A video circulating on social media captured the heart-wrenching sight of a toddler emerging from Sednaya prison, a facility notorious for its brutal treatment of detainees. The child is said to belong to a female inmate who gave birth in the prison.
Dubbed Assad’s "human slaughterhouse," the prison has long been a symbol of the regime’s cruelty, with countless stories of torture, starvation, and executions tied to its walls. Assad kept women imprisoned with the kids they gave birth to while captive. There’s a little boy coming out of one of the opened prison cells.
💔 pic.twitter.com/ZUDlbrZGSe — Marina Medvin 🇺🇸 (@MarinaMedvin) December 8, 2024 The footage showed rebels unlocking cells and releasing prisoners, including women and children, many of whom had been held in inhumane conditions for years.
Per Aljazeera, one inmate had been scheduled for execution that very day before the intervention freed him and others. ALSO SEE: Researcher Predicted Deadly Earthquake In Turkey, Syria Three Days Ago; Tweet Goes Viral The stream of footage from inside Sednaya and other prisons is beyond overwhelming. Freedom to inmates in jails for decades.
There are no words. pic.twitter.
com/7112EdiHko — Arwa Ibrahim (@arwaib) December 9, 2024 Sednaya prison, located near Damascus, has a grim history, with reports estimating that between 5,000 and 13,000 prisoners were hanged there since the onset of the Syrian civil war in 2011. Established in the early 1980s, Sednaya served as a tool for the Assad family to suppress dissent, capturing political opponents and alleged threats to their rule. Over 1,00,000 people were detained in Syrian prisons during the civil war, according to reports, with Sednaya being among the most infamous facilities.
Recent estimates suggest that over 30,000 prisoners were executed or died due to dire conditions between 2011 and 2018, BBC reported. Testimonies from a few released detainees indicate that at least 500 more were executed between 2018 and 2021. The visuals of Sednaya’s interior that surfaced on Sunday offered the first-ever glimpse into the horrors of the facility, as it had remained heavily guarded and inaccessible for decades.
ALSO SEE: From Syria To Somalia, Here Are The Top 10 Most Criminal Countries In The World; Know India’s Ranking.
