Human rights teams have reported on the location north of Damascus for years, warning of what has been occurring.
However till insurgent forces stormed the Syrian capital earlier this month, resulting in the prisoners strolling free, it was unimaginable for journalists to freely go inside.
Now, hundreds of Syrians have flocked to the location this week in quest of family members who went lacking, and Hakim has reported on what she’s seen within the halls and cells of the jail.
Picture:
Syrians strolling via the halls of the jail
‘Luggage of faeces and urine’
“There are almost two dozen prisons scattered across this country, but this is the one that really is linked to just the brutality and torture of this regime,” Hakim mentioned, talking exterior the power close to the capital Damascus.
“I was walking earlier from cell to cell, and I could just see the horrifying conditions that people were kept in.
“They’d plastic baggage filled with faeces and urine as a result of folks weren’t capable of go to the lavatory – in the event that they had been allowed to go to a handful of bathrooms right here, they had been solely given a couple of seconds, in order that they had been relieving themselves and dumping the plastic baggage within the nook of the cells.”
Strolling previous nooses, she added that prisoners had been detained, tortured and generally even executed inside.
Picture:
One of many individuals who went to the jail in quest of relations holds a noose.
Pic: Reuters
Picture:
Hundreds of Syrians have flooded to the jail to seek for relations
“Apparently, every day, 50 people were brought out and told that they were going to be taken to some kind of civilian prison when they were brought out here to be hung,” she added.
‘Crushing machine’
Heading into one space they had been instructed was a torture chamber, Hakim mentioned it appeared to have been sound-proofed and had a fan put in – presumably to distribute chilly air, fuel, or warmth into the room.
Afterwards, she reported from subsequent to an alleged “crushing machine” which prisoners had been mentioned to have been compelled into and crushed to loss of life.
Picture:
Contained in the Sednaya jail
Strolling across the exterior of the jail, she mentioned: “There were rumours that Assad’s guards had created a labyrinth of tunnels where they had buried some of the prisoners deep beneath the ground.
“As you stroll across the exterior of the prisons you see holes in every single place the place folks have tried to dig the bottom as much as see if they might discover anybody.”
Spreaker
This content material is offered by Spreaker, which can be utilizing cookies and different applied sciences.
To point out you this content material, we’d like your permission to make use of cookies.
You should utilize the buttons beneath to amend your preferences to allow Spreaker cookies or to permit these cookies simply as soon as.
You’ll be able to change your settings at any time through the Privateness Choices.
Sadly we’ve got been unable to confirm when you’ve got consented to Spreaker cookies.
To view this content material you need to use the button beneath to permit Spreaker cookies for this session solely.
Allow Cookies
Enable Cookies As soon as
👉Hearken to The World with Richard Engel and Yalda Hakim in your podcast app👈
‘Forgotten who they had been’
Some inmates put into solitary confinement had been mentioned to have forgotten who they had been.
“When the rebels came and took over this prison, they said that people couldn’t even remember who they were,” Hakim added.
Picture:
The Sednaya jail.
Pic: Reuters
“They couldn’t remember their names when they went into these prisons, the prison guards told them that they were a number, not a name.
“So many individuals had even forgotten who they had been as a result of they’d been saved in there for therefore lengthy.”
She continued: “They were tortured. They were brutalised. They were sexually assaulted and abused. They were electrocuted.”
Whereas human rights teams have mentioned they wish to protect the jail’s paperwork to take care of proof of what went on inside, Hakim mentioned that the households who rushed right here have gone via and brought all of them “because they want to find out if their loved ones were actually at this very notorious prison”.
