Mass Hangings, Torture That Destroyed Hope: Syria’s ‘Human Slaughterhouse

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Satellite image of Syria’s Saydnaya prison. Courtesy: Amnesty International

NDTV WORLD | Published December 8, 2024

‘The Amnesty report estimated that 5,000 and 13,000 people were extrajudicially executed at Saydnaya between September 2011 and December 2015

New Delhi: As a 13-year-old rebellion overthrew the Bashar al-Assad regime in Syria, the rebels released prisoners held up for years in government prisons near Damascus, Hama and Aleppo. Among these prisons, the most notorious is Saydnaya, often referred to as a “human slaughterhouse”.

According to a 2021 report by the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, over 1 lakh people have been executed or have died in prisons of the Syrian regime. Out of them, more than 30,000 were killed in Saydnaya alone. An Amnesty International investigation found that “murder, torture, enforced disappearances and extermination carried out at Saydnaya since 2011 have been perpetrated as part of an attack against the civilian population that has been widespread, as well as systematic, and carried out in furtherance of state policy”. The report said violations at Saydnaya “amount to crimes against humanity”.

Mass Hangings

The Amnesty report says Saydnaya military prison had two detention centres. A red building housed civilians arrested since the rebellion began in 2011, and a white building accommodated offices and soldiers held for their involvement in the protests.

The report says thousands of inmates in the red building have been killed in secret executions. Describing the chain of events in these executions, the report says, “Before they are hanged, the victims are condemned to death in ‘trials’ at the Military Field Court located in the al-Qaboun neighbourhood of Damascus, which last between one and three minutes. On the day the prison authorities carry out the hangings, which they refer to as ‘the party’, they collect the victims from their cells in the afternoon. The listed detainees are told that they will be transferred to a civilian prison. Instead, they are brought to a cell in the basement of the red building, where they are severely beaten over the course of two or three hours. In the middle of the night, they are blindfolded and transferred in delivery trucks or minibuses to the white building. There, they are taken into a room in the basement and hanged.