From her cell in the infamous Saydnaya Prison, a detainee trembles with fear, whispering her terror. A man responds, “Why are you scared? Bashar has fallen.” Behind him, a woman repeats with growing conviction, “He’s fallen, fallen, fallen.” These three words were enough to calm the fear gripping Syrians at that historic moment.
All Eyes on Saydnaya Prison
The fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime marked the liberation of thousands of detainees from Syria’s most notorious prison. The stories emerging from Saydnaya stir a mix of emotions—relief, grief, and lingering horror. Among them is the tale of a three-year-old child born within the prison walls, knowing nothing of the outside world—no trees, no fresh air, no games, just the suffocating confines of Assad’s prisons. For such a child, freedom may have seemed like an unattainable dream.
As families and opposition fighters stormed the prison atop its ominous hill, videos began to surface, showing door after door opening as though the prison itself had no end. This unending sequence mirrored the feelings of Syrians—until yesterday, the idea of Assad’s fall was both near and impossibly far, like endlessly opening doors that never led to freedom. The only question on the lips of grieving families was: “When will we open the door to our loved ones’ cells?”
The videos spread quickly, capturing Syrians’ hearts as they watched with bated breath. Every young man released seemed like a son; every woman, a daughter.
The scenes of women and children being freed were especially moving. Terrified women stood in stunned disbelief as their cells were opened, fear etched on their faces at the sight of men entering suddenly, only to be reassured with a single phrase: “We are revolutionaries.”
One woman kept asking about her ID, as though it symbolized her stolen identity. Another worried about her belongings left in safekeeping. Amid cries mixed with tears, a recurring phrase echoed: “The doors won’t open!” It was as if Syrians needed this moment to release years of pent-up emotions. Tears flowed freely in this historic moment they once believed would never come.
A woman asked anxiously, “I am from Homs, can I go home?” The response came swiftly: “Yes, everyone can return to their homes and families.” It was over. The Assad era had ended.
Saydnaya’s Bloody Secrets
The stories emerging from Saydnaya are chilling. Many detainees had not seen their own faces in years. One prisoner, upon seeing himself in a phone camera after his release, was shocked by the gray hair that had overtaken his beard, exclaiming in disbelief, “I’ve aged!”
In Assad’s prisons, even mirrors were a luxury denied. Stripped of their reflection, detainees were stripped of their humanity. A regime like this, many say, deserved to be overthrown—not once, but countless times.
More stories wait to be told. Fighters who entered Saydnaya reported underground floors with doors that were difficult to locate or access, suggesting there may still be hidden chambers of horror. Assad’s regime didn’t just imprison people; it buried them behind layers of secrecy, locking them away behind countless walls and levels.
Saydnaya Prison, known as the “Black Hole” or the “Human Slaughterhouse,” is the most infamous of Syria’s detention centers. Thousands disappeared behind its thick walls, and families waited years for even a whisper of news about their loved ones. Those who traveled near Saydnaya’s towering structure could almost feel the death and torture emanating from its confines.
The sheer scale of Damascus’s detention network is terrifying. Syrians would often say, “We walked over prisons.” Beneath Damascus’s streets, people suffocated and screamed, hidden in chambers beneath their own homes and neighborhoods.
The Identity of a Dictator: Death and Execution
Freed detainees recounted the systematic brutality they endured, even in the smallest details. Food was a tool of humiliation—a single olive or a meager spoonful of bulgur served to keep prisoners alive, not nourished.
Torture took many forms, including the sounds of suffering. Prisoners were forced to listen to the agonized screams of those being tortured and the chilling sounds of gallows during daily executions.
One detainee recalled hearing the trapdoors of the gallows drop with sickening clarity. Those same gallows were later found discarded on the ground, their ropes still bearing the weight of the thousands they had killed.
For prisoners, the fear of execution was a constant shadow. They never knew when it would come—sometimes on the same day, sometimes with only a day’s notice. Civil executions were also carried out after transferring prisoners from civilian detention centers to Saydnaya.
One of the most harrowing revelations was the discovery of an execution press in one of the rooms—a chilling chapter of Assad’s crimes. According to available information, prisoners were placed in the execution press after being executed, and their bodies were crushed. Beneath the press, channels carried away the blood, and what remained of the bodies was collected in bags and transported to unknown locations.
Imagine being told that your execution was today—only for the doors to suddenly open and someone to say, “You’re free.” Imagine your death sentence turning into your liberation and the liberation of Syria itself. Words feel inadequate to describe the mix of horror and hope in Saydnaya Prison.
It is worth noting that executions were conducted regularly, occurring twice a week. For instance, at the end of 2012, 104 people were executed in a single session. The brutality and violence of these executions were so extreme that a colonel named Samer Joudat Ismail reportedly fainted during one of them, according to a previous report by the Association of Detainees and the Missing in Saydnaya Prison.
Documents discovered after Assad’s fleeing showed records of 25,000 detainees. However, the number of those liberated did not match, fueling suspicions of additional underground levels or evidence of mass executions. Before retreating, regime forces destroyed cameras, hard drives, and the main generator, further deepening the mystery.
All of this pales in comparison to the emaciated bodies we saw emerging from the prison, only to be rushed to hospitals. It was a catastrophe that unfolded over more than fifty years under the rule of one of the most brutal regimes in the world.
Saydnaya: A Monument to Atrocity
Saydnaya Prison sits atop a small hill at the edge of a mountain plain, 30 kilometers north of Damascus. It consists of two main buildings: the older “Red Building” and the newer “White Building,” overseen by Military Intelligence.
Built during the rise of Assad’s dictatorship and the massacres in Hama, construction began in 1981, with the first detainees entering in 1987. Its sprawling 1.4 square kilometers are equivalent to eight Syrian national football fields combined.
The information we have about the prison is horrifying in itself. For instance, solitary confinement cells measuring just 2×3 meters were crammed with up to 30 detainees. Between 30,000 and 35,000 prisoners perished in Saydnaya Prison over a decade due to systematic executions, lack of medical care, or deliberate starvation.
Saydnaya Prison is fortified with two walls, inner and outer, and the space between them is patrolled by members of the 21st Division of the army. The regime also planted minefields around the prison—an inner field targeting individuals and an outer anti-shield one.
Before the revolution, prisoners were classified based on their charges. However, after the uprising and the ensuing sectarian tensions between Alawite and Sunni inmates, the prison adopted an unprecedented sectarian division of detainees, reflecting the regime’s divisive policies even behind bars.
Two years ago, the Association of Detainees and Missing Persons of Saydnaya Prison revealed the existence of “salt rooms.” These primitive storage spaces were used by the Assad regime to preserve corpses and prevent decomposition, especially as the death toll in prisons soared after the conflict erupted in 2011, coupled with the lack of proper morgues.
Today, Sednaya’s gates stand open, allowing fresh air to enter for the first time, while the echoes of past agony still linger in its harsh walls. Faces of former detainees emerge, many of them dazed—some have even forgotten their own names. Others were on the verge of execution on the very day they were liberated.
Perhaps one day, Sednaya will become a museum visited by Syrians to remember a dark chapter of oppression, a chapter that ended in their freedom. It might also serve as a memorial to their loved ones who perished, whose fate remains unknown.
