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In the regime's worst prison, liberated on Sunday and where tens of thousands of Syrians were tortured and executed, the scars of years of atrocities are raw, as hundreds of families seek to know what happened to their close ones.
“His name is Sleiman Khamis, he was imprisoned eleven years ago, I came with his son to try to find him.” Philippe stands next to his nephew, his gaze lost. He had just been released the day before from another prison, that of Adra. In front of them, a line of hundreds of cars entering the rocky road to Sednaya prison, 30 kilometers from the Syrian capital. Everyone has in mind the horrors lurking behind this name and already fears entering into it. Sednaya is the regime's largest prison, one of those where the worst tortures are practiced. An establishment that Amnesty International had described as“human slaughterhouse”. Opened on Sunday, after the fall of the Bashar al-Assad regime, tens of thousands of prisoners were released, but this Monday, it is relatives who return, in the hope of finding a detainee forgotten in this immense building or to get confirmation that the worst has happened.
-Philippe and his nephew are Christians from Jdeidat Artouz, in the south of the country. “Sleiman was arrested overnight and charged with terrorism. He hadn't done anything. Deep in my heart I know he wasn't killed. If he had been, the people in the prison would have demanded a ransom from me first. They often do this to take money from families before killing detainees anyway.” Thousands of opponents of
