Syrian rescuers end search for secret cells in Saydnaya prison

The Turkey-based Association of Detained and Missing Persons in Sednaya Prison (ADMSP) said in a 2022 report that the prison “effectively became a death camp” after the start of the conflict.

More than 30,000 detainees were estimated to have been executed or died as a result of torture, lack of medical care or starvation at the center between 2011 and 2018.

It also cited released inmates who said at least 500 other detainees had been executed between 2018 and 2021.

ADMSP also described how “salt chambers” were built to serve as primitive mortuaries to store bodies before they were transferred to the Tishreen Military Hospital in Damascus for registration and burial in tombs on military grounds. The families of those detained never received their bodies, he said.

Amnesty International used the phrase “human slaughterhouse” to describe Saydnaya and alleged that the executions had been authorized at the highest levels of Assad’s government and that such practices amounted to war crimes and crimes against humanity.

The Assad government dismissed Amnesty’s claims as “baseless” and “lacking in truth”, insisting that all executions in Syria followed due process.