This is Part 2 of a four-part series by Shahira Salloum, managing editor of Al-Araby Al-Jadeed, reflecting on her January trip to Syria following the Assad regime’s collapse, where she spoke with locals about the dramatic changes underway in the country.
Click here for Part 1 and stay tuned for Part 3 which will come out next week.
Warning: This article contains details of sexual violence against women and children that readers may find upsetting
At the gates of Assad’s prisons, humanity perished. Words fail to capture the depths of the cruelty, subjugation and torture that occurred within these walls — hints of the pitiless oppression still visible, where desperate pleas mourning the agony and the degradation are carved into the stone, as are the cries out to God for mercy.
If terror and injustice had a smell, colour, sound, shape, and features, they would surely be found here.
In the hundreds of tattered blankets strewn across the cell floors, you get an indication of the large number of prisoners who would have been crammed into these narrow spaces of just a few metres.
In the solitary confinement cells, which measure no more than one metre in width, under two metres in length, and 1.8 metres in height (we measured them with our bodies), a hole in the ground serves as a toilet.
Entombed in these oppressive vaults of concrete and darkness, a prisoner might endure months, even years, swallowed by isolation.
How did they survive?
The brutal horrors of Assad’s prisons and the gruesome torture methods employed within them have been fully exposed to the world, a fact that can be credited to the new leadership which is eager to uncover the extent of the fallen regime’s criminality before the media.
As one of my colleagues says, as we observe the scenes in front of us: “We knew, but now we see — and witnessing the crime with our own eyes is terrifying.”
While the jail cells are now vacant, the echoes of the torment suffered by numberless souls remain, haunting the place.
After the prisons were opened and their horrific conditions and torture practices were exposed, comparisons arose with the GDR’s “Stasi” prisons, which have since been converted into museums.
However, the lingering sense of macabre brutality in Assad’s prisons won’t be found by visitors to Berlin’s cells today.
The scenes are nearly identical — from Saydnaya to Palestine Branch, Mezzeh and Branch 215, in Tadmur and all the security and intelligence branches.
Though the images of the prison cells and torture equipment have dominated media reports — as have the methods of medieval barbarity practised against inmates, like the dissolving of corpses, and the thousands of summary executions — some of the most depraved criminal acts were committed against female prisoners, acts rarely perpetrated by even the vilest authoritarian regimes.
However, these crimes have not received nearly the necessary attention, either in Syria or internationally — neither in the legal nor media spheres.
The female prisoners raped by their prison guards are victims, not just once but many times over — they are the victims of not only their captors but also of a society that has stigmatised them.
More tragically still, some are forced to hide from family members who seek to “cleanse” what they regard as dishonour.
In Branch 215, inside the security compound of Kafr Sousa in Damascus, there is a female cell block, which contains evidence of the sickening abuse and stories of female prisoners who were released.
One of them was imprisoned as a teenager and has now left the prison with four children. Another female prisoner’s 10-year-old daughter who was jailed with her was raped by prison guards as a way to extract confessions from her about her husband.
Sanaa Seif directs an association called the Female Survivor Union, which is fighting for the rights of freed female prisoners.
She says to The New Arab’s Arabic sister edition that she has been trying for a while to make contact with a female prisoner who was raped in prison and gave birth to two children there. However, her family fears disclosing her location or allowing anyone to speak with her because her father is searching for her to kill her. “Who is offering any protection to these victims?” Sanaa questions.Â
Sanaa tells us of another case about a female prisoner who was arrested to blackmail her husband — a military commander in an opposition faction. She was arrested along with the commander’s mother and sister, and all three were raped.
After the wife was released, her husband divorced her due to the rape but returned to her later.
Traces pointing to these heinous crimes can be observed in the cells. We spot contraceptive pills strewn across the floor, among medication for scabies.
These atrocities leave no room for compromise or tolerance; they make one truth unmistakably clear: justice and accountability are not optional — they are indispensable for Syria’s future.
On the first floor of the same building is a spacious room where the remnants of security documents and files are scattered, alongside bits of office equipment.
On one of the desks, we spot Islamic State (IS) flags. What are these flags doing in the offices of the deposed regime?
Families continue their searchÂ
Families searching for their disappeared relatives in the regime’s newly-opened prisons have become a familiar scene.
In front of Prison Branch 215, a woman enters with an opposition member. With her is a boy who appears to be her son. They are searching for any trace of a loved one – the last they heard led them to these basements.
In front of every former prison complex you encounter people searching for their loved ones – it’s a major topic of conversation in every household, each one containing a raw wound, each family having suffered crimes for which they wait for justice.
Houses of mourning spring up when families confirm the death of a son or daughter in prison, while others still cling to the hope of finding their loved ones alive.
One female staff member at a Damascus university says her family learned of the deaths of two of her sons from the prisoner lists from Saydnaya, but the family is still searching for her other two sons, who weren’t named on the lists nor among the liberated prisoners.
A colleague interrupts her to talk about her nephew who disappeared — not in Assad’s prisons, but at the hands of Jabhat al-Nusra. He was arrested years ago in Daraa, where he was a policeman for the regime. They were told he was taken to Idlib, but they have heard nothing since.Â
In Prison 235 (Palestine Branch), the cells resemble those in the Kafr Sousa security compound. There is a high number of solitary confinement cells.
One cell we see is particularly chilling; it contains a raised platform around half a metre high, alongside what appear to be various tools of torture. Again, we see remnants of hastily shredded papers and files, destroyed by regime soldiers before they fled.
Escape tunnel from Mezzeh airport
As we approach Mezzeh airport (and its prison), we encounter a man looking for any trace of his brother, who disappeared years ago at a security checkpoint.
This area witnessed numerous pivotal events during the Assad dynasty’s long reign. The airport was the site from which regime aircraft were dispatched to bomb rebellious areas around the capital.
The Assads also used it as a private airport. Hafez al-Assad had become well acquainted with Mezzeh airport early on in his days in the Syrian airforce, whilst serving as an officer. Â He was also acquainted with its prison, having been confined there after taking part in an attempted coup by the Nasserists and Baathists in the sixties.
On the runway, you can see the traces of Israeli airstrikes, as well as Syrian army tanks, and the wreckage of a military helicopter.
Next to it is a hangar, with more helicopters. Moving a short distance forward, on the ground in front of an office building, we see a burned pile of Captagon pills — its size suggesting they were for “internal consumption” rather than being destined for shipment and export.
Mezzeh Prison is located underground, with similar conditions to the other prisons. On another floor are rooms that look like soldiers’ quarters, also in deplorable condition.
In a nearby building, however, we enter a luxurious office, although some of its furnishings are damaged; it appears to be the office of an airport official. Adjoining it is a furnished bedroom. The office is empty of official documents, except the business card of a Damascus-based psychiatrist.
According to French newspaper Le Figaro, on 7 December 2024, Assad fled with his son, Hafez, via a secret tunnel from the Presidential Palace to Mezzeh Airport, from which he was flown by helicopter to the Hmeimim Airbase before travelling to Russia.
Although during our extensive tour of the airport, we found no indication of a tunnel, given the vast area covered by the complex and the multiple buildings, all possibilities remain open.
This is especially the case because – as it seemed to us anyway – in the third week after the regime’s collapse, the airport still hadn’t been fully searched, or its contents thoroughly inspected.
The airbase was nearly deserted, except for a few guards at the gates who declined to accompany us as we walked around the premises, due to their small number.
‘Drug state’Â
Before you reach the capital, on the Beirut-Damascus highway — specifically, on a mountain peak in the Yaafour countryside— there is a walled palace. Residents weren’t allowed to approach and shepherds were forbidden from grazing their flocks on the mountain, presumably to prevent them gaining a clear view of the area.
Trucks used to drive to the palace every few weeks, according to a man we spoke to in front of a furniture store at the bottom of the road. He couldn’t confirm whether the trucks’ number plates were Lebanese or Syrian but said a foul stench emanated from the area.
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He remarked that “the Party” held sway there and guarded the palace — though he didn’t clarify which party he was referring to. The term “the Party” is often used by locals to refer to Hezbollah, the Lebanese group which has a powerful presence in Lebanon’s Bekaa region as well as in neighbouring Syrian areas, particularly those whose residents were displaced during the Syrian war, such as Zabadani.
The palace belonged to a non-Syrian family, according to a young opposition fighter, who spoke with a cheerful demeanour I grew used to from these young militants. This lighthearted, youthful spirit was characteristic of the fighters, and we saw it at every stop on our journey towards the northern and western provinces. We were taken aback – perhaps due to the widespread stereotype of regime opponents as extremist Islamists.
Maher al-Assad’s division (the 4th Armoured Division) seized the palace and turned it into one of the largest Captagon manufacturing facilities in the country. The facility, which contained raw materials, manufacturing machines and tools specifically designed for Captagon production – and items prepared for aiding smuggling — was in a building adjacent to the palace. As for the palace itself, it was empty, except for a few items of furniture.
The guard, an opposition fighter, is hesitant about letting us in to inspect the place. We realised the reason is that he and his comrades sit around a fire at night, burning wood from old crates to ward off the mountainous winter cold, eating their dinner from canned food. He and his companion are in their early twenties, and from their expressions I sense shame and embarrassment at eating food that isn’t theirs in a place that doesn’t belong to them.
Captagon is the highly addictive drug which financed the Syrian regime’s war against its people for 14 years. Even now, the exact number of Captagon factories in Syria remains unknown, with facilities dotted around containing similar equipment to the one we visited in Yaafour.
With an estimated volume of hundreds of tonnes and a value exceeding six billion dollars, the regime’s Captagon trade was primarily exported to neighbouring nations, which earned Syria the deserved reputation as a “drug state” during the Assad dynasty’s final years.
This is an edited translation from our Arabic edition.
This article is taken from our Arabic sister publication, Al-Araby Al Jadeed and mirrors the source’s original editorial guidelines and reporting policies. Any requests for correction or comment will be forwarded to the original authors and editors
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