Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) militants led by Abu Mohammed al-Golani took control of Syria’s infamous Sednaya prison near Damascus on Sunday after entering the capital and forcing longtime leader Bashar al-Assad to flee to Russia.
Insurgents stormed the facility, liberating thousands of people – mainly opponents of the Assad regime – who had been imprisoned since the Syrian uprising began in 2011 or even longer.
Detainees spilled out of Assad’s detention system, reuniting with families who had long believed they had been executed. A mosque some 20km away has become a meeting point for prisoners to locate their relatives, the BBC reported.
However, many were still searching through the dark corridors of Sednaya on Monday, hoping to find still-missing loved ones.
Syrian civil defence group the White Helmets said Monday they had deployed "5 specialized emergency teams to Sednaya prison to investigate" following reports of secret entrances and hidden underground cells that lie several storeys underground.
The teams were searching for hidden doors or undiscovered basements reportedly linked to the facility, where detainees might still be held.
"The teams are guided by individuals familiar with the prison’s intricate details, along with information from people contacted by families who claim knowledge of hidden entrances or basements,” the White Helmets said in a post on X.
Wall-breaching specialists and trained dog units are also being used.
As of Monday afternoon the group had found no evidence of detainees beyond those already released, but they continued their efforts. "Our teams will continue to search every corner of the prison to ensure that all areas are thoroughly inspected," the group said.
Videos circulating online appeared to show CCTV of more underground cells and efforts to access the prison’s underground sections. However, conflicting reports have muddled the situation.
The Association of Detainees & the Missing in Sednaya Prison (ADMSP) issued a statement on Monday denying the existence of underground cells.
"ADMSP confirms the release of the last detainee from Saydnaya Prison yesterday, December 8, 2024, at 11:00 am Damascus time," the statement said.
"There is no truth to the presence of detainees trapped underground, and the information contained in some press reports is inaccurate,” it added.
A shadowy legacy
Located 30km north of Damascus, the total area of the prison is estimated to be around 1.4 square kilometres. Efforts to establish the prison began in 1978, according to a report published by ADMSP in 2022.
The Syrian government confiscated land from local owners, assigning it to the ministry of defense to build a prison. Construction began in 1981 and continued until 1986, with the first detainee arriving in 1987.
Despite its notoriety, much about Sednaya’s operations remains shrouded in secrecy. NGOs were never permitted access to the prison, as visits required clearance from both military police and military intelligence. Consequently, the information available is derived from the testimonies of former detainees and guards.
In 2017, Amnesty International used 3D modelling to reconstruct the prison’s layout based on the accounts of 84 survivors. “We relied on acoustic memories of former detainees to build a detailed picture of the prison’s operations,” said Aymeric Elluin, arms and conflict advocacy officer at Amnesty International France.
The resulting models revealed a structure designed to isolate and terrorise inmates, with systematic torture and forced disappearances commonplace.
“There are no interrogations at Saydnaya,” Amnesty wrote. “Torture isn’t used to obtain information, but seemingly as a way to degrade, punish and humiliate. Prisoners are targeted relentlessly, unable to ‘confess’ to save themselves from further beatings.”
Sednaya consisted of two main buildings, capable of housing between 10,000 and 20,000 prisoners, Amnesty found. Detainees were segregated based on their status. The “white” building housed military personnel detained for crimes or misdemeanours such as murder, theft, corruption or draft evasion.
In contrast, the “red” building was designated for security detainees – civilians and military personnel imprisoned “on the pretext of opinions they expressed, their political activities, or fabricated allegations of terrorism”, according to ADMSP.
Read moreIran in a ‘position of unprecedented weakness’ after the fall of Assad in Syria
A history of systematic abuse
Rights groups and survivors have described Sednaya as a "death camp" where the Assad regime unleashed its full brutality, especially following the Arab Spring protests that swept the region starting in 2010.
These protests spread to Syria in 2011, when the populace began demanding political reforms and an end to the Assad family’s autocratic rule. A violent crackdown by the regime ensued, with Sednaya becoming a primary site for detentions, torture and executions.
Between 5,000 and 13,000 people were executed, mostly by hanging, between 2011 and 2015, according to Amnesty International.
“Executions occurred regularly, usually on Monday and Wednesday,” said Elluin. “The authorities carried out mass hangings in the red building’s basement after sham trials lasting no more than three minutes. Victims were beaten, hanged and disposed of in secret.”
Beyond executions and torture, forced disappearances have also marked the prison’s dark history. Since 2011, the UN estimates more than 100,000 Syrians have vanished across the country, with families left in anguish, unaware of the fates of their loved ones. Many of them are believed to have been detained in Sednaya at some point.
The legacy of Sednaya prison serves as a chilling reminder of the Assad regime’s brutality. As emergency teams continue investigating, the true scale of the horrors committed there may never fully be known. But for survivors and the families of the disappeared, the fight for justice is far from over.
“We must ensure that the perpetrators of these crimes face justice,” Elluin said. “The international community must act decisively to investigate and prosecute these atrocities.”