Relatives search for any trace of disappeared loved ones inside Syria’s prison system

Syrians look for their relatives, searching through every last scrap left on the floor for any trace of their loved ones.

One of them sent us this video from Sednaya prison which we have verified.

For decades, until the fall of President Bashar al Assad, only those who were disappeared by the regime saw these walls.

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So this is hope, that loved ones may be found, and desperation, that they might not – but it is also vital documentation of an unbound and terrifying system of detention.

The prison sits 20 miles (32km) north of Damascus.

For years shrouded in mystery and bone-chilling rumour – but videos like this from the same person who filmed inside the cells are now uncovering that.

The distinctive curve of the building helps us confirm the videos we’ve seen are from there. Around 260 miles (418km) north of Sednaya is Manbij.

Here, people run down the street after being released. The disappeared, reappearing – returning to life at a sprint.

Tens of thousands of people held in Syria’s notorious prisons have been freed in the 10 days since the insurgents began their lightning advance across the country that ended with the toppling of Assad.

So too in Hama.

It’s a countrywide effort to reach all the prisons and detention centres, so vast is the system.

These are the more than 20 military and civilian prisons throughout Syria, the largest centres in a network that comprises at least 111 different facilities, according to the United Nations.

The Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR) estimates the Syrian government has arrested and released approximately 1.2 million Syrian citizens since 2011.

SNHR also reported that at least 135,253 people, including women and children who were arrested by Syrian government forces between March 2011 and March 2023, were still under arrest and/or had been forcibly disappeared.

SNHR further reported on the documented deaths of 15,038 individuals due to torture committed by the regime’s forces during the same period.

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That’s why so many people have flocked to Sednaya prison, crowding its corridors, to find out whether those who were taken inside its walls are alive or dead.

On Monday afternoon, humanitarian organisation the White Helmets were using dogs to try and find further detainees.

They are used to scouring disaster sites for survivors – Sednaya is just another.