Behind the coils of razor wire and concrete partitions, glimpses of the horror emerge from the warren of dank, airless corridors of what has been dubbed “The Slaughterhouse.”

A rough, heavy rope lies on the bottom, tied right into a hangman’s noose. Prosthetic legs are scattered outdoors a cell, the destiny of their former house owners unknown. In a single cell, names are scrawled everywhere in the partitions – for some, maybe the one testomony they have been ever there.

That is Saydnaya navy jail, a sprawling advanced simply north of Damascus that has change into synonymous with a number of the worst atrocities dedicated underneath the rule of now ousted President Bashar Assad.

For many years infamous for its brutality, solely now’s the true extent of what occurred there coming to gentle. Hundreds of persons are believed to have died inside its partitions, executed or tortured to dying.

Humidity runs down the partitions. The air is heavy with the odor of the sweat of a thousand folks. The warren of corridors results in windowless underground cells, the place a combination of what seems to be mud and sewage covers the ground of 1 part. Even in cells that do have a window, it has been painted over or blocked to impede the daylight. Cobwebs hold from the corners.

Some cells have been clearly used for solitary confinement. In a single, there was nothing greater than tiny holes within the metallic door. Inside it was icy and pitch black.

On the higher flooring, skinny mattresses, handmade pillows, scraps of meals and drugs are scattered on the ground of limitless cells. Most of the cells and corridors have been burned out. The acrid stench of smoke, burned garments and hair nonetheless lingers, almost two weeks after insurgent fighters stormed the jail and launched the hundreds of individuals held there in appalling circumstances.

In a single cell, the ground was fully coated with discarded footwear, garments and underwear. They appeared to have been there a very long time, traces of lime powder sprinkled on high.

Since its inmates have been freed, hundreds of individuals have flocked to the jail, desperately looking for family members who’ve been lacking for years, in some instances even many years. They pore over paperwork that lie scattered on flooring, and use heavy equipment to dig up the grounds outdoors, looking for mass graves.

Inside, crews for days tried to punch by way of concrete partitions, spurred by suspicions of the existence of cells beneath the jail the place inmates may nonetheless be trapped. However no hidden cells have been discovered.

Syria’s prisons underneath the rule of Assad and his father, Hafez Assad, have been notorious for his or her harsh circumstances. Torture was systemic, say human rights teams, whistleblowers, and former detainees. Secret executions have been reported at greater than two dozen amenities run by Syrian intelligence, in addition to at different websites.

In 2013, a Syrian navy defector referred to as “Caesar” smuggled out over 53,000 pictures that human rights teams say confirmed clear proof of rampant torture, and in addition illness and hunger in Syria’s prisons.

Saydnaya was notably feared. In 2017, Amnesty Worldwide estimated that 10,000-20,000 folks have been being held there “from each sector of society.” It mentioned they have been successfully slated for “extermination.”

Hundreds have been killed in frequent mass executions, Amnesty reported, citing testimony from freed prisoners and jail officers. Prisoners have been subjected to fixed torture, intense beatings and rape. Virtually every day, guards did rounds of the cells to gather our bodies of inmates who had died in a single day from accidents, illness or hunger. Some inmates fell into psychosis and starved themselves, the human rights group mentioned.

___

Abby Sewell in Damascus and Elena Becatoros in Majdal Shams, Golan Heights, contributed.