Exclusive: The Guardian gains access to Sednaya jail, where prisoners are rumoured to be trapped underground – as desperate relatives wait for news
On the outskirts of the city, a door had been found. Beyond it lay a vast underground complex, five storeys deep, containing the last prisoners of the Assad regime, who were gasping for air.The Guardian followed as traffic came to a standstill and rumours were passed between lowered windows: there were 1,500 prisoners trapped underground that needed rescuing; perhaps your loved ones are among them. Cars were ditched by the roadside and people began to walk.
“There are three in my family missing. They told us that there are four levels underground, and that people are choking inside – but we don’t know where it is,” said Ahmad al-Shnein as he searched the prison corridor.“The ones that emerged from here looked like skeletons. So imagine how those underground will look,” Shnein said.
The narrow cells, no more than a few meters across, had been stuffed with more than a dozen people at a time, leaving no space to lie down, according to rights groups. The screams of prisoners being tortured could be heard echoing down the hallways.According to Amnesty International, up to 20,000 prisoners were held at Sednaya, most of them imprisoned after secret sham trials that lasted no more than a few minutes.
In the chaos of the prison break, records were taken by families searching for relatives. Each ledger, filled with names and other details, were carried out of the prison where groups of people would gather and see if they knew anyone mentioned. Rights groups have cautioned that records need to be preserved in an orderly fashion, so that the fate of about 136,000 people arrested by the Assad regime can be documented.
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