The search for missing Syrians continues after rebel forces freed prisoners from the notorious Saydnaya Military Prison on the outskirts of Damascus, dubbed a “human slaughterhouse” by Amnesty International.
The Syrian Civil Defense, also known as the White Helmets, said in a statement on Monday that it had deployed five specialized teams to search for secret cells or hidden basements that could hold additional prisoners.
Discussion about the possibility of thousands of additional inmates being held in deeper levels of the facility circulated on social media. Those hopes were bolstered by a Facebook post from the Damascus Interior Governorate calling on prison officials to provide door codes to reach additional inaccessible locations.
However, a Monday statement from the Association of Detainees and Missing Persons at Seydnayah Prison (ADMSP) called these claims “inaccurate” and said all prisoners were released by noon on Sunday (8).
Mounir Al-Fakir, former Saydnaya inmate and founding partner of ADMSP, told CNN that the facility contains an underground level of cells, but he does not believe there are hidden layers beneath that.
Al-Fakir said that when rebels captured the prison over the weekend, they saw people on security cameras in cells that they could not initially access as they were behind reinforced doors. They were released after the necessary equipment arrived, he said. Al-Fakir estimated that around three thousand inmates were released.
The White Helmets said on Monday that they would continue to search for additional detention areas, without success so far.
This content was originally published in Search for missing Syrians continues after rebels capture arrest on the CNN Brasil website.
Source: CNN Brasil
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