ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Six months after the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s government, survivors of Syria’s detention centers and torture chambers are struggling with severe physical and mental health conditions and a critical lack of support, Amnesty International said on Thursday.
“For years the stories of torture, enforced disappearances and mass hangings in Syria’s detention centers made the blood run cold. It is beyond the pale that people who made it out alive are now struggling to access urgent treatment,” said Bissan Fakih, campaigner at Amnesty International.
Marking International Day in Support of Victims of Torture, Amnesty called on donor governments to urgently restore funding to survivor-led groups and rehabilitation programs, echoing calls from survivors for reparations, justice, and long-term medical and psychological care.
Syria’s new government, formed on March 29, has pledged reforms including a ban on torture and the creation of a transitional justice commission. It also promised not to reuse infamous detention facilities such as Saydnaya and the Palestine Branch, according to a May meeting between Interior Ministry officials and Amnesty.
When rebels took Damascus last December, images of emaciated people walking out of the prisons that they had been held in for decades were a powerful sign that the Assad era was over.
Amnesty said it recently met with survivor groups, civil society organizations, and families of the disappeared in Damascus. Many former detainees continue to suffer from untreated tuberculosis, nerve and joint damage, broken teeth from beatings, and symptoms consistent with post-traumatic stress disorder.
The crisis has deepened since foreign funding cuts. Ta’afi, a survivor-led organization, reported losing 60% of its funding due to the suspension of United States aid.
“Right when people were being released from detention centers, the funding stopped,” said Muhannad Younes of Ta’afi. “Survivors need medical, psychosocial and legal support right now.”
Other groups say they are similarly unable to meet demand for mental health services.
Survivors told Amnesty they often pool money for medical procedures, such as MRIs and surgeries. At least 12 former detainees require urgent neurological or eye operations and most need dental care for injuries sustained under torture.
“There was a quick response to tuberculosis, but other medical needs were neglected,” said Abdulmoneim al-Kayed, a Saydnaya survivor released in December. “We tried every possible way to get psychological support, but unfortunately, we couldn’t find any.”
Ahmed Helmi of Ta’afi said few organizations are equipped to provide psychological care. “The groups we used to work with can’t take referrals anymore because of funding cuts,” he said.
Survivors also asked that aid providers be sympathetic to the trauma they had experienced. Younes warned that lengthy intake interviews with aid agencies can feel like interrogations to those recently released from detention.
Some asked for compensation and justice.
“I call for accountability for the heads of security branches so they don’t escape justice,” said al-Kayed, whose family paid €25,000 (around $29,286) in a failed attempt to secure his release. “Many of our families were extorted.”
Others said the only way to bring meaning to their experience is by preventing such abuses from recurring.
“That place and that period will always be a black stain,” Helmi said. “Its only meaning comes if it becomes a foundation to ensure our children never go through it.”
Younes added that reparations must go beyond financial compensation. “There’s no physical link between us and these memories - no plaques, no memorials,” he said. “It should be about restoring dignity.”
More than 100,000 people are estimated to have been forcibly disappeared in Syria, most by the Assad regime.
Amnesty concluded that any justice and reparation efforts must include victims of all parties to the conflict, including abuses committed by former opposition groups, and urged reparations from states, companies, and non-state actors complicit in Syria’s detention system.
Following a swift offensive in early December, a coalition of opposition forces - led by the now-dissolved Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), under its leader Ahmed al-Sharaa - toppled Assad’s regime. In January, Sharaa was appointed interim president.
The new authorities in Damascus have vowed to pursue former regime loyalists and implement transitional justice and national reconciliation.
