DAMASCUS - Syrians are desperately searching the notorious Sednaya prison in the outskirts of Damascus, hoping for any sign of their loved ones who have been missing for years.
Qamar Ahmed could not wait anymore. With the help of others, she took into her own hands the search for her brother and two cousins.
Following reports of prisoners trapped underground, Ahmed grabbed a hammer to dig the earth and a basket to filter out the muddy water.
"The whole world is talking about this massacre and the crimes committed in here, but why aren't they coming to help us? Why aren't they coming to help us reach underground? Nobody is coming. How can I dig into the ground with my hands and this hammer? There are no human rights. There are animals in this country that are better than a thousand human beings. That's it," a frustrated Ahmed told Rudaw.
Hopeful civilians are searching through thousands of paper scraps scattered on the ground that former prison authorities used to register the names of the inmates.
Most of the searches come up without a result.
"I'm looking for the name of my brother. I know nothing about him and he's been a missing person since April 10, 2014. He's been missing until this moment and we don't know his whereabouts," said the sister of missing Rizan Abdulqadir Mulla Hamza.
"We keep looking, and we leave the rest to God. We just want the authorities to help us. Where are the rest of the detainees and my only son?" said Dania Hakeem, whose son is missing.
Sednaya Prison, dubbed a "human slaughterhouse," was a military prison and death camp north of Damascus. It was constructed in 1986 at the order of then-Syrian President Hafez al-Assad.
The prison has been used to hold thousands of prisoners, both civilians and anti-government rebels, as well as political prisoners.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights estimated in January 2021 that 30,000 detainees were killed by the Assad regime in Sednaya by torture, ill-treatment, and mass executions since the outbreak of the Syrian civil war.
Following the fall of Bashar al-Assad on Sunday, tens of thousands of prisoners were freed from Sednaya and other prisons across the country. The remains of thousands of others killed by torture or hanging are yet to be identified.
Rekar Aziz contributed to this report.
