The horror of Saydnaya jail, symbol of Assad excesses

The horror of Saydnaya jail, symbol of Assad excesses
People keep warm around a fire outside the Saydnaya prison in Damascus on Dec. 11, 2024. (AFP)
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Updated 13 December 2024
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The horror of Saydnaya jail, symbol of Assad excesses

The horror of Saydnaya jail, symbol of Assad excesses
  • The prison complex was the site of extrajudicial executions, torture and forced disappearances
  • When Syrian militants entered Damascus on Sunday after their lightning advance that toppled the Assad government, they announced they had seized Saydnaya and freed its inmates

BEIRUT: Saydnaya prison north of the Syrian capital Damascus has become a notorious symbol of the inhumane abuses of the Assad clan, especially since the country’s civil war erupted in 2011.
The prison complex was the site of extrajudicial executions, torture and forced disappearances, epitomising the atrocities committed against his opponents by ousted president Bashar Assad.
When Syrian militants entered Damascus on Sunday after their lightning advance that toppled the Assad government, they announced they had seized Saydnaya and freed its inmates.
Some had been incarcerated there since the 19080s.
According to the Association of Detainees and Missing Persons of Saydnaya Prison (ADMSP), the militants liberated more than 4,000 people.
Photographs of haggard and emaciated inmates, some helped by colleagues because they were too weak to leave their cells, were circulated worldwide.
Suddenly the workings of this infamous jail that rights group Amnesty International had dubbed a “human abattoir” were revealed for all to see.
The prison was built in the 1980s during the rule of Hafez Assad, father of the deposed president, and was initially meant for political prisoners including members of Islamist groups and Kurdish militants.
But down the years, Saydnaya became a symbol of pitiless state control over the Syrian people.
In 2016, a United Nations commission found that “the Syrian Government has also committed the crimes against humanity of murder, rape or other forms of sexual violence, torture, imprisonment, enforced disappearance and other inhuman acts,” notably at Saydnaya.
The following year, Amnesty International in a report entitled “Human Slaughterhouse” documented thousands of executions there, calling it a policy of extermination.
Shortly afterwards, the United States revealed the existence inside Saydnaya of a crematorium in which the remains of thousands of murdered prisoners were burnt.
War monitor the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights in 2022 reported that around 30,000 people had been imprisoned in Saydnaya where many were tortured, and that just 6,000 were released.
The ADMSP believes that more than 30,000 prisoners were executed or died under torture, or from the lack of medical care or food between 2011 and 2018.
The group says the former authorities in Syria had set up salt chambers — rooms lined with salt for use as makeshift morgues to make up for the lack of cold storage.
In 2022, the ADMSP published a report describing for the first time these makeshift morgues of salt.
It said the first such chamber dated back to 2013, one of the bloodiest years in the Syrian civil conflict.
Many inmates are officially considered to be missing, with their families never receiving death certificates unless they handed over exorbitant bribes.
After the fall of Damascus last week, thousands of relatives of the missing rushed to Saydnaya hoping they might find loved ones hidden away in underground cells.
Saydnaya is now empty, and Syria’s White Helmets emergency workers group announced the end of search operations there on Tuesday, with no more prisoners found.
Several foreigners also ended up in Syrian jails, including Jordanian Osama Bashir Hassan Al-Bataynah, who spent 38 years behind bars and was found “unconscious and suffering from memory loss,” the foreign ministry in Amman said on Tuesday.
According to the Arab Organization for Human Rights in Jordan, 236 Jordanian citizens were held in Syrian prisons, most of them in Saydnaya.
Other freed foreigners included Suheil Hamawi from Lebanon who returned home on Monday after being locked up in Syria for 33 years, and also spent time inside Saydnaya.


UN ok’d to send ‘around 100’ aid trucks into Gaza: spokesman

UN ok’d to send ‘around 100’ aid trucks into Gaza: spokesman
Updated 23 sec ago
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UN ok’d to send ‘around 100’ aid trucks into Gaza: spokesman

UN ok’d to send ‘around 100’ aid trucks into Gaza: spokesman

GENEVA: The United Nations said on Tuesday it has received permission to send “around 100” trucks of aid into the war-shattered Gaza Strip, as humanitarian assistance trickled back in to the territory.
“We have requested and received approval of more trucks to enter today, many more than were approved yesterday,” Jens Laerke, spokesman for UN Office for Coordination for Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), told reporters in Geneva, adding that “we expect, of course, with that approval, many of them, hopefully all of them, to cross today to a point where they can be picked up and get further into the Gaza Strip for distribution.”


Army, paramilitaries clash near Sudan capital

Army, paramilitaries clash near Sudan capital
Updated 2 min 29 sec ago
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Army, paramilitaries clash near Sudan capital

Army, paramilitaries clash near Sudan capital
  • The army said its operation which began on Monday was aimed at driving the paramilitaries from their last positions in Khartoum state

KHARTOUM: Clashes erupted on Tuesday between the Sudanese regular army and rival paramilitaries in Omdurman, Khartoum's twin city, with the army calling the fighting part of a "large-scale" offensive.
An AFP correspondent at the scene said explosions rang out in the area, where the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) had retreated after losing control of the Sudanese capital in March.
The army said its operation which began on Monday was aimed at driving the paramilitaries from their last positions in Khartoum state.
"We are pressing a large-scale operation and we are close to clearing the whole of Khartoum state from dirty thugs," military spokesman Nabil Abdallah said in a statement.
The war since April 2023 has pitted the army headed by Sudan's de facto leader Abdel Fattah al-Burhan against the RSF under his former deputy Mohamed Hamdan Daglo.
The fighting comes as both the army and the RSF are attempting to establish their own governments.
On Monday, army chief Burhan has tapped a former United Nations official, Kamil Idris, as a new prime minister -- a move seen by analysts as an attempt to gain international recognition and present a functioning civilian-led government amid the ongoing war.
The African Union on Tuesday welcomed the appointment, calling it "a step toward inclusive governance" and expressing hope that the move will "restore constitutional order and democratic governance in Sudan".
The RSF announced in April it would form a rival administration, a few weeks after signing a charter in Kenya with a coalition of military and political allies.


In recent weeks, the RSF has staged multiple drone attacks on areas around the country, including Port Sudan on the Red Sea coast, the seat of the army-aligned government since the war began.
Omdurman, which is situated just across the River Nile from Khartoum, has been a focal point of fighting in recent days.
This week, a days-long electricity blackout hit the whole Khartoum state, following drone strikes blamed on the RSF on three power stations in Omdurman.
Medical charity Doctors without Borders (MSF) said on Sunday that the power outages had disrupted health services at the city's major hospitals.
"The magnitude of these drone attacks represents a major escalation in the conflict, with alarming implications for civilian protection," the UN's human rights expert on Sudan, Radhouane Nouicer, said in a statement on Monday.
"The recurrent attacks on critical infrastructure place civilian lives at risk, worsen the humanitarian crisis, and undermine basic human rights."
The army has meanwhile launched attacks in areas controlled by the RSF in the country's south, trying to claim territory and cut off rival supply lines.
The Emergency Lawyers, a monitoring group which has documented atrocities on both sides, on Sunday accused the army of killing 18 civilians, including four children, in an attack on Al-Hamadi village in South Kordofan state last week.
The war has killed tens of thousands, displaced 13 million and sparked what the United Nations describes as the world's worst humanitarian crisis.
The conflict has carved up Sudan, with the army controlling the north, east, and centre, while the RSF dominates nearly all of Darfur and parts of the south.


EU agrees to lift all economic sanctions on Syria: diplomats

EU agrees to lift all economic sanctions on Syria: diplomats
Updated 8 min 22 sec ago
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EU agrees to lift all economic sanctions on Syria: diplomats

EU agrees to lift all economic sanctions on Syria: diplomats

Malnutrition in Gaza could rise exponentially, UNRWA official says

Malnutrition in Gaza could rise exponentially, UNRWA official says
Updated 17 min 35 sec ago
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Malnutrition in Gaza could rise exponentially, UNRWA official says

Malnutrition in Gaza could rise exponentially, UNRWA official says
  • Malnutrition rates in Gaza have risen during a more than 11-week Israeli blockade
  • Israel cleared nine trucks of aid on Monday to enter Gaza

GENEVA: Malnutrition rates in Gaza have risen during a more than 11-week Israeli blockade and could rise exponentially if food shortages continue, a health official at the UN Palestinian refugee agency UNRWA said on Tuesday.

“I have data until end of April and it shows malnutrition on the rise,” Akihiro Seita, UNRWA Director of Health, told a Geneva press briefing.

“And then the worry is that if the current food shortage continues, it will exponentially increase, and then get beyond our control.”

Israel cleared nine trucks of aid on Monday to enter Gaza through the Kerem Shalom crossing although aid workers said just five entered.


Israel’s Elbit Systems posts profit jump on Gaza war, rising defense budgets

Israel’s Elbit Systems posts profit jump on Gaza war, rising defense budgets
Updated 43 min 47 sec ago
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Israel’s Elbit Systems posts profit jump on Gaza war, rising defense budgets

Israel’s Elbit Systems posts profit jump on Gaza war, rising defense budgets
  • More than 32 percent of Elbit’s revenue came from Israel, where the country has been fighting Hamas

TEL AVIV: Israel’s largest defense firm Elbit Systems reported higher first-quarter profit on Tuesday, boosted by sales to Israel’s military during its war against Palestinian militant group Hamas in Gaza and as global defense spending rises.
Elbit said it earned $2.57 per diluted share excluding one-time items in the first quarter of 2025, up from $1.81 a year earlier.
The results were boosted by a 20 percent increase in aerospace sales, largely of precision guided munitions from which revenue rose 22 percent to $1.9 billion.
More than 32 percent of Elbit’s revenue came from Israel, where the country has been fighting Hamas since October 7, 2023. The company has supplied munitions, drones, guided rocket systems, reconnaissance capabilities and other systems.
As numerous global conflicts boosted national defense budgets, Elbit’s backlog of orders reached $23.1 billion. Some 66 percent of the backlog is from outside Israel, while 51 percent of the orders are scheduled to be fulfilled during 2025 and 2026.
“Elbit is well positioned to capture and benefit from the opportunities of increasing defense budgets globally and particularly in Europe,” said CEO Bezhalel Machlis. “We are continuing to invest in increasing our production capacity and optimizing our supply chains in order to address our backlog and the high demand for our products.”
Elbit said it would pay a quarterly dividend of 60 cents a share, the same as in the fourth quarter.