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A Syrian Death Factory Gives Up Its Secrets

(Wall Street Journal) Jared Malsin - Inside Bashar al-Assad's most-notorious death factory, the hangings had become routine. Once a month, around midnight, the guards at Saydnaya prison would call the names of the condemned, usually dozens at a time. They wrapped nooses around their necks, then dragged tables from beneath their feet. In March 2023, the pace picked up dramatically, according to six witnesses. "They gathered 600 people and killed them in three days, about 200 each night," said Abdel Moneim Al-Qaid, 37, a former rebel soldier who was arrested after handing himself in for what he thought was an amnesty deal with the government. On Dec. 8, 2024, rebels stormed the prison in northern Damascus, pulling back the veil on one of the worst examples of systematic state killing since World War II. The world knew about Saydnaya, but failed to stop the atrocities that took place inside. Saydnaya was the largest of dozens of execution centers that Assad's regime set up in an attempt to break the 2011 armed rebellion against his rule. In addition to the many thousands killed in organized executions, former detainees and war crimes experts say perhaps an equal number of people died from torture and extreme conditions, including beatings, starvation, thirst and disease. Some 160,123 Syrians were forcibly disappeared by the Assad regime throughout the war, according to the Syrian Network for Human Rights.
2025-07-13 00:00:00
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