'Breaking our chains': Syrian survivor recounts years of torture, freedom from Sednaya prison after regime’s fall

DAMASCUS, Syria/ANKARA

A Syrian man who was imprisoned for nearly six years at the notorious Sednaya prison shared with Anadolu his memories of torture and the night he was freed following the fall of the regime last year.

Ammar Dughmush, from Damascus, was among thousands subjected to systematic torture at Sednaya, one of the harshest detention centers under the rule of the now-deposed Bashar al-Assad regime.

He was detained in a 2018 ambush in Eastern Ghouta and first held at the Mezzeh Military Airport’s intelligence branch before being transferred to Sednaya, often described as a "human slaughterhouse."

He recalled being chained in a meat refrigeration truck with 145 other detainees and beaten upon entry into the prison. “From the moment I entered that place, my life turned into a complete disaster,” Dughmush said.

Accused of “being armed,” Dughmush was tortured at Mezzeh and forced to sign a confession. “They tied my hands behind my back and hung me from the ceiling. My shoulders almost dislocated,” he said, adding that his joints were beaten with sticks.

At Sednaya, he described the extreme overcrowding in his cell, which measured around 8 by 16 feet. “It was meant for 60, but held 120 of us. We slept stacked on top of each other. In the mornings, some were found dead from suffocation.”

He recounted a punishment method in which the prison’s only fan was turned off. “The cell, buried underground, would run out of oxygen in minutes. We couldn’t breathe.”

Diseases were rampant. “People would start hallucinating, lose bladder control, and die within three days. There was no medication,” he recalled.

‘Welcome phase’ at Sadnaya

Upon arrival at Sednaya, Dughmush said, detainees were stripped naked and forced to lie on the ground while guards beat them.

He added that the prison’s “welcome phase” included severe beatings, humiliation, and psychological abuse.

He also described a torture method they dubbed the “band,” where detainees were laid on the floor as a row of guards beat their feet one by one in a continuous loop.

Dughmush recalled the actions of a guard known as “Abu Yaqub,” who targeted elderly prisoners.

“He would shout, ‘If you’d raised your sons better, the country wouldn’t be like this,’ and beat them. Many died from these assaults.”

Sednaya’s conditions worsened over time, he said, as medical referrals stopped and in-prison doctors conducted only brief checks.

On the night of Dec. 8, 2024, Dughmush remembers hearing sirens at around 11 p.m. (2000GMT), followed by silence and later, voices of women and children – something unheard of in the prison. At around 3 am, (0000GMT) someone shouted “Allahu Akbar” and gunfire erupted.

“At first, we thought it was a trap by the guards. Then a prisoner looked through a vent and said he saw a man with a long beard and a gun,” Dughmush said.

‘Breaking our chains’

It was a revolutionary fighter who came to free them. “Someone called the azan out loud. It was the first proper call to prayer we had heard in years. We prayed standing. It felt like breaking our chains,” he said.

Shortly after, rebels opened the prison doors. “When the cell door opened, we had no idea where to go. We only knew one thing: the shackles were broken.”

As he stepped outside, Dughmush picked up a stick. “I didn’t know what to do, but I wanted something to defend myself. I asked, ‘What happened?’ They said, ‘The regime has fallen.’”

The road to the prison was packed with people. “If one prisoner came out, it felt like a million were going in. Everyone was holding a photo of a loved one,” he said. “Just seeing asphalt was enough to make me feel full. I didn’t eat for two days. I couldn’t believe it was real.”

He later reunited with his daughter. “When I saw her running toward me, my knees gave out. We hugged for 15 minutes. After everything – the humiliation, the disease, the beatings – God let me hold her again. That was the moment of freedom.”