Six months after the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s government in Syria, survivors of its brutal detention system, including the infamous Saydnaya military prison, are grappling with devastating physical and mental health consequences amid a critical lack of support, said Amnesty International. On the International Day in Support of Victims of Torture, the organization is echoing survivor associations in calling for concrete action to guarantee the rights of torture survivors to reparations, including rehabilitation, and to justice.
Syria’s government has an obligation to ensure the rights to truth, justice and reparations for survivors of torture and other gross human rights abuses. Amnesty International is also calling on donor governments to urgently fund survivor-led groups, family associations, and programs dedicated to supporting torture survivors.
“For years the stories of torture, enforced disappearances and mass hangings in secret in Syria’s detention centers made the blood run cold. It is beyond the pale that the people who made it out alive from these horrific torture dungeons are now struggling to access urgent medical and mental health treatment. The Syrian government is struggling with a myriad of economic and political challenges, but it must still, without any delay, ensure that all those suspected of criminal responsibility for torture and other international crimes are brought to justice in fair trials before ordinary civilian courts,” said Bissan Fakih, Campaigner at Amnesty International.
The Syrian government, in place since 29 March, prohibited torture in a recent Constitutional Declaration, noting it would not be subject to a statute of limitations, established a Transitional Justice Commission, which is meant to lead the work on accountability, and has carried out some consultations with survivors. In a May meeting, the Minister of Interior told Amnesty International that the most notorious prisons, including Saydnaya Military Prison and the Palestine Branch, would never be used as prisons again.
Last month Amnesty International met with survivors, survivors’ associations and civil society organizations in Syria, attended events organized by survivors and family members of the disappeared, and listened to their demands. These included ensuring meaningful and effective participation of survivors and victims’ families, ensuring comprehensive reparations to meet the needs of survivors, which include immediate physical and mental health support, and ensuring accountability for the crimes to which they were subjected.
Years of torture and inhumane conditions have left former detainees with tuberculosis, and conditions affecting their eyes, joints and nerves. Broken teeth from torture are also common among survivors, as well as symptoms consistent with post-traumatic stress disorder.
“Survivors of Syria’s notorious detention system are in need of medical, psychosocial and legal support right now. During this pivotal period, donor states should be restoring or increasing funding to survivors’ groups, civil society organizations and programs offering survivors support, rather than cutting off or cutting down foreign assistance,” Bissan Fakih said.
Saydnaya survivors supporting each other amid funding cuts
Survivor-led organizations have sounded the alarm over severe gaps in support, particularly after the mass release of detainees following the ousting of former President al-Assad on 8 December 2024.
“Right at the time that people were being released from detention centers, the funding stopped,” said Muhannad Younes from Ta’afi, a survivor-led group offering rehabilitation support to fellow survivors. The organization lost 60% of their funding due to the suspension of U.S. foreign aid, severely limiting its ability to support survivors who emerged from detention both before and after the recent releases.
Diab Serrih from the Association of Detainees and Missing Persons of Sednaya (ADMSP), set up by former survivors from Sednaya military prison said: “The general reduction in U.S. and European funding will inevitably increase the suffering of victims. Mental health services in a post-conflict country are not a luxury… They are fundamental for the long-term recovery and reintegration of survivors.”
Survivor associations and detainees recently released from Saydnaya Military Prison interviewed by Amnesty International in Damascus said that survivors have been unable or desperately struggling to access urgently needed medical care, in a country in which much of the healthcare system has crumbled.
An activist in Damascus told Amnesty International he received a call from a Saydnaya survivor about a fellow survivor struggling to get medical care: “He required an MRI which he wasn’t able to get at government hospitals. He told me the other survivors were pooling their money together, 600,000 SYP [the equivalent of 70 USD], to get him the medical test he needed.”
Abdulmoneim al-Kayed, a Saydnaya survivor released on 8 December, confirmed that survivors had been trying to pool their money together to support this person and others in need of medical care. He said that while there had been a quick response to tuberculosis, other medical needs were neglected. At least 12 former detainees he is in contact with still require urgent surgery, particularly neurological and ophthalmological operations, and the vast majority need dental treatment for teeth broken during torture.
Samira Shawarba, from The Female Survivor Union, emphasized the need for comprehensive medical tests, including bloodwork, to assess the long-term health impact of years in overcrowded, unsanitary conditions without sunlight.
The need for mental health support is equally urgent and largely unmet. Al-Kayed said: “We tried every possible way to get psychological support, but unfortunately, we couldn’t find any.”
Ahmed Helmi from Ta’afi said very few organizations are able to provide mental health support: “Support exists, but it’s limited, especially because those organizations have had cuts in funding. The organizations we used to work with on mental health support for example can’t always take referrals anymore because they can’t afford it.”
Survivors and survivor networks emphasized that those emerging from Syria’s detention facilities needed particular and trauma-informed support to achieve dignified lives. “Survivor-centred approaches are essential,” Younes said, explaining that many grassroots survivor networks have adopted such approaches in their work, taking into account that survivors suffer from memory loss, and that extensive questionnaires to offer aid could come across as interrogations to survivors of detention.
Shawarba stressed the rights of survivors to rehabilitation, not just short-term, but also long-term support that enables survivors to regain their independence and self-esteem.
Truth, justice, and reparations
Survivors interviewed by Amnesty International consistently emphasized that accountability is crucial for their healing. Al-Kayed, said many detainees families were extorted. His own family had 25,000 euros extorted from them on promises he would be released: “I call for accountability for the heads of security branches so they don’t escape justice, and for every person who traded in our lives and extorted our families.”
Ahmed Helmi from Ta’afi said guarantees of non-recurrence were key to him as a survivor of detention: “There was a part of our lives where we were removed from the face of the Earth, placed somewhere behind the sun and subjected to horrors. That place and that period will always be a black stain, and it will only continue to grow until we can make meaning of it. And it can only gain meaning if it becomes a foundation for making sure our children never go through it. The value and meaning of what we experienced only comes from ensuring it never happens again. If we can’t guarantee that, then what happened has no meaning.”
Younes explained that reparations extend beyond financial compensation: “Reparations also have an emotional and symbolic side…. Imagine everything that happened in Syria over the last 14 years, and yet there’s no physical link between us and these memories. No plaques, no memorials. In other countries, they build monuments and organize national days…I don’t want it to be transactional. It should be about restoring human dignity.”
Any truth, justice, and reparation efforts must address the rights of all victims, including those subjected to abuses by former armed opposition groups. The authorities should also seek reparations from other states and non-state actors, including businesses, responsible for human rights violations and crimes under international law in Syria.
Background
Amnesty International has documented how Syrian government forces for decades have used arbitrary arrests, enforced disappearances and torture to crush dissent. Under Assad’s rule torture was used as part of a widespread and systematic attack against the civilian population amounting to crimes against humanity. More than 100,000 people are estimated to have been forcibly disappeared in Syria, the vast majority by government forces. The organization has also documented cases of abduction, torture, and summary killings by former armed opposition groups in Aleppo and Idlib. In 2024 Amnesty documented how the autonomous authorities in Northeast Syria have arbitrarily detained tens of thousands with many held in inhumane conditions and subjected to torture and other ill-treatment.
Header image: Saydnaya Prison, located 30km North of Damascus, Syria. December 2024. © Amnesty International/Amanda Bailey.
