SAYDNAYA, Syria—Syrians searching for missing loved ones are combing the grounds of the country’s most notorious prison, rifling through lists of detainees and chipping at the concrete floor looking for hidden cells or tombs.
Civilians, militia soldiers, lawyers and a rescue team from Turkey picked through heaps of clothes left in the cellblocks of the military-run Saydnaya prison, and stared at the red rope nooses hanging from a concrete wall behind the building. As many as 50 people were hanged each day in the prison, the State Department said in 2017.
Tens of thousands of people disappeared into the country’s sprawling detention network since the regime of President Bashar al-Assad moved to suppress a 2011 uprising. Rebels opened Saydnaya on Sunday after ousting Assad, freeing detainees and allowing the public to look for the missing.
