Bewildered, elated prisoners pour out as Assad’s jails flung open

Bewildered and elated prisoners poured out of Syrian jails on Sunday, shouting with joy as they emerged from one of the world’s most notorious detention systems and walked to freedom following the collapse of Bashar al-Assad’s government.

All across Syria, families wept as they were reunited with children, siblings, spouses and parents who vanished years ago into the impregnable gulag of the Assad dynasty’s five-decade rule.

A video verified by Reuters showed newly freed prisoners running through the Damascus streets, holding up the fingers of both hands to show how many years they had been in prison, asking passers-by what had happened, not immediately understanding that Assad had fallen.

“We toppled the regime!” a voice shouted and a prisoner yelled and skipped with delight in the same video. A man watching the prisoners rush through the dawn streets put his hands to head, exclaiming with wonder: “Oh my god, the prisoners!”

Throughout the civil war that began in 2011, security forces held hundreds of thousands of people seized into detention camps where international human rights organisations say torture was universal practice. Families were often told nothing of the fate of their loved ones.

As insurgents seized one city after another in a dizzying eight-day campaign, prisons were often among their first objectives. The most notorious prisons in and around Damascus itself were finally opened on the uprising’s final night and the early hours of Sunday.

When they reached Sednaya prison, rebels shot the lock off the gate, a video showed, using more gunfire to open closed doors leading to cells. Men poured out into corridors and a courtyard, cheering and helping them open more cells.