Rescuers in Syria finish the search for secret cells in Saydnaya prison

Rescue workers from the White Helmets said they had completed a search for potential detainees in secret cells or basements in Syria's notorious Saydnaya military prison without finding anyone.

Specialized teams aided by K9 canine units and individuals familiar with the layout combed the prison and its grounds on Monday, as crowds gathered in hopes of finding missing relatives.

“The search did not reveal any open or hidden areas within the facility,” a White Helmets statement said.

This news came at a time when opposition fighters said they found nearly 40 bodies showing signs of torture in the morgue of a hospital in the capital, Damascus.

Meanwhile, the leader of the hardline Islamist group, whose attack led to the ouster of President Bashar al-Assad, said on Sunday that former senior officials who oversaw the torture of political prisoners during the country's 13-year civil war would be held accountable.

Abu Muhammad al-Julani said that the names of those responsible would be published and efforts would be made to return those who fled to other countries. He added that rewards would also be offered to anyone who provided information about his whereabouts.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a UK-based monitoring group, says nearly 60,000 people have been tortured and killed in Assad government prisons.

Human rights groups say more than 100,000 people have disappeared since Assad ordered a brutal crackdown on pro-democracy protests in 2011 that sparked the civil war.

The Association of Detainees and Missing Persons in Saydnaya Prison, based in Türkiye, said in a report issued in 2022 that the prison “effectively became a death camp” after the conflict began.

It estimates that more than 30,000 detainees were either executed or died as a result of torture, lack of medical care, or starvation in the facility between 2011 and 2018.

It also quoted released prisoners as saying that at least 500 other detainees were executed between 2018 and 2021.

ADMSP also described how “salt rooms” were set up to serve as a rudimentary morgue to store bodies before they were transported to Tishreen Military Hospital in Damascus for registration and burial in cemeteries on military land. She added that the families of the detainees were never handed over their bodies.

Amnesty International used the phrase “human slaughterhouse” to describe Saydnaya and claimed that the executions had been authorized at the highest levels of Assad's government, and that such practices amounted to war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Assad's government rejected Amnesty International's claims as “baseless” and “devoid of truth”, insisting that all executions in Syria followed due process.