Days after the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime, a Syrian man living in London visited one of Syria’s most notorious prisons – al-Khatib, a place notorious as “hell on earth” among survivors. , revealed the full extent of his horrific detention. For years, Abdullah al Noufal kept the details of his brutal treatment hidden, but in an emotional moment, he shared the truth with his wife, Douna Haj Ahmed, as news of prisoners escaping from regime forces circulated.
The Syrian civil war, which began in 2011 following peaceful protests against Assad’s authoritarian regime, has turned into a devastating conflict that has displaced millions of people and left countless individuals victims of the regime’s brutal crackdown. Al-Khatib prison in Damascus became a symbol of this brutality, where thousands of detainees were tortured, ill-treated and killed by Assad’s security forces.
For Douna, who lost her brothers in regime detention centers, this revelation was painful but also eye-opening. Although she knew her husband had suffered, she had never heard the full story of what he endured. Abdullah, 36, always kept his traumatic memories to himself, and was unwilling to share the horror of his experience. But as photos of prisoners escaping Syria’s clutches circulated, Abdullah finally opened up, saying, “This is where I was arrested, this is where I was arrested.”
His wife recalled how Abdullah cried and said, “I could be one of them. I could have died.” Douna shared with the BBC, “I think when they saw it, they thought it had stopped.” “Now we want people to hear what the Syrian people went through. “
Abdullah’s journey began in July 2013 when he was working as a storekeeper for the International Committee of the Red Cross in Damascus. After participating in the early anti-regime protests in 2011, he distanced himself from them as the conflict became more violent and complex. However, his past activism came back to haunt him when he was arrested.
On that fateful day 11 years ago, Abdullah was detained at a checkpoint on the outskirts of Damascus. Blindfolded, handcuffed, and taken to a military facility, he was held in solitary confinement for three days, where he endured extreme isolation and brutal beatings.
“I remember it was very dark for three days,” Abdullah recalled. “I couldn’t hear any sounds. It was very dark. You feel very alone.”
Ultimately, he was transferred to Al-Khatib prison, a facility where thousands of detainees were subjected to unimaginable torture. According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, approximately 60,000 people were tortured or killed in these prisons. “When I started looking around everywhere, people were standing almost naked,” he says, recalling the continuing cycle of suffering and death.
Diseases became widespread, and Abdullah saw many prisoners die from neglect and torture. “If you’re not tortured yourself, every minute they’ll take someone to check on them. They’ll come back to a room full of blood… Every time you touch someone they’ll scream because you’ve touched their wound “
In one of his darkest moments, Abdullah was tortured and forced to falsely confess to weapons transportation charges. He says of the ordeal, “Every minute it feels like you’re dying.” He says, “As long as you say, ‘I didn’t do it’, they will keep torturing you and they will take you to another stage of torture.”
After 12 difficult days, he managed to escape further torture by fabricating a story. “I was lucky to survive,” he admitted.
Fleeing Syria, Abdullah and Douna eventually found refuge in London. Abdullah said, “Finally we ended the regime. Now we are truly free.” “We can tell the whole story.”
