13,000 People Have Died Under Torture in Syrian Government Prisons

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reports that since the beginning of protests against Bashar al-Assad's regime in Syria, approximately 13,000 people, including 108 children, have died under torture in the country's prisons. This statement from the opposition group was reflected in a report by AFP on Friday, March 13, stating that the youngest of these victims, among a total of 12,751, was only 12 years old. According to Rami Abdulrahman, head of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, 'Families of some of those who died under torture have been forced to sign documents stating that their loved ones were killed by rebels.' Abdulrahman also emphasized in an interview with AFP that this figure does not include 20,000 prisoners who have disappeared in Syrian government prisons. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, based in the UK, previously announced that around 200,000 people have been detained in Syria in connection with protests and the civil war over the past four years. The report states that the most notorious detention centers in Syria belong to the security apparatus of the Air Force and the Syrian Army. According to Abdulrahman, security forces starve prisoners to the brink of death, refuse to provide medication to sick prisoners, and subject them to psychological and physical torture. He states that these prisoners include political activists, rebels, and those who merely participated in protests. According to a report previously published by the United Nations Human Rights Observatory, Syrian security forces severely beat prisoners with batons and rods and hang them from ceilings. A recent report published by 21 international aid organizations states that sexual assault and abuse in Syrian government detention centers is common. The latest statistics on casualties from the Syrian civil war estimate the number to be over 210,000.