Cells now emptied of their occupants, at Sednaya prison in Syria. (Credit: Mohammad Yassin/L'Orient-Le Jour)
She weaves through the crowd — a tide of men, old and young, wounded and armed fighters — paying no attention to the chaos around her. She crosses the massive gate and plunges into the familiar depths of a place she can barely recognize.Hanin scans each room, searching every corner, struggling to make sense of what she sees. She picks up a page from an inventory lying on the ground, examines it carefully, and places it back on a ledge with great care. Earlier that morning, she had visited the morgues of Damascus’ main hospitals.In 2018, the young nurse was offered ‘a golden job’ thanks to a connection — weekly pay that could cover two months of rent. The catch? It was in a prison. She accepted.On her first day at Sednaya, then just 21 years old, she saw nothing amiss. Yes, the place was grim, the armed guards intimidating, and she was...
She weaves through the crowd — a tide of men, old and young, wounded and armed fighters — paying no attention to the chaos around her. She crosses the massive gate and plunges into the familiar depths of a place she can barely recognize.Hanin scans each room, searching every corner, struggling to make sense of what she sees. She picks up a page from an inventory lying on the ground, examines it carefully, and places it back on a ledge with great care. Earlier that morning, she had visited the morgues of Damascus’ main hospitals.In 2018, the young nurse was offered ‘a golden job’ thanks to a connection — weekly pay that could cover two months of rent. The catch? It was in a prison. She accepted.On her first day at Sednaya, then just 21 years old, she saw nothing amiss. Yes, the place was grim, the armed guards intimidating,...