Khalil Aindoura (R) and his father Mounir in Barzeh, Syria, Dec. 16, 2024. (Credit: Emmanuel Haddad/OLJ)
Khalil Aindoura’s first instinct when he heard gunfire at 3 a.m. in his cell at Sednaya prison was to assume the guards had come to finish them off. He had no way of knowing that it was actually rebel forces, firing several rounds to open the iron doors of the infamous prison that Sunday, Dec. 8, at dawn.“When they reached mine, I gripped my blanket with both hands and braced myself to die; but then they said, ‘Don’t be afraid, we’re with the Free Syrian Army (FSA),’” he said on Dec. 16, from the house of his uncle, Abu Ahmad, in Barzeh, on the northeastern outskirts of Damascus.Pale and gaunt at 32 years old, Aindoura is one of the few Syrians to return from a place where no one was ever meant to reappear. The night the regime of Bashar al-Assad fell, he believed death had finally come for him — not as a punishment, but as a release...
Khalil Aindoura’s first instinct when he heard gunfire at 3 a.m. in his cell at Sednaya prison was to assume the guards had come to finish them off. He had no way of knowing that it was actually rebel forces, firing several rounds to open the iron doors of the infamous prison that Sunday, Dec. 8, at dawn.“When they reached mine, I gripped my blanket with both hands and braced myself to die; but then they said, ‘Don’t be afraid, we’re with the Free Syrian Army (FSA),’” he said on Dec. 16, from the house of his uncle, Abu Ahmad, in Barzeh, on the northeastern outskirts of Damascus.Pale and gaunt at 32 years old, Aindoura is one of the few Syrians to return from a place where no one was ever meant to reappear. The night the regime of Bashar al-Assad fell, he believed death had finally come for him — not as a punishment, but...
