The video, believed to show the women’s block at the prison near Damascus, depicts the toddler exiting one of the cramped cells in a facility widely referred to as a “human slaughterhouse.”
As the women are released, they are reportedly told, “Bashar al-Assad has fallen, don’t be afraid.”
Sednaya prison has been notorious for its brutal conditions, with reports of torture and human rights abuses. In 2017, the United States claimed to have found evidence of a crematorium used to dispose of the bodies of prisoners, according to Reuters.
Shortly after the regime’s collapse, reports surfaced that Bashar al-Assad and his family had fled Syria and sought asylum in Russia.
Russian state news agencies confirmed that the al-Assads were granted asylum on humanitarian grounds. Interfax quoted an unnamed source who stated they arrived in Russia from Syria.
US President Joe Biden commented that he did not know Assad’s exact location but noted that rumors suggested he was in Moscow. Biden condemned the Assad regime for its atrocities, saying it had “brutalized, tortured, and killed literally hundreds of thousands of innocent Syrians.”
Around the world, Syrians are celebrating the fall of Assad’s regime after 14 years of civil war. Demonstrations erupted in cities like London, Berlin, Beirut, Istanbul, Paris, and Manchester, where people waved flags and expressed their joy.
In Damascus, crowds raided Assad’s abandoned presidential palace, taking luxury goods and posing for selfies with toppled statues of the dictator.
In Manchester City Centre, many Syrians who had fled Assad’s rule expressed their excitement to return to a “new Syria.”
For years, the regime used chemical weapons, imprisoned dissidents, and killed thousands of civilians, making this moment of freedom a deeply emotional one for many.
