Dynamite News Amnesty International: Mass slaughter by the Syrian authorities; at least 13,000 people hanged since 2011
The Amnesty International report referred to the killings as a "calculated campaign of extrajudicial execution".
Beirut: There has been an up rise in mass hangings by the Syrian authorities since 2011 where a report released by the Amnesty International says that at least 13,000 people have been hanged at a prison north of Damascus known to detainees as "the slaughterhouse".
The report further says that between the period from 2011 to 2015, 20 to 50 people were hanged each week at Saydnaya Prison in killings authorised by senior Syrian officials, including deputies of President Bashar al-Assad, and carried out by military police.
"They walked in the 'train' so they had their heads down and were trying to catch the shirt of the person in front of them. The first time I saw them, I was horrified. They were being taken to the slaughterhouse." -Hamid, a former detainee.
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A report released last year, Amnesty found that more than 17,000 people have died of torture and ill-treatment in custody across Syria since 2011, an average rate of more than 300 deaths a month.
These figures are comparable to battlefield deaths in Aleppo, one of the fiercest war zones in Syria, where 21,000 were killed in the province since 2011.
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The accounts in the report came from interviews with 31 former detainees and over 50 other officials and experts, including former guards and judges.
According to the findings, detainees were told they would be transferred to civilian detention centres but were taken instead to another building in the facility and hanged.