Syrian authorities have killed at least 13,000 people since the start of the 2011 uprising in mass hangings at a prison north of Damascus known to detainees as "the slaughterhouse," Amnesty International said in a report on Tuesday.
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A survivor, Omar Alshogre, recalls:
At one point, Alshogre was called out by his guards "for execution," he said. He was brought before a military trial and told not to raise his gaze at the judge, who asked him how many soldiers he had killed.
When he said none, the judge spared him.
Death in Saydnaya was always present, "like the air," Alshogre said.
Once when he was deprived of food for two days, a cellmate handed him his food ration — and died days later.
"This is someone who gave me his life," he said. Another cellmate died of diarrhea, also common in the prison.
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"Death is the simplest thing. It was the most hoped for because it would have spared us a lot: hunger, thirst, fear, pain, cold, thinking," he added.
"Thinking was so hard. It could also kill," said Alshogre, who keeps a photo of one of his tormentors on the wall of his home.