BY L.K.A. (Full name not disclosed to protect her identity)
“I was picked up and detained in Aleppo prisons for about a year. After which, I was transferred to Adra prison where I languished for more than another year. It was at Adra where I learned that my husband was also brought to this same prison. When they allowed me to see him I was horrified….his situation was so bad that I could hardly recognize the person who was before my very eyes…I realized from his looks that he would die that day, and the next day I was told that my husband was dead.
The next day, the guards of the prison gathered us in one place, and there were 
men, children and women detainees, and they forced the men to undress and then torture them, some of them were dying during torture, and after they finished with the men it was our turn.
They tortured us and children under the age of 12 in order to extract confessions from their mothers, and torturing elders to force them to provide information about the whereabouts of their children who were under suspicion by the regime.
After living in constant fear and torture for three years, I was finally taken to the court for a trial….I was sentenced to six more years in prison. In regime controlled Syria, everything is so completely corrupt. Being imprisoned is all about extorting as much money as possible from a prisoner’s family. So, my family offered a large sum of money to these criminals in the regime to arrange for my release.
They finally let me leave the prison but, after a short while, they asked for more money with the threat of taking me back to prison for another 6 years.
When I heard that they had come to my house looking for me it was then I knew that this nightmare would never end and that immediately I had to do whatever I could to leave Syria. So, I quickly collected my three children and whatever possessions I could carry and managed to successfully leave the country”
L.K.A. is the heroine of this story, and it is just one of tens of thousands of similar tragic stories, too many without positive endings.
This narrative was told to a correspondent who still resides in Syria and whose name must also be withheld to protect his identity.
Bridge of Peace Syria 