(MENAFN) On Tuesday, the Syrian Civil Defense, known as the "White Helmets," announced that they had submitted a formal request to the United Nations for maps of secret Syrian prisons under the regime of ousted President Bashar al-Assad. This comes after Assad fled Damascus on Sunday following the entry of Syrian opposition factions into the capital, marking the collapse of his rule. Raed al-Saleh, the head of the White Helmets, posted on platform X, stating, "We have requested through an international mediator that Russia pressure the criminal Bashar al-Assad to provide maps of the secret prisons and lists of detainees so we can locate them as soon as possible."

In a related development, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov confirmed in an interview with a U.S. network on Tuesday that Assad is in Russia, providing the first official acknowledgment of previous reports by Russian news agencies about his departure following the fall of his regime. Since the outbreak of the Syrian revolution in 2011, it is estimated that over 100,000 people have died in prison, with many of them tortured, particularly in Sednaya prison, located about 30 kilometers from Damascus. Amnesty International has documented numerous executions, describing Sednaya as a "human slaughterhouse" and denouncing it as part of a "policy of extermination."

After the regime's collapse, opposition factions announced the release of detainees from prisons, including Sednaya, one of Syria's largest and most notorious prisons for reports of torture. The White Helmets also announced on Tuesday that their search for detainees in undiscovered secret cells and basements within Sednaya prison had come to an end, as no further hidden areas had been uncovered. Many families of forcibly disappeared individuals continue to claim that their relatives are held in secret underground prisons, with thousands of Syrians still missing after years of the revolution, their whereabouts unknown.

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