Battling the ghost of torture in Syria

“I was taken to solitary confinement while my daughters were locked in another cell. I knew nothing about them," says Suha*, a 50-year-old woman who was detained in 2018 without charge and held for six years. “I didn’t care about the beatings I took, hoping that when the beating stopped, I would find out the fate of my daughters.”

Suha*, like hundreds of prisoners and detainees, gained her freedom when chains were broken and the gates of prisons were opened upon the fall of the former Syrian government in Syria in December 2024. Many of them spent years in detention under very harsh conditions, deprived of proper food and sometimes medical care, and exposed to endless cycles of physical and psychological ill treatment, as reported to MSF medical and mental health teams.

In response to the huge medical and mental health needs, MSF teams launched a program for survivors of ill treatment in Syria. The program was piloted in MSF’s existing project in Idlib governorate. MSF then opened a dedicated clinic in Damascus, located inside Al-Mujtahid hospital, later introducing the program in Kafr Batna in Eastern Ghouta, where most of our patients come from. The area was historically an opposition area and was besieged and heavily bombarded.

The clinic for survivors of ill treatment program offers general medical consultations with referrals to secondary and tertiary care, psychosocial support, and social work services which link patients to non-medical assistance through local organisations and associations offering support beyond the scope of MSF’s services.

“The mental health ramifications of detainment in Syria are quite alarming,” says Laura Guardiola, MSF Project Medical Referent in Damascus. “Being detained under unimaginable conditions of ill treatment that amount to physical and psychological torture has left deep and lasting wounds on former detainees and prisoners: wounds that require time, support, and care to begin healing.”

MSF is also working on reaching more women as the very low number of female patients in our cohort is worrying, and even fewer children are seeking treatment. Less than 15 per cent of the consultations were with a female patient in the first two months of the clinic’s activities in Damascus. Several female former detainees have survived sexual violence during detention, which might prevent them from seeking support, mainly due to stigma.

While people left the places where they were detained to a new reality, they are still living in the same country, and they are reminded of their horrific experiences in their

daily lives, which makes reintegration in society very challenging. Suha*talks about how she will never forget the Mezzeh tunnel in Damascus, which is where she realised she was not going to be returned to her home unharmed and will always be reminded of her experiences when she passes through it.

“That tunnel absolutely had no light at its end,” she says. “I often think of revenge. Abnormal reactions to normal actions have become my norm. I do not want feelings of hatred and bitterness to overcome me. It hurts me and not other people. I would like to rid myself of all that my experience left in me.”

Suha* is one of 113 patients in the survivors of ill treatment program MSF runs through the clinic and the same services are offered in two other MSF projects. She is following up with our survivors of ill treatment team, and though there will be a long road ahead she is beginning her healing journey bit by bit. Our team believes her strong will to live, though shaken during her detention, never went away, and she is restarting her life for the sake of her daughters.