Reports of thousands of people trapped in the underground cells of Syria’s notorious Sednaya prison – 30km north of Damascus – have been making the rounds online and in the media in recent hours, while jihadists have swept across the country, freeing prisoners from government prisons.

Thousands of opposition supporters are said to have been tortured and executed under the Assad regime in the Sednaya undergrounds, while the survivors survived in squalid, inhumane conditions.

The rebels have freed many prisoners but he is asking for help to get to the prison’s basement.

The Syrian civil defense group, known as the White Helmets, wrote to X that it was investigating reports of survivors and had deployed five “specialized emergency teams” to the prison, aided by a guide familiar with the underground prison’s intricate layout.

Rebel authorities in Damascus province said efforts were continuing to free prisoners, some of whom “almost died of suffocation” from a lack of ventilation.

In fact, they are appealing on social media to former soldiers and workers in Assad’s prisons to give rebel forces the codes to the electronic underground doors, as they have been unable to open them.

According to the BBC, nearly 100,000 inmates can be seen on the prison’s closed circuit surveillance screens.

In videos that have been made public, the attempts of the White Helmets organization to gain access to lower sections of the prison can be seen. In it, a man is seen using some kind of pole to knock on a lower wall, revealing a dark space behind.

Other footage from a women’s release video posted by the Turkey-based Association of Detained and Missing in Sednaya Prisons (ADMSP) shows prisoners being freed – including a mother with her young child.

“He (Assad) has fallen. Don’t be afraid,” says a voice in the video, trying to reassure the female prisoners. Also, video verified by AFP showed Syrian civilians rushing to see if their relatives were among those freed from Sednaya.