"God, there is light"

TV team finds prisoner in Assad’s hellhole

The lock to the cell had to be shot open before the TV team could enter the cell - where the inconspicuous ceiling then moved.(Bild: Screenshot: CNN)

The TV team led by CNN journalist Clarissa Ward was actually searching with rebels for traces of the American Austin Tice, who is still missing in Syria. But then they made a shocking discovery in an abandoned prison.

In a locked cell and wrapped in a blanket, they found a prisoner who had been left behind days after the fall of Assad.

Man claimed: "I am a civilian"
The dramatic rescue took place when Ward and a Syrian rebel opened a locked cell in an abandoned prison in Damascus and came across the visibly weakened, distraught man. "I am a civilian," he pleaded for mercy upon his discovery.

Darkness, no water, no food
The man, a father from Homs, reported that he had been locked up for three months without a window. After his guards fled during the fall of Damascus, he waited for days without food or water.

The CNN video shows him clinging to the arm of the journalist who finally led him to freedom. When he saw daylight, he gasped for air and kept repeating: "Oh God, there's light."

End to numerous torture prisons?
The man's story is just one of many tragedies that the Assad regime has inflicted on imprisoned civilians over the years. Human rights organizations have documented cruel torture, rape and mass executions in Assad's prisons.

The Saidnaya prison, which Amnesty International described as a "slaughterhouse", is particularly well-known - up to 13,000 people are said to have been executed here between 2011 and 2015.

With the fall of the Assad regime last weekend, many relatives and rebels entered the prisons to rescue survivors. The return to freedom and light remains a long, painful journey for many victims of the regime.