Baladi News
She spent six years in the detentions of Assad regime, after being arrested at a checkpoint on charges of dealing with the militants, securing dissident officers and helping in the blast Jisr al-Shughour.
"Rania Abdel Hakim," one of thousands of Syrian detainees who survived the cells of Assad, tells Baladi News about her experience of six years of detention and torture in the prisons of the regime.
"I was on my way to Damascus. One of the regime's checkpoints stopped me and told me they needed me for two hours only. I stayed in prison for six years, and I saw what I have never expected that any human can do," says Rania from Homs.
"I was arrested in March 2011, on charges of dealing with militants, securing the dissident officers, and bombing Jisr al-Shughour. I was with my three children; Mohammed, 6, Elaf 4, and Maryam 9 months, they were detained with me for six months in the detention center of "Deir Shamil", and they saw all kinds of torment with their eyes, and saw how Assad forces were torturing me, this was harder for me than death."
Rania said: "I was taken to different intelligence branches in Damascus, I moved between military and Air Intelligence. I saw things that are indescribable and can never be imagined, starting with rape, burning, and nails removing." All the detainees were wishing to die; the torture did not stop and they continued to torture us day and night. "
"The number of women I have seen and heard their voices during the six years in all intelligence branches was more than one thousand, and most of them died under torture," says Rania.
"I was released in late 2017. They left me in a neighborhood in Damascus without hijab, with a torn coat and without shoes. The burns on my body were seen clearly, I didn't not know where I am, or if they have really released me, because they tortured me and beat me until I lost consciousness. I found myself lying in a neighborhood in Damascus. I didn't not know where I to go. One man took me to his house and took care of me until I got stronger. I started looking for my children, until I found them in one of the regime's orphanages. "
"I tried for months to get them to know me and recognize me, but they did not recognize me because when the regime arrested me I was 24 years old and they were young," Rania explains.
"Now I'm 30 years old and after pain, torture and oppression, how will they know me?"
"After all, They did recognize me, and this was my first glimmer of hope in life. When I went to Homs to look for my family, my neighbors told me that all my family was martyred, my mother, father, husband, brothers, some of them were slaughtered in al-Hawleh, and some died in the bombardment, while the rest were displaced to Eastern Ghouta, where they died in the chemical attack of the regime on Ghouta.
“I couldn’t handle living in the regime areas anymore, so I decided to leave for the northern countryside of Aleppo. I arrived a week ago, the people here welcomed me, I felt they were part of my family," adds Rania.
Rania concluded saying: "My last message to every revolutionist and to anyone who went out against the regime is: There are thousands of women in the regime's prisons screaming day and night, suffering what no human can imagine, it’s your responsibility to free them, because they were arrested for the sake of this revolution ".