Hello, I'm Luke Jones from the BBC World Service. This is BBC OS Conversations today with

Syrian prisoners and their families. When Assad's regime fell, there was a defining moment when

rebels freed inmates from Syria's prisons. Now we're getting a sense of just how terrible those

places were, centres for torture,

starvation, murder. In our conversations, we'll hear from two survivors and bring together

families whose loved ones were arrested. They just came and took him from his office at the morning

and we didn't know anything about him if he is alive or dead for three years.

During his visit earlier this week to Sadnaya Prison near Damascus, the BBC's international editor

Jeremy Bowen described it as, quote, the dark and rotten heart of the Assad regime.

Since the civil war started in the country in 2011, it's estimated that some 30,000 people were killed in that one prison.

We may never know what happened to many of the 100,000 people, men, women and even children

who disappeared into the prison system under Assad's rule, many of them for simply expressing

their opposition to the regime. I should say that before we hear our conversations, you might find

some of the stories and experiences our guests share upsetting. Our first conversation is with two

people who were detained in Syria, and because we felt it was so important to hear what they had to say,

we're going to share almost all of the recording we made with them.

Omar now lives in Sweden.

He was 15 years old when he was imprisoned.

And Noor, who's now living in the UK, spent a year in Syrian prison in 2014.

My colleague Mark Lowen asked Nor first of all for his reaction to

the fall of Assad. I was crying. I was literally crying for hours. I didn't sleep that night

because when the news were coming and saw Umawiyin square in the middle of Damascus, that was a miracle.

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