'I met two Saydnaya prisoners who did not know their own names'
Gabriela Pomeroy
BBC Live reporter
Sharvan Ibesh visited Saydanaya prison yesterday to look for his friend's father
I've been speaking to a man who visited Saydnaya prison at midnight yesterday to try to find his friend's father who has been held in the prison for 13 years.
Dr Sharvan Ibesh - chief executive of the NGO Bahar, which does humanitarian work in Syria - did not find him.
"It was very disappointing and we got no information," Ibesh says.
When he arrived at the prison, it was was "chaos", he says. "Hundreds of people were coming out of the prison and we were told we could not come in because so many people were getting in the way of the rescuers".
"My friend is so upset because for 13 years she dreamed of finding her father. We were told that many prisoners have been moved to another location."
Ibesh also visited the al-Salam mosque in Damascus yesterday, where hundreds of prisoners from Saydnaya were taken to be looked after and families were also visiting to see if they could find their relatives.
Ibesh says he met two men at the mosque who had been held for several years in the prison.
"They were disorientated," says Ibesh. "They don’t even know the time zone."
"People around them were asking 'what's your name' and 'how old are you'?, but they could not even answer those questions," Ibesh says.
It was hard to tell how old they were from looking at them. "The men were totally lost, they were just starring ahead," Ibesh says.
Sharvan Ibesh sent us this photo of the mosque in Damascus where prisoners released from Saydnaya are being taken to meet their families
