May 21, 2016

At least 60,000 people have died in Syrian government prisons over the past five years from torture or due to dire humanitarian conditions, including a lack of food, a monitor said Saturday.

The head of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group, Rami Abdel Rahman, said he compiled the toll from regime sources.

"Since March 2011, at least 60,000 people lost their lives to torture or to horrible conditions, notably the lack of medication or food, in regime detention centres," Abdel Rahman told AFP.

He said the highest number of deaths had been recorded in the infamous Saydnaya prison as well as detention centres run by Syria's notorious air force intelligence and state security forces.

Thousands of prisoners are held in the military-run Saydnaya prison, one of the country's largest detention centres located 30 kilometres (18 miles) north of Damascus.