Article content

When Yousef Al Horani woke up in the hospital in early 2013 he had no idea where he was or how he got there.

The last thing he remembered, he was still in the Syrian prison where he had been held and tortured for almost a year after he and two dozen others were inexplicably rounded up on the street and arrested.

We apologize, but this video has failed to load.

tap here to see other videos from our team. Try refreshing your browser, or Immigrant Services Society of B.C. opens new welcome centre in Surrey Back to video

“Basically, all types of tortures that you think of, we got it daily. Terrible things,” Al Horani said, his words translated by an Arabic-speaking settlement worker at the Immigrant Services Society of B.C. (ISS of B.C.).

Doctors told him that strangers had found his body on a pile of trash outside the prison. When they realized he was alive and that he had no identification, the strangers took him to a private hospital.

During the three months it took him to recover, Al Horani planned his escape, because he knew if government security forces found him he would be sent back to prison. He found out from a relative that his wife and five children had fled to Jordan while he was imprisoned, and paid a smuggler to take him there.