Syrian family tortured to death by regime

A woman from the Syrian city of Daraa has died after seeing images of her five sons who tortured and killed after being arrested by regime officers.

The images were taken between 2011 and 2013 by a former soldier who defected from the forces of the Syrian regime. The soldier, who has not been named, left President Bashar al-Assad's forces after becoming shocked at the torture of civilians.

By July 2014, he had succeeded in smuggling more than 55,000 images taken on his phone and documented about 11,000 deaths of prisoners during their imprisonment.

Nearly 13,000 Syrians, including 108 children, have been tortured to death in regime prisons. - SOHR report

A statement made by an independent human rights organisation, Daraa Martyrs, which documents those killed by the Syrian regime in the city, confirmed the torture of the brothers Jihad, Mohammed, Ahmed, Reda, and Khalid from the Yunus Surur family.

The Syrian regime arrested the five brothers on 6 August 2012, the organisation said, adding that a sixth brother was publicly executed the same day.

However the fate of the five brothers remained unknown until the images were released by the defector.

Syria Mubasher news network said on Tuesday that the mother of the men died of shock and grief after seeing the images.

Nearly 13,000 Syrians, including 108 children, have been tortured to death in regime prisons since the uprising began in March 2011, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights revealed in March.

The activist group added that the youngest of the 12,751 victims was 12.

The UK-based Observatory estimated 200,000 people had been arrested over the past four years.

The most notorious prisons include those operated by Syria's Air Force Intelligence and Military Intelligence services.

	The Yunus Surur brothers who were tortured and killed by regime

"Some of the families of those killed under torture were forced to sign statements that their loved ones had been killed by rebel groups," said Observatory head Rami Abdel Rahman.

Security officials starve prisoners to death, deny medicine to sick prisoners and subject them to psychological torture, Abdel Rahman, adding that those arrested included political activists, rebels and regular demonstrators.

Former prisoners have described the horror of the torture techniques employed by the regime.

According to a 2013 Human Rights Watch report, Syrian security officials beat prisoners with batons and metal rods as they hung from the ceiling by their wrists.

A report issued by 21 international aid organisations on 12 March said rape and sexual abuse were also used in regime prisons as a "method of war".

More than 210,000 people have been killed in Syria since the uprising began.