Syria has become 'torture chamber': UN rights chief

The U.N. rights chief warned March 14 that a "tidal wave of bloodshed" over more than six years of war in Syria had effectively turned the country into a "torture chamber." 

"As the conflict enters its seventh year, this is the worst man-made disaster the world has seen since World War II," Agence France-Presse quoted Zeid Ra'ad al-Hussein, the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, as saying about the conflict that has killed 320,000.

Millions forced to flee their homes since the conflict erupted in March 2011, as protests against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad morphed into war following a government crackdown.  

In an address to the U.N. Human Rights Council, Zeid said his office had been refused access to the country and that no international human rights observers had been admitted to places where "very probably tens of thousands of people are currently held. They are places of torture."

"Indeed, the entire conflict, this immense tidal wave of bloodshed and atrocity, began with torture," he said, citing as an example the torture of a group of children by security officials over anti-government graffiti six years ago.  

"Today, in a sense, the entire country has become a torture chamber, a place of savage horror and absolute injustice," he said.

The U.N. and other organizations have repeatedly accused the Syrian authorities of widespread torture.

Amnesty International said in a report last August that an estimated 17,700 people had died from torture in custody since the beginning of the conflict, while the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights put the number at a minimum of 60,000.

Many others have been executed, and far more have simply disappeared, according to the reports.  

"We...