'My friend had his head cut off in front of his mother': Syrian man who fled with family to Cork recalls time in regime prison

He still bears the physical scars from when he was beaten with a metal pole there. He saw others tied to metal chairs as a candle burned below, forced to sit there, screaming in agony as their skin burned off.

Salt was rubbed in torture wounds in the prison. Children and women were raped. He was choked by prison guards and believed they would murder him.

“I’m shaking thinking about it,” Mr Wahbi, now safe with his wife and three-year-old son in Cork, said.

“My friend had his head cut off in front of his mother. My wife’s uncle was killed by Assad’s regime.

“The things I have seen, it is terrible. The cruelty. The violence. Assad was the devil.” 

Mr Wahbi said that he was jailed for refusing to join Assad’s army. He managed to escape with approximately 15 prisoners when one of them grabbed a security guard’s Kalashnikov assault rifle and they fled.

He sold his home, his car and all his belongings to get the money to flee Syria with his wife and child. He now has nowhere to return to, he said.

Mr Wahbi has been in Ireland for one-and-a-half years and is waiting for his asylum application to be processed.

But Justice Minister Helen McEntee announced this week that asylum applications from Syrians would be paused following the ousting of the murderous Assad regime.

“The Minister for Justice Helen McEntee has said that the International Protection Office has temporarily paused the issuing of final determinations while the situation in Syria is kept under review,” a statement from the Justice Department said.

“We heard that they will stop processing our applications,” Mr Wahbi said.

“But it is still very dangerous there. People who had their mothers, their children killed by the Assad regime are now going after the people in his military.

People from Assad’s military have not been jailed, they are free in their communities with people whose families they killed. It’s dangerous.

“And it will take many years for the country to recover, so much has been destroyed. So many people have been killed."

Mr Wahbi said he feels that it is unsafe for his family to return. They are integrating into Irish society and want to contribute.

“We really appreciate Ireland giving us a safe place to live," he said. “I have been working in construction and I volunteer. Our son is in preschool.

“My wife has done courses in hair and nails and beauty. She has friends here now. We have all learned English.” 

Syrians in Ireland have rejoiced at the flight of the Assads from their homeland this week. But Mr Wahbi said that the country is still very unstable.

“We hope Syria can recover soon,” he said. “But we can’t go back right now. There is no government, no police.” 

Fiona Hurley of Nasc migrant and refugee rights group said the government’s decision to pause asylum applications from Syrians “seems really premature”.

“We have no idea of what the new regime will look like,” Ms Hurley said. 

And we are concerned about women and what rights they will have there. There are still so many unknowns. 

Syrian-born Ahmed Saqqa now runs a popular restaurant in Shandon in Cork City called the Four Liars after the famous clocktower, the Shandon Bells, that soars up into the city’s skyline above it.

“People are very happy [about the ousting of Assad], it’s amazing after more than 50 years. But we don’t know what will happen now. There is no government. It’s very fast to change [the asylum processing system].” 

Syria is now grappling with major instability and change.

Some 1.1 million people, mostly women and children, have been internally displaced since November 27 when rebels launched the offensive that ousted President Bashar al-Assad, according to the United Nations.

The offensive was led by the Islamist Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) group and its allies. Hayat Tahrir al-Sham is an offshoot of al-Qaida although it cut ties with the militant Islamic group which is deemed a terrorist organisation in many countries in 2016.

The Sunni Muslim group evolved to appeal to a wider audience within Syria and began to focus more on politics and government than global jihad. But it's core ideology remains rooted in jihadism.

Thousands of Syrians, mostly Shia Muslims, have fled to Lebanon since the Sunni group ousted Bashar al-Assad. Many say they fear persecution despite assurances from the Islamist group that they will be safe.