Forgotten by the west, Syria’s IS prisons are under threat as militant group mobilises

Inmates accused of being an Islamic State fighters sit inside a cell at the Syrian Democratic Forces-run Gweiran Prison, now called Panorama, in Hassakeh, northeastern Syria Photograph: Bernat Armangué/AP

With each gust of wind came a wave of body odour, the stench of two-dozen men wafting through the small hatch of the prison cell’s heavy iron door. Inside, gaunt prisoners clad in brown jumpsuits sat on thin gray mattresses.

Six years have passed since the end of the so-called caliphate of the Islamic State, but to the 4,500 men held inside Panorama prison in north-east Syria, little has changed since their initial capture.