DAMASCUS, Syria - Many people gathered in Marjeh Square of Damascus on Sunday, calling on relevant authorities to find members of their families who had gone missing during Bashar al-Assad’s regime, which was toppled recently. 

Each of them was holding a portrait of their loved one, hoping someone knew something about their whereabouts.

Some of the people in the pictures have been missing for over a decade.

Marjeh Square and the infamous Sednaya prison have become symbolic sites where the families of the missing people gather, trying to find any useful information they can obtain about their missing friends and families. 

Hopeful civilians are searching through thousands of paper scraps scattered on the ground that former prison authorities used to register the names of the inmates.

Most of the searches come up without a result.

Sednaya prison had been used to hold thousands of prisoners, both civilians and anti-government rebels, as well as political opponents.

Following the fall of Assad’s regime last week by a coalition of rebels led by the Islamist Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), tens of thousands of prisoners were freed from Sednaya and other prisons across the country. The remains of thousands of others killed by torture or hanging are yet to be identified.