The top UN human rights official is calling for tens of thousands of detainees to be released from Syria's prisons and for torturers and executioners to be brought to justice as part of a lasting peace.
Former Syrian detainees also testified before the UN Human Rights Council on Tuesday about their suffering and concern for men, women and children still in custody of the government or of extremist groups including al-Nusra and Islamic State.
"Today in a sense the entire country has become a torture-chamber; a place of savage horror and absolute injustice," said UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra'ad al-Hussein.
"Ensuring accountability, establishing the truth and providing reparations must happen if the Syrian people are ever to find reconciliation and peace," he told the Geneva forum, which met on the eve of the sixth anniversary of the first peaceful protests against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
The Syrian government delegation did not attend but has denied allegations of systematic torture. The envoy from Russia, its main ally, called the event a "waste of valuable time".
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Noura Al-Ameer al-Jizawi, an activist and former detainee, cited the case of Syrian mother Ranya Abbasi and her six children, missing since their arrest in 2012, and also that of Rasha Shurbaji, who was freed last month with her children after four years in jail where she gave birth.
Paulo Pinheiro, chairman of the UN Commission of Inquiry, noted that its 2016 report found that the scale of deaths in prisons indicated that the Assad government was responsible for "extermination as a crime against humanity".
The government detains 87 per cent of those in custody, or 92,000 of the total 106,000, said Fadel Abdul Ghani, executive director of the Syrian Network for Human Rights.
Many suffer "horrendous acts of torture", he said.
