Photo by Reuters
 

Even after the guards got caught stacking naked prisoners like a hairy, human-rights-violating cheerleading team in 2004, very little changed in the awful conditions at Abu Ghraib. The prison had to be completely emptied in March 2006 to remove it from “worst place on earth” status.

Sana and her son Saleh spent a few months as prisoners there before it was shut down, and then they told us their stories and then we cried.

hey detained my husband—he was a Baath Party member. He died from a heart attack, which was caused by his torture. We took his body from the prison in Abu Ghraib. After the funeral ceremony, the police knocked down the door to my house. They were fully armed and took my eldest son from me like barbarians.

e used to live in Samara before the invasion, but we left for Baghdad afterward. My father was an ambassador in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He was detained on December 5, 2005, and was severely tortured. He had a heart attack and died. He was 73.