More than 17,000 people killed in Syrian prisons

Syria: More than 17,000 detainees have died in Syrian government detention facilities since the country's up rising against President Bashar Assad began in 2011 as confirmed in a report released by an international human rights group on Thursday.

According to report by Amnesty International, it estimated that more than 17,723 people have died in custody in Syria between March 2011 and the end of 2015.

The body said frequent methods of torture included forcibly contorting the victim's body into a tyre and flogging on the soles of the feet.

Electric shocks, rape and sexual violence, the pulling out of fingernails or toenails, scalding with hot water and cigarette burns were also used by authorities as methods of torture.

More than 250,000 people has been killed and almost half of the country's population displace since the conflicts began.