In the leading specialist journal “Fatshimetrie”, harrowing images of mass graves unearthed in Syria reveal the remains of innocent civilians who were victims of Bashar al-Assad’s regime. These gruesome discoveries help to lift the veil on the scale of the atrocities committed during the brutal rule of the former Syrian dictator.
Syrian families, more than two weeks after Assad fled and his regime fell, remain without answers about the fate of their loved ones following their detention by Assad’s secret police. Testimonies collected by the Syrian Emergency Task Force (SETF), a US-based anti-Assad activist organization, report that hundreds of thousands of people “tortured to death by the Assad regime” may be buried in a mass grave east of Damascus.
SETF Executive Director Mouaz Moustafa was finally able to visit these alleged sites after Assad’s fall. The alleged mass grave in the town of Qutayfah, about 45 kilometers from Damascus, is described by the SETF as being marked by trenches 6 to 7 meters deep, 3 to 4 meters wide, and 50 to 150 meters long.
Testimonies gathered at the site report that trucks carrying more than 150 bodies each arrived regularly to bury these victims between 2012 and 2018. Workers described how intelligence officers forced them to use bulldozers to compress the bodies to make them easier to bury, before digging a new trench.
The search also uncovered more than 20 bodies in a mass grave north of Izraa, in Daraa governorate, southern Syria. Videos show men digging up bones, as well as covered bodies placed on the ground, and a bulldozer clearing the earth.
The International Commission on Missing Persons (ICMP) estimates that there are approximately 150,000 people missing in Syria. A man nicknamed “the Undertaker” testified at a trial in Germany that he was recruited by the Assad regime to bury hundreds of bodies in mass graves. Victims were transported several times a week from various detention centers to these burial sites on the outskirts of Damascus.
SETF’s Moustafa says at least eight mass grave sites have been identified in Syria and calls for international experts to exhume and identify the victims. Spokesperson for the UN Special Envoy for Syria, Jennifer Fenton, stresses the importance of securing documentation related to detention sites and mass graves to help families seek justice and accountability.
The heartbreaking testimonies of families like that of Hazem Dakel, originally from Idlib and now living in Sweden, highlight the anguish of those who lost loved ones under the Assad regime. Despite the fall of the dictator, sadness persists among grieving families who are still waiting to learn the fate of their missing loved ones.
These revelations about mass graves in Syria highlight the horror of crimes committed under the Assad regime and the need for justice for the countless victims of this dark period in Syrian history.