“The operator of the bulldozer excavator shared how intelligence officers coerced laborers into using the bulldozer to flatten and condense bodies to facilitate burial and make space for the next line or trench,” Moustafa recounted. Reports surfaced on Monday of over 20 bodies discovered in a mass grave located north of Izraa in the Daraa governorate of southern Syria. Videos released by the Agence France-Presse depict men excavating and extracting bones from the soil. One video displays two rows of covered bodies strewn on the ground with a bulldozer delicately excavating the top layer of soil.
An estimated 150,000 individuals in Syria remain unaccounted for, with many believed to have been abducted or detained by the Assad regime or its associates, as reported by the International Commission on Missing Persons (ICMP). CNN cannot independently verify this figure.
In 2020, a man known as “the Gravedigger” testified in a German court that he was recruited by the Assad regime to inter hundreds of bodies in mass graves, according to the ICMP. The bodies, originating from various Syrian detention facilities, exhibited severe signs of torture and mutilation. The witness disclosed escorting multiple trucks, laden with anywhere from 300 to 700 corpses, to mass graves in Qatayfah north of Damascus and al-Najha to the south, four times weekly. The bodies were only distinguishable by numbers etched onto their chests or foreheads.
Moustafa from SETF revealed the existence of at least eight mass grave sites in Syria and urged international experts to assist in the exhumation and identification of bodies. Members of Syria’s White Helmets civil defense were seen working at a mass grave site, where remains of individuals believed to have been killed by the deposed regime of Bashar al-Assad were uncovered.
Jenifer Fenton, spokesperson for the United Nations’ special envoy to Syria, emphasized the critical need to secure documentation related to detention sites and mass graves to aid families in their quest for justice and accountability. She stressed the importance of prioritizing the identification of missing individuals to provide families with the closure and acknowledgment they yearn for.
One such grieving family member is Hazem Dakel from Idlib, now residing in Sweden. Dakel recounted the arrest of his uncle Najeeb in 2012, whose death was confirmed later on. His brother Amer was detained the following year, with former detainees from the notorious Saydnaya prison alleging his disappearance in mid-April 2015 following torture. Despite the family’s certainty of Amer’s death due to torture in Saydnaya, the regime never acknowledged his demise.
As celebrations ensued over Assad’s downfall, families of the missing contended with profound sorrow. Dakel reflected on the mourning of children by families, underscoring the pain amidst the triumph of resistance against the regime. Amidst the relief of the regime’s collapse, questions lingered for families, wondering about the.
