At least 100,000 dead: Human rights activists exhume victims of Assad's regime
Photo: exhumation of mass graves of victims of Assad's regime in Syria (Getty Images)
The head of a Syrian human rights organization based in the US, Mouaz Moustafa, reported the discovery of a mass grave outside Damascus containing at least 100,000 bodies, Reuters reports.
The human rights activist stated that the victims were killed during the rule of Syria's ousted dictator, Bashar al-Assad.
The burial site is located in the al Qutayfah area, about 40 kilometers north of the Syrian capital. According to Moustafa, this is one of five mass graves he has managed to identify in recent years.
"One hundred thousand is the most conservative estimate," the activist emphasized, noting that the actual number of victims could be significantly higher.
Moustafa added that among the dead, there may be not only Syrians but also foreigners, including citizens of the United States and the United Kingdom.
He stressed that the number of burial sites known to him may be incomplete and expressed confidence that new evidence of crimes against humanity committed during the Syrian war would be uncovered.
According to Moustafa, the bodies were transported to the burial sites using Damascus's municipal funeral service vehicles. Staff members assisted in unloading the bodies from refrigerated trucks.
Moustafa noted that bulldozer drivers were repeatedly ordered to "squish the bodies down to fit them in and then cover them with dirt."
He added that the mass graves are currently unprotected and stressed the need to safeguard them for further investigations.
Reuters notes that it has not yet been able to verify these claims independently.
Victims of Assad's regime
Since the start of the Syrian civil war in 2011, when protests against Bashar al-Assad's rule were brutally suppressed, it is estimated that hundreds of thousands of people have died. Millions more were forced to flee their homes, and the country suffered significant destruction.
Many missing Syrians remain unaccounted for, fueling suspicions about the existence of other mass burial sites across the country.
Throughout this period, Assad's regime, along with its allies in Russia, consistently denied the existence of repression in Syria.
In December 2024, Bashar al-Assad's regime was toppled following an offensive by opposition forces on Damascus. On December 8, the opposition seized the capital, forcing Assad to flee to Moscow, where he was granted asylum.
The collapse of Assad's regime marked the end of over 50 years of rule by his family in Syria.
Find out why Assad's regime crumbled so quickly and what lies ahead in the full RBC-Ukraine report.
