QUTAYFAH, Syria — An international war crimes prosecutor revealed on Tuesday (Dec 17) that evidence uncovered at mass grave sites in Syria highlights a state-sponsored "machinery of death" under former leader Bashar al-Assad. The prosecutor estimated that over 100,000 individuals were tortured and killed since 2013.
Stephen Rapp, a former U.S. ambassador for war crimes, spoke after inspecting mass grave sites in Qutayfah and Najha, located near Damascus. He remarked, “We have clear evidence of more than 100,000 people who were disappeared, tortured, and ultimately killed in this system.”
Rapp, who has previously led war crimes tribunals for Rwanda and Sierra Leone, likened the atrocities to those of the Nazi regime. “We haven’t witnessed anything like this since the Nazis,” he said. Rapp described the systematic state terror, involving secret police abducting citizens, jailers and interrogators employing starvation and torture, and workers operating trucks and bulldozers to dispose of the bodies. “It was a machinery of death,” he concluded.
The Syrian conflict, which began in 2011 after Assad’s violent suppression of protests escalated into war, has resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands. Both Assad and his late father, Hafez, have long faced accusations of extrajudicial killings, mass executions, and chemical weapons use. Assad, who fled to Moscow, has consistently denied the allegations, dismissing his critics as extremists.
Mass Graves and Testimonies
Mouaz Moustafa, head of the U.S.-based Syrian Emergency Task Force, estimated at least 100,000 bodies buried in Qutayfah alone. The International Commission on Missing Persons in The Hague reported evidence of up to 66 mass grave sites across Syria and received over 157,000 reports of missing individuals. DNA identification for the victims remains a significant challenge, requiring samples from relatives and skeletal remains.
Residents near Qutayfah, once a military base, described the methodical burial process. Refrigeration trucks delivered bodies to long trenches, under heavy security. Abb Khalid, a farmer near Najha cemetery, noted, “Anyone who got too close was buried alongside the bodies.” Locals in Qutayfah declined to speak openly, fearing retribution even after Assad’s fall. One resident referred to the area as a “place of horrors,” where children now play near sites of mass burials.
Satellite images analyzed by Reuters revealed large-scale digging at these sites from 2012 to 2022, with trenches and trucks visible in photos. Omar Hujeirati, a former anti-Assad protest leader, believes his detained family members, including two sons and four brothers, may be buried there. “Protesting was my sin,” he said, standing near a long trench.
Details about Syria’s mass graves surfaced in German court trials and U.S. congressional hearings in 2021 and 2023. A key witness, identified only as "the grave digger," testified about transporting and burying corpses at the Najha and Qutayfah sites. He recounted being ordered by intelligence officers to bury bodies brought in refrigeration trucks between 2011 and 2018.
The U.S. State Department confirmed its engagement with international bodies to ensure accountability and justice for the Syrian people.
Disclaimer: This image is taken from Reuters
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