When Human Rights Watch (HRW) visited Syria in the days after the fall of the Assad regime, they found a mass grave 40 kilometers north of Damascus with human remains scattered over a large area.
– This has long been an ongoing investigation. Then suddenly out of nowhere we could actually travel to the scene of the massacre and the killing,” said Sam Dubberley, director of technology, investigative rights at Human Rights Watch
The location where the grave was found matches a leaked video from 2013 that HRW has reviewed. It shows how eleven blindfolded men are shot and then pushed into the grave where about ten other bodies are already lying. It is the Syrian regime and militia forces loyal to the regime that are suspected of being behind it.
– Murders and executions are very serious crimes, and if we can prove that the regime was behind them, it can all constitute a crime against humanity.
Dubberley emphasizes that it is too early to be able to say how many people are in the mass grave that have been found, but according to the American human rights organization Syrian Emergency Task Force, which is also on the spot where the mass grave was discovered, it is about at least 100,000 dead. At the same time, around 150,000 Syrians are missing after the long civil war in the country.
– We believe that it was protesters critical of the regime who were taken away by local militia, government forces and militia, and killed. They were shot, pushed into the grave and then we believe their bodies were set on fire, says Dubberley.
“Reasonable to assume that there are more mass graves”
Mass graves have also been found elsewhere in Syria since the fall of the regime on December 8. Among other things, around ten graves were found on Monday in the southern parts of the country, writes the Turkish news agency Anatolia.
– It is reasonable to assume that there are more mass graves in the country. This is a tactic the regime has used to cover up its crimes, says Dubberley.
What will happen after the discovery is difficult to say. In the former Yugoslavia, evidence was gathered from mass graves that later allowed individuals to be convicted of crimes.
– We hope that the same thing can happen in this case. At the same time, we are far from it and the legal process is taking a long time but it shows why it is so important to gather evidence now while it still exists.