A mass grave found outdoors of Damascus may comprise the our bodies of a minimum of 100,000 individuals killed by the ousted Bashar Assad regime, the pinnacle of a U.S.-based Syrian advocacy group has mentioned.
Mouaz Moustafa, chatting with Reuters in a phone interview from Damascus on Monday, mentioned the location at al Qutayfah, 40 kilometers (25 miles) north of the Syrian capital, was one in every of 5 mass graves that he had recognized over time.
“One hundred thousand is the most conservative estimate” of the variety of our bodies buried on the website, mentioned Moustafa, head of the Syrian Emergency Task Force. “It’s a very, very extremely almost unfairly conservative estimate.”
Moustafa mentioned that he’s positive there are extra mass graves than the 5 websites, and that together with Syrians victims included U.S. and British residents and different foreigners.
Reuters was unable to verify Moustafa’s allegations.
Hundreds of 1000’s of Syrians are estimated to have been killed since 2011 when Assad’s crackdown on protests towards his rule grew right into a full-scale civil struggle.
Assad and his father Hafez, who preceded him as president and died in 2000, are accused by Syrians, rights teams and different governments of widespread extrajudicial killings, together with mass executions throughout the nation’s infamous jail system.
Assad repeatedly denied that his authorities dedicated human rights violations and painted his detractors as extremists.
Syria’s U.N. Ambassador Koussay Aldahhak didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark. He assumed the function in January – whereas Assad was nonetheless in energy – however informed reporters final week that he was awaiting directions from the brand new authorities and would “keep defending and working for the Syrian people.”
Moustafa arrived in Syria after Assad flew to Russia and his authorities collapsed within the face of a lightning offensive by anti-regime forces that ended his household’s greater than 50 years of iron-fisted rule.
He spoke to Reuters after he was interviewed on the website in al Qutayfah by Britain’s Channel 4 News for a report on the alleged mass grave there.
He mentioned the intelligence department of the Syrian air power was “in charge of bodies going from military hospitals, where bodies were collected after they’d been tortured to death, to different intelligence branches, and then they would be sent to a mass grave location.”
Corpses additionally had been transported to websites by the Damascus municipal funeral workplace whose personnel helped unload them from refrigerated tractor-trailers, he mentioned.
“We were able to talk to the people who worked on these mass graves that had on their own escaped Syria or that we helped to escape,” mentioned Moustafa.
His group has spoken to bulldozer drivers compelled to dig graves and “many times on orders, squished the bodies down to fit them in and then cover them with dirt,” he mentioned.
Moustafa expressed concern that graves websites had been unsecured and mentioned they wanted to be preserved to safeguard proof for investigations.
Source: www.dailysabah.com