Mass Graves Identified in Syria Could Hold Evidence of War Crimes

BERLIN — By day, the employees used heavy equipment to dig pits and trenches. After darkish, the corpses arrived, typically a whole bunch at a time, within the beds of army pickups or in fridge vehicles meant for transporting meals.

As authorities intelligence officers seemed on, the lifeless have been dumped into the bottom and buried close to the capital, Damascus, in response to males who labored at two mass grave websites in Syria. Typically, the employees packed the dust down tightly to maintain canine from digging up the our bodies.

All through Syria’s 11-year civil warfare, human rights teams and authorities defectors have documented the widespread killing of civilians by the safety forces as they sought to stamp out any opposition to the dictatorship of Bashar al-Assad.

Now, The New York Instances has gathered proof that sheds new mild on one enduring thriller of the warfare: What occurred to the our bodies of the various 1000’s who died or have been killed in authorities detention facilities?

Interviews over the previous a number of months with 4 Syrian males who labored at or close to secret mass graves led to an examination of satellite tv for pc photographs. Collectively, these clues revealed the areas of two websites. Every one holds 1000’s of our bodies, in response to the lads who labored there. They may additionally comprise highly effective proof of warfare crimes dedicated by Mr. al-Assad’s forces, in response to human rights teams, together with the systematic torture and the killing of detainees.

“If the problem of the lacking and the disappeared shouldn’t be resolved, there can by no means be peace in Syria,” mentioned Diab Serrih, the co-founder of an affiliation of former detainees in Syria’s infamous Saydnaya jail that has labored to find mass graves. “Day by day, we get calls from individuals who need to know the place their sons are,” he added. Lots of them say, “‘I simply need to see a grave in order that I can put a flower on it.’”

After the rebellion that led to the warfare started in 2011, Mr. al-Assad activated his community of safety companies to stamp out dissent by locking up protesters, activists and others.

At the very least 14,000 of these detainees have been tortured to demise, the U.S. Treasury Division mentioned final yr, however the precise quantity is nearly definitely a lot increased. Greater than 130,000 others have disappeared into authorities detention facilities, and lots of of them are presumed lifeless.

The Syrian authorities has repeatedly denied that it killed individuals in detention. However human rights teams have extensively documented the observe. One essential physique of proof got here from a Syrian police photographer, code named “Caesar,” who fled the nation in 2013 with photographs of greater than 6,000 lifeless our bodies, some bearing indicators of torture.

Counting and figuring out the our bodies within the mass graves would solely be attainable by digging them up. However that’s unlikely to occur so long as Mr. al-Assad stays in energy. Russia, his strongest backer, continues to help him, and he and his senior officers have by no means been held accountable for atrocities corresponding to using chemical weapons towards their very own residents.

To attract consideration to these atrocities, the Syrian Emergency Process Power, an advocacy group, introduced one of many males interviewed by The New York Instances to Washington this week to talk with members of Congress and others in regards to the mass graves.

Lots of the our bodies of those that died in detention have been despatched to authorities hospitals, the place their deaths have been recorded, in response to stories by Human Rights Watch and others. The 4 males interviewed described what occurred subsequent.

All 4 labored on or close to mass graves close to Damascus and every noticed components of the federal government’s efforts to eliminate our bodies. Two of the lads are actually refugees in Germany, one is in Lebanon and one stays in Syria. Three spoke on situation of anonymity for worry of retribution by the Syrian authorities.

The Instances couldn’t independently corroborate all the small print of their accounts, together with the whole numbers of our bodies they recalled seeing. And so they every noticed solely a part of the federal government’s burial operations, which human rights teams say have been probably replicated in different mass grave websites throughout the nation.

One of many males interviewed testified about what he witnessed at a landmark trial in Germany about warfare crimes in Syria that concluded this yr with a life sentence for a former Syrian intelligence official convicted of crimes towards humanity.

He mentioned he had labored earlier than the warfare for the Damascus regional authorities overseeing civilian burials. In mid-2011, intelligence officers recruited him to eliminate corpses coming by hospitals from detention facilities, he mentioned. He did this work for six years on the two mass grave websites.

The primary mass grave web site his crew labored at, from mid-2011 till early 2013, was in a civilian cemetery in Najha, a city south of Damascus, he mentioned. At first, he oversaw a number of laborers who buried small numbers of our bodies, he mentioned. However because the battle grew extra violent, the numbers elevated and he turned what he described as a cog in an unlimited paperwork of demise.

He was given a white Nissan bus adorned with images of Mr. al-Assad, a army uniform and a allow that allowed him to cross checkpoints, he mentioned. Earlier than daybreak, he would drive greater than a dozen staff to the mass graves.

Individually, giant fridge vehicles meant to move meals introduced the corpses from the hospitals to the graves, he mentioned. Once they arrived, his crew would dump the our bodies within the floor. Lots of the our bodies had bruises, lesions and lacking fingernails, he mentioned, and a few have been decomposing — indicating it had been a while since their deaths.

He didn’t bury the our bodies himself, he mentioned, however oversaw the employees and obtained papers from the hospitals saying what number of our bodies had come from every detention facility. He recorded these numbers in a logbook in his workplace, however left these papers behind when he fled Syria in 2017, he mentioned.

At some factors through the six years he labored on the mass graves, his crew unloaded two vehicles about twice per week, every carrying wherever from 150 to as many as 600 our bodies, he mentioned. The crew additionally obtained a number of dozen our bodies per week from Saydnaya jail, which Amnesty Worldwide as soon as branded “a human slaughterhouse,” the place torture was rampant and prisoners have been usually killed.

The our bodies that got here from Saydnaya usually seemed to be current deaths, he mentioned, including that some had what seemed like rope marks round their necks or gunshot wounds. Typically, they dumped the our bodies in trenches and coated them with dust. At different occasions, they stacked as much as eight our bodies in graves meant for a single physique, he mentioned.

Satellite tv for pc photographs of the Najha cemetery throughout that interval present graves filling up, and one picture from 2012 reveals a truck with its rear pointed towards the graves and a white automobile close by, presumably a bus.

Throughout the trial in Germany for the previous Syrian intelligence officer convicted of crimes once more humanity, two different individuals additionally testified about mass graves in Najha.

Considered one of them was Eyad al-Gharib, a former Syrian official convicted final yr of complicity in crimes towards humanity for driving arrested protesters to a safety workplace recognized for torture. He informed the courtroom that lifeless detainees have been buried in Najha if their our bodies confirmed indicators of torture.

One other man interviewed by The New York Instances was a bulldozer driver who labored within the Najha cemetery for seven months in 2012. He mentioned intelligence officers overseeing the burials informed him to dig giant sq. pits.

He, too, described fridge vehicles arriving a number of occasions per week all through the time he labored there, carrying a whole bunch of our bodies every time that the employees dumped into the bottom. He coated them with dust, he mentioned, typically rolling his bulldozer over the positioning to pack it down tightly to forestall canine from digging up the our bodies.

He recalled the odor of demise being so robust that it made him faint.

As soon as, he mentioned, seven our bodies, together with two girls and a toddler, arrived in an ice cream truck. The sight nonetheless haunts him a decade later in Germany, the place he’s a refugee.

“I can not eat ice cream,” he mentioned.

In early 2013, the person who drove the white bus mentioned the federal government began a brand new mass grave close to a Syrian military base in Qutayfa, a city north of Damascus.

There, a motorized excavator dug trenches as much as 100 yards lengthy, he mentioned. When the fridge vehicles arrived, they inclined their beds to dump the our bodies in a single finish of the ditch. In the event that they acquired caught, the employees dragged them into the ditch, the place the excavator buried them.

The subsequent group of our bodies went within the subsequent a part of the ditch, a grueling course of that was repeated till the ditch was full, he mentioned. Then, the excavator would dig a brand new trench.

Based mostly on his accounts, The New York Instances situated the positioning and examined satellite tv for pc photographs from that interval that confirmed lengthy trenches that have been progressively crammed with dust. Some photographs present an excavator on the web site, and at the least one reveals a white bus.

Walid Hashim, a former soldier who served in Qutayfa earlier than defecting on the finish of 2012, recognized the identical location as a mass grave. In a cellphone interview, he mentioned the positioning was a capturing vary that the federal government dug as much as bury the our bodies of people that had died in custody.

The realm was intently guarded to maintain individuals away, he mentioned, however everybody on the bottom knew what it was for.

“You didn’t speak about it or ask about it,” Mr. Hashim mentioned. “However everybody who labored there knew in regards to the graveyard.”

Christoph Koettl contributed reporting from New York, Karam Shoumali from Berlin and Asmaa al-Omar from Beirut.