Mass grave in Damascus should be protected, investigated: HRW

The state of a mass grave in Damascus and statements by people living in the surrounding area suggest that the area is a mass crime scene and may have been the site of other summary executions, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said on Tuesday.

HRW visited the site in the southern Damascus neighbourhood of Tadamon on 11 and 12 December, finding scores of human remains both at the location of an April 2013 massacre and strewn throughout the surrounding neighbourhood.

Transitional Syrian authorities should take steps to urgently secure and preserve physical evidence across the country of grave international crimes by members of the former government.

“Without immediate Syrian and international efforts to secure and preserve likely sites of mass crimes for coordinated exhumations and forensic investigations, there is a serious risk that critical evidence for accountability will be lost,” said Hiba Zayadin, senior Middle East and North Africa researcher at Human Rights Watch. “The loved ones of people so brutally killed here deserve to know what happened to them. The victims deserve accountability.”

Members of Syria's White Helmets civil defence transport body-bags containing human remains that were recovered from a mass grave, in Damascus, on December 16, 2024. — Members of Syria's White Helmets civil defence transport body-bags containing human remains that were recovered from a mass grave, in Damascus, on 16 December 2024 (AFP)

People stand next to a trench believed to be used as a mass grave on the outskirts of Damascus on December 16, 2024. Rebels took Damascus in a lightning offensive on December 8, ousting president Bashar al-Assad and ending five decades of Baath rule in Syria. According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, more than 100,000 people died in Syria's jails and detention centres from 2011. — People stand next to a trench believed to be used as a mass grave on the outskirts of Damascus on 16 December 2024 (AFP)

People search for human remains at a trench believed to be used as a mass grave on the outskirts of Damascus on December 16, 2024. — People search for human remains at a trench believed to be used as a mass grave on the outskirts of Damascus on December 16, 2024 (AFP)

Members of Syria's White Helmets civil defence collect human remains at a mass grave that was uncovered, in Damascus, on December 16, 2024. — Members of Syria's White Helmets civil defence collect human remains at a mass grave that was uncovered, in Damascus, on 16 December 2024 (AFP)