At Least 100,000 Bodies in Syrian Mass Grave, US Advocacy Group Head Says

Members of Syria's White Helmets civil defense collect human remains at a mass grave that was uncovered, in Damascus, on December 16, 2024. (AFP)
Members of Syria's White Helmets civil defense collect human remains at a mass grave that was uncovered, in Damascus, on December 16, 2024. (AFP)
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At Least 100,000 Bodies in Syrian Mass Grave, US Advocacy Group Head Says

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

The head of a US-based Syrian advocacy organization on Monday said that a mass grave outside of Damascus contained the bodies of at least 100,000 people killed by the former government of ousted President Bashar al-Assad.

Mouaz Moustafa, speaking to Reuters in a telephone interview from Damascus, said the site at al Qutayfah, 25 miles (40 km) north of the Syrian capital, was one of five mass graves that he had identified over the years.

"One hundred thousand is the most conservative estimate" of the number of bodies buried at the site, said Moustafa, head of the Syrian Emergency Task Force. "It's a very, very extremely almost unfairly conservative estimate."

Moustafa said that he is sure there are more mass graves than the five sites, and that along with Syrians victims included US and British citizens and other foreigners.

Reuters was unable to confirm Moustafa's allegations.

Hundreds of thousands of Syrians are estimated to have been killed since 2011, when Assad's crackdown on protests against his rule grew into a full-scale civil war.

Assad and his father Hafez, who preceded him as president and died in 2000, are accused by Syrians, rights groups and other governments of widespread extrajudicial killings, including mass executions within the country's notorious prison system.

Assad repeatedly denied that his government committed human rights violations and painted his detractors as extremists.

Syria's UN Ambassador Koussay Aldahhak did not immediately respond to a request for comment. He assumed the role in January - while Assad was still in power - but told reporters last week that he was awaiting instructions from the new authorities and would "keep defending and working for the Syrian people."

Moustafa arrived in Syria after Assad flew to Russia and his government collapsed in the face of a lightning offensive by the opposition that ended his family's more than 50 years of iron-fisted rule.

He spoke to Reuters after he was interviewed at the site in al Qutayfah by Britain's Channel 4 News for a report on the alleged mass grave there.

He said the intelligence branch of the Syrian air force 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 also were transported to sites by the Damascus municipal funeral office whose personnel helped unload them from refrigerated tractor-trailers, he said.

"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," said 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 said.

Moustafa expressed concern that graves sites were unsecured and said they needed to be preserved to safeguard evidence for investigations.



At Least 11 Sudanese Killed in Drone Strike on Displacement Camp

A soldier extinguishes a fire following a drone strike in Ad-Damar, Sudan, April 25, 2025. REUTERS/El Tayeb Siddig
A soldier extinguishes a fire following a drone strike in Ad-Damar, Sudan, April 25, 2025. REUTERS/El Tayeb Siddig
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At Least 11 Sudanese Killed in Drone Strike on Displacement Camp

A soldier extinguishes a fire following a drone strike in Ad-Damar, Sudan, April 25, 2025. REUTERS/El Tayeb Siddig
A soldier extinguishes a fire following a drone strike in Ad-Damar, Sudan, April 25, 2025. REUTERS/El Tayeb Siddig

At least 11 people were killed after a drone strike by the Rapid Support Forces hit a displacement camp in Sudan's River Nile state, the governor said in a statement, in an attack that also took out the regional power station for the fourth time.
The RSF, which denies carrying out drone attacks and did not respond to a request for comment, has targeted power stations in army-controlled locations in central and northern Sudan for the past several months, but the strikes had not previously left major death tolls, said Reuters.
"This morning we heard a large explosion and we found two families that had been burnt completely inside their tents, while they were sleeping," said teacher Mashair Hemeidan as she shed tears.
"We had left Khartoum fearful of the war and now the war has followed us here. I don't know where I will go with my family and children, we have no shelter or place to go to," she added.
The escalation of such strikes, which have hampered the country's electrical grid and plunged millions into weeks-long blackouts, comes two years into a damaging war as the army has been pushing the paramilitary force out of central Sudan.
Ground fighting in the war is now focused in the Darfur region, where the RSF is fighting to seize the army's remaining foothold, driving hundreds of thousands from their homes. There has also been fighting in western Omdurman, part of the capital where the RSF remains present.
The Friday morning attack by multiple missiles, which set some of the tents on fire, injured 23 other people, a medical official said. Reuters witnesses saw at least nine children among the injured.
"My nine-year-old son Ahmed was killed today, and now my nine-year-old Fadi and my seven-year-old Omnia are in the hospital," said Fadwa Adlan, a resident of the camp.
Some 179 families displaced by the fighting in the capital had been living in difficult conditions in an abandoned building and surrounding tents outside the town of al-Damer, receiving little in the way of humanitarian assistance. The camp was located about three kilometers (1.9 miles) from the Atbara power station which was also struck.
On Friday, authorities could be seen hosing down the residents' belongings destroyed in the fire and breaking down the camp. Residents were seen boarding buses to an unknown location.