An international war crimes prosecutor says evidence from mass grave sites in Syria points to a state-run 'machinery of death' under Bashar al-Assad, with an estimated 100,000+ people tortured and murdered since 2013. Stephen Rapp, a former US war crimes ambassador, likened the scale of the atrocities to the Nazi regime, noting the involvement of a vast network of individuals in the killings.
An international war crimes prosecutor says evidence emerging from mass grave sites in Syria has exposed a state-run “machinery of death” under toppled leader Bashar al-Assad in which he estimated more than 100,000 people were tortured and murdered since 2013.
Both Assad and his father Hafez, who preceded him as president and died in 2000, have long been accused by rights groups and governments of widespread extrajudicial killings, including mass executions within the country’s prison system and using chemical weapons against the Syrian people., had repeatedly denied that his government committed human rights violations and painted his detractors as extremists.
Commission head Kathryne Bomberger told Reuters its portal for reporting the missing was now “exploding” with new contacts from families.For the families, the search for the truth in Syria could be long and difficult. A DNA match will require at least three relatives providing DNA reference samples and taking a DNA sample from each one of these skeletal remains found in the graves, Bomberger said.
Syrian residents living near Qutayfah, a former military base where one of the sites was located, and a cemetery in Najha used to hide bodies from detention sites described seeing a steady stream of refrigeration trucks delivering bodies which were dumped into long trenches dug with bulldozers.“The graves were prepared in an organised manner – the truck would come, unload the cargo it had, and leave.
He believes at least some of those taken, including two sons and four brothers, were detained for protesting against Assad’s government.
Syria War Crimes Bashar Al-Assad Mass Graves Human Rights Violations
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