Detainees’ association claims Syrian regime levelled graves
Saydnaya Detainees’ Association (SDA) claimed Syria’s regime levelled mass graves in a January 30th report, according to The New Arab and agencies.
Satellite analysis of a site, suspected to contain the remains of thousands of disappeared detainees, showed evidence of extensive excavation and leveling of land, between the summer of 2023 and January 2023.
The detainees’ association said that the findings raise concerns about the Syrian regime “facilitating the destruction and devastation of mass graves,” in order to obscure evidence.
SDA head, Diab Serrih, stated: “The Syrian regime systematically and deliberately erases and hides its crimes by concealing and destroying evidence that could be used to prove the killings and forced disappearances that occurred after 2011.”
Since 2011’s Arab Spring, the regime has detained and tortured activists on an industrial scale, with over 130,000 Syrians still captive, according to estimates.
READ: Duplicitous West puts Assad in Hague for torture trial
The regime refuses the disclose anything as to the whereabouts of most of the country’s political prisoners.
In 2015, security services began burying detainees in mass graves at a site directly outside the facility where they died.
According to the SDA, false death certificates were issued for the departed citing natural causes. The families of detainees have to visit civil registries to inquire as to their status and are not directly notified of deaths.
In June 2023, the UN General Assembly voted to establish an independent body to clarify the fate of thousands of detainees and those disappeared by Syria’s regime, after years of lobbying by their families and survivors.
The authorities called the body a “flagrant interference in our internal affairs.”
The New Arab/agencies
