The charred remains of at least 26 victims of the Bashar Assad government were discovered on Tuesday by Syrian civil defense workers in two separate basements in rural Damascus. This finding adds to the growing number of mass graves unearthed since the Assad government fell in December. The remains, believed to include men, women, and children, showed signs of gunshot wounds and burning.
Members of Syria’s White Helmets, a volunteer civil defense organization, exhumed the fragmented and weathered skeletal remains from two basements in the town of Sbeneh, southwest of the capital. Wearing hazmat suits, the team meticulously logged and coded each set of remains before placing them in body bags for transport.
Since November 28, the White Helmets have uncovered “more than 780 bodies, most of unknown identity,” according to Abed al-Rahman Mawwas, a member of the rescue team, who spoke to The Associated Press. He explained that many of the bodies were found in shallow graves, either uncovered by locals or dug up by animals. The remains are being handed over to forensic doctors for identification, determination of cause of death, and potential matching with family members. “Of course, this takes years of work,” Mawwas noted.
Mohammad al-Herafe, a resident of one of the buildings where remains were found, recalled the overwhelming stench of decomposing bodies when his family returned to Sbeneh in 2016 after fleeing the area due to intense fighting during the country’s uprising-turned-civil war, which began in 2011.
He said his family found the bodies in the basement but chose not to report it out of fear of government reprisals. “We could not tell the regime about it because we know that the regime did this,” he stated.
The Assad government, which ruled Syria for over two decades, used tactics such as airstrikes on civilian areas, torture, executions, and mass imprisonment to suppress opposition during the country’s 13-year civil war.
Ammar al-Salmo, another Civil Defense member working at the second basement site, emphasized the need for further investigation to identify the victims. “We need testimonies from residents and others who might know who stayed behind when the fighting intensified in 2013,” he said.
Mohammad Shebat, who lived in the second building where bodies were uncovered, said he left the area in 2012 and returned in 2020, only to find the remains. He and his neighbors demanded their removal, but no one cooperated.
Shebat believes the victims were civilians who fled the nearby Al-Assali neighborhood when the Assad government imposed a siege in 2013. He recounted that government forces would “trap people in basements, burn them with tires and leave their bodies.” He added, “There are several basements like this, full of skeletons.”
On Monday, the United Nations Syria Commission of Inquiry released a report stating that mass graves could serve as evidence to uncover the fates of thousands of missing detainees.
The report, based on 14 years of investigations and over 2,000 witness testimonies, including more than 550 survivors of torture, detailed the conditions in Syria’s prisons. Detainees “suffering from torture injuries, malnutrition, disease and illness, were left to die slowly, in agonizing pain, or were taken away to be executed,” the report revealed.
The fall of Assad on December 8 prompted hundreds of families to search prisons and morgues for missing loved ones. While many detainees were freed after years of imprisonment, thousands remain unaccounted for. The U.N. commission has highlighted that forensic exhumations of mass graves, along with safeguarding evidence, archives, and crime sites, could offer grieving families a chance to learn the truth.
The commission, established in 2011 by the Human Rights Council, has documented brutal methods of torture used by the former government. These included “severe beatings, electric shocks, burning, pulling out nails, damaging teeth, rape, sexual violence including mutilation, prolonged stress positions, deliberate neglect and denial of medical care, exacerbating wounds and psychological torture.”
“For Syrians who did not find their loved ones among the freed, this evidence, alongside testimonies of freed detainees, may be their best hope to uncover the truth about missing relatives,” said Commissioner Lynn Welchman.