The Najha cemetery is about 5 miles south of Damascus, the capital. It was established a long time in the past as a modest burial floor for folks from Damascus and neighboring cities.
Shortly after the crackdown on the Syrian revolution in March 2011, President Bashar al-Assad’s authorities started utilizing the cemetery to bury folks it killed — many after being detained and tortured in prisons. The regime’s victims included anti-government protesters, activists, journalists; loyalists who fell out of favor; and members of insurgent factions.
Whereas the existence of mass graves at Najha was beforehand identified, our investigation reveals — for the primary time — how the regime methodically developed the cemetery into one of many nation’s largest mass grave websites.
Mr. al-Assad’s intelligence forces initially used empty, current tombs that had not but been taken for civilian burials, after which started dumping our bodies into crudely dug pits. In more moderen years, lengthy trenches have been stuffed with our bodies, part by part.
The Occasions visited the Najha cemetery in February, two months after rebels overthrew Mr. al-Assad’s authorities.
Occasions journalists additionally analyzed satellite tv for pc photographs from 2011 to 2024, reviewed images and movies, and interviewed greater than 20 folks — together with neighbors and former employees who have been coerced into collaborating in mass burials at Najha. Their accounts are according to one another and with what human rights teams have reported about Najha and different mass graves.
There’s now a broad effort to determine and find what are believed to be dozens of mass graves throughout the nation. Najha was recognized earlier than the Assad authorities collapsed. A minimum of 60 whole places have been reported to the White Helmets, a Syrian civil protection group that’s main an effort to excavate the graves.
The Assad authorities repeatedly denied killing folks in detention, however the apply has been documented extensively. The precise variety of our bodies in mass graves — together with Najha — can’t be identified till excavations are accomplished. The Syrian Community for Human Rights estimates that greater than 160,000 individuals who had been held within the regime’s detention facilities are nonetheless lacking.
“The mass graves that we’ve seen up to now are greater than something we’ve encountered,” mentioned Kathryne Bomberger of the Worldwide Fee on Lacking Individuals.
Our bodies have been initially piled into current tombs
2011 – 12
The Assad authorities started burying the our bodies of detainees at Najha in mid-2011, in accordance with former grave employees.
The early mass burials used websites meant for folks to bury their family members — rows of prebuilt tombs a number of ft beneath floor.
However former employees at Najha mentioned that the regime’s officers buried a number of our bodies in a single tomb. Through the use of current websites, the regime was capable of preserve the preliminary burials extra covert.
Muhammad Afif Naifeh — on the time a clerk on the native mortuary workplace — mentioned his supervisor first ordered him to accompany intelligence officers to Najha in mid-2011. There, he witnessed them opening an unmarked tomb and dumping six to seven our bodies inside. The identical operation was repeated at the least twice extra in 2011, he mentioned, with the variety of our bodies growing every time.
“There have been so many decomposed our bodies that they began slipping out of the truck,” mentioned Mr. Naifeh, who ultimately was compelled to handle some features of the burial operations. Our bodies that weren’t already decomposed had torture marks on them, he mentioned.
Satellite tv for pc photographs analyzed by The Occasions confirmed indicators of mass grave exercise — earth disturbances, massive automobiles, widespread digging and excavation — within the space described by Mr. Naifeh.
The our bodies got here to Najha and different mass graves close by from torture prisons like Sednaya and navy hospitals like Tishreen and Harasta, in accordance with studies by human proper teams, together with the Affiliation of Detainees and Lacking Individuals of Sednaya Jail.
The Occasions spoke to a former driver for the Assad authorities, who mentioned he transported truckloads of our bodies from the Harasta navy hospital to mass graves and witnessed burials at Najha.
“I thought of leaving, however that will have put my household in danger,” mentioned the driving force, who spoke to The Occasions on the situation of anonymity out of concern of retribution for talking out. “Each truck driver needed to observe orders,” he added, as a result of the Assad authorities was “cruel.”
As killings soared, our bodies have been dumped into deep pits
2012
By 2012, a yr into the civil battle, deaths underneath the Assad regime started to soar. As extra detainees have been killed, the federal government ramped up its mass burial operation at Najha.
Slightly than use current tombs, intelligence forces coerced native municipal employees to dig pits, some practically 10 ft deep. Amongst them have been Ragheb Turki Mihzah and Youssef Ubayd, who on the time drove heavy equipment for the Damascus governorate.
They mentioned that intelligence officers directed employees to fill the pits with a whole lot of our bodies that arrived in 50-feet-long refrigerated vans usually used to move produce.
In exactly the realm that each Mr. Mihzah and Mr. Ubayd mentioned they dug with bulldozers, The Occasions discovered proof of deep pits. The scale of many pits match Mr. Mihzah’s description.
The burials at Najha came about throughout early mornings and at night time, in accordance with former grave employees. Authorities forces would filter out anybody who was within the space and guard the doorway. The officers would confiscate grave employees’ telephones and threaten to execute them in the event that they refused to do as instructed.
Mr. Mihzah, 47, mentioned that as our bodies overflowed from a pit, an officer as soon as instructed a bulldozer driver, “Push them down, or I’ll put you with them.”
Ayman Muhammad Khalil, a guard within the a part of Najha utilized by civilians, mentioned that he typically observed indicators of recent grime that had been turned over within the morning — an indication of latest digging. He was not allowed to be close to the mass graves when the federal government forces have been there.
“We have been scared to come back right here,” mentioned Mr. Khalil, who has labored at Najha for nearly 20 years and believes that a few of his lacking buddies and kinfolk could also be buried there. “They might take away anybody who would stand right here.”
Residents who lived subsequent to Najha instructed The Occasions they have been conscious of the mass burials however remained silent for greater than a decade, fearing retribution.
Falah al-Za’al, 52, who had a direct view of the graves from his dwelling, misplaced greater than a dozen kinfolk to the Assad regime, a few of whom he believes could also be buried at Najha.
He by no means uttered a phrase about what he noticed. “The concern is like once you’re close to to dying,” he mentioned.
Lately, our bodies have been discarded in lengthy trenches
2018 – 24
Mass grave exercise at Najha slowed for a time round 2013 as a result of insurgent advances within the space made it troublesome for the burials to proceed.
With restricted entry to Najha, the federal government that yr shifted operations to a different massive mass grave web site in Qutayfa, a city about 20 miles north of Damascus. Mr. Mihzah, who labored at each websites, mentioned that at Qutayfa, he and others excavated lengthy and slender trenches.
The federal government regained management of the realm close to the Najha cemetery in 2014. The Occasions was unable to confirm exercise at Najha in satellite tv for pc imagery till years later, however residents mentioned that they noticed vans arriving on the cemetery then.
“I used to be terrified,” mentioned Mohammad Ali al-Saleh, 48, a farmer who initially fled and returned to his dwelling close to Najha in 2014. “We noticed the refrigerated vans, however we couldn’t even get shut — we might’ve been killed.”
Starting in 2018, lengthy trenches, much like these at Qutayfa, started showing in satellite tv for pc photographs analyzed by The Occasions. The trenches have been for much longer than the crudely dug pits from years earlier. The operation at Najha had change into extra systematic.
The trenches gave the impression to be ready months prematurely of their use. The diggers tunneled for as much as a whole lot of ft, in order to not have to come back again a number of instances.
The Occasions was not capable of interview anybody who labored instantly on the trenches at Najha. However a longtime guard, Abdul Aziz, who is understood by his nickname Abu Jihad, mentioned that he witnessed small and enormous vans arriving on the cemetery from 2018 to 2020. Round 2020, Mr. Aziz mentioned that he and his brother noticed uncovered physique elements in a trench the place he suspected a mass burial had simply occurred.
Younes Adnan, a farmer who lived adjoining to the cemetery, mentioned that he first noticed excavators and vans arriving at Najha in 2011 and was nonetheless seeing them as not too long ago as 2024.
“Now and again, we’d see an excavator coming from afar — we didn’t dare method,” mentioned Mr. Adnan, who believes his brother is buried in a mass grave. “However when the excavator confirmed up, we knew one thing irregular was occurring.”
