Damascus Mass Grave Needs to be Preserved and Investigated

The state of a mass grave in Damascus and statements by people living in the surrounding area suggest that the area is a mass crime scene and may have been the site of other summary executions, Human Rights Watch said today.

Human Rights Watch visited the site in the southern Damascus neighborhood of Tadamon on December 11 and 12, 2024, finding scores of human remains both at the location of an April 2013 massacre and strewn throughout the surrounding neighborhood. Transitional Syrian authorities should take steps to urgently secure and preserve physical evidence across the country of grave international crimes by members of the former government.