Exclusive-Assad government secretly moved mass grave to cover up killings, Reuters investigation finds


A drone view shows the site of a mass grave from the rule of Syria's Bashar al-Assad, according to residents, after the ousting of al-Assad, in Al Qutayfah, Syria, December 17, 2024. REUTERS/Ammar Awad

DHUMAIR, Syria -The Assad government carried out a two-year clandestine operation to truck thousands of bodies from one of Syria’s largest known mass graves to a secret location more than an hour away in the remote desert, a Reuters investigation has found.

The conspiracy by President Bashar al-Assad’s military to excavate the mass grave in Qutayfah and create an enormous second mass grave in the desert outside the town of Dhumair has not been previously reported.

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