Assad's government moved mass grave over two years, says report

Bashar al-Assad's government spent two years transferring thousands of bodies out of a prominent mass grave to a secret location in the southern Syrian desert.

A new investigation by Reuters found the former president, who was ousted in December 2024, had the military excavate the mass grave in Qutayfah and create an enormous second mass grave in the desert outside the town of Dhumair.

Reuters spoke to 13 people with direct knowledge of the operation as well as reviewing documents produced by officials involved, and analysed hundreds of satellite images of both gravesites taken over the course of several years.

The new report highlights the scale of the former government's attempt to crush dissent as the country descended into civil war in 2011.

The conflict, sparked off by the Assad government's violent response to pro-democracy protests, led to more than 500,000 deaths and the displacement of millions internally and externally.

“Operation Move Earth”, as the grave transfer operation was named, lasted from 2019 until 2021.

Witnesses said the operation was aimed at covering up evidence of Assad's killings in order to improved his government's image.

With at least 34 trenches measuring 2km long, the grave in the Dhumair desert - which Reuters is not revealing the exact location of - is among the most extensive created during the Syrian civil war and could contain tens of thousands of bodies.

Local media revealed the existence of the Qutayfah grave in 2014, while court testimony and further investigations gave more precise information.

According to Reuters, the government began burying the dead at Qutayfah around 2012, then for four nights nearly every week from February 2019 to April 2021, six to eight trucks filled with dirt and human remains travelled from Qutayfah to the Dhumair desert site.

A former Republican Guard officer told Reuters that the plan came about in late 2018. At that time, the government looked like it was on the verge of victory in the civil war, after Russia rallied to support its military campaign against rebel forces.

Assad hoped that they would be able to rebuild relations with the international community following the defeat of rebel factions, after years of isolation and sanctions.

Two truckers and the officer said that they were told by military commanders the point of the transfer was to clear out the Qutayfah mass grave and hide evidence of mass killings.

Syrian rights groups believe that more than 160,000 people have disappeared into Assad's prisons and been buried in mass graves.