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Syria army finds mass grave near Damascus: state media
DAMASCUS, Feb 17, 2020 (BSS/AFP) – The Syrian army has discovered a mass
grave containing around 70 bodies in a former rebel bastion near Damascus,
the state news agency reported Monday.
SANA said the victims found in the Eastern Ghouta region were “civilians
and security personnel who were executed by terrorist groups”.
The densely populated semi-urban area just east of Damascus was controlled
by rebel and jihadist factions for around six years until government forces
retook it in 2018 after a long and bloody siege.
The state news agency quoted a senior police officer as saying that the
killings were believed to have taken place between 2012 and 2014.
The mass grave, near Eastern Ghouta’s main town of Douma, is in an area
formerly controlled by rebel group Jaish al-Islam.
The siege of Eastern Ghouta ended with a devastating regime offensive that
saw at least 1,700 civilians killed before a deal was struck that saw
fighters and civilians evacuated to northern Syria.
According to the officials quoted by SANA, many of the victims, among them
a women, had been bound and executed with a gunshot to the head.
AFP was not immediately able to verify the information provided by the
state news agency.
Swathes of Eastern Ghouta were completely levelled during the siege and
the regime offensive, but some residents have returned despite the lack of
reconstruction.
Many mass graves have been found in Syria in recent years, mainly in areas
formerly controlled by the Islamic State jihadist group.
According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, more than 380,000
people have been killed since the start of the war in 2011.
Thousands are still missing and Human Rights Watch last week encouraged
the authorities in Syria to investigate their fate.
BSS/AFP/BZC/1900HRS