Former Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s government transferred thousands of bodies from a known mass grave in the Damascus suburb of Qutayfah to a hidden location in the country's desert.

Al-Qutayfah District

A Reuters investigation has uncovered a covert operation by the Syrian government, led by former President Bashar al-Assad, to relocate thousands of bodies from a known mass grave in the Damascus suburb of Kataifa to a hidden site in the Doumer Desert. The operation, referred to as 'Operation Move Earth,' took place over two years and aimed to conceal evidence of crimes committed during Assad's rule ahead of anticipated international scrutiny.

The investigation combined forensic geology, drone imagery, and witness accounts to identify the new grave site and link soil from Kataifa to Doumer. Witnesses, including a local mechanic, described the movement of bodies and the involvement of military personnel. While Reuters did not disturb the graves or collect soil samples, their analysis suggests a deliberate effort to hide mass graves, with further exhumation and DNA testing needed to determine the full scale and identities of the victims.

How Reuters confirmed an Assad-era plot to move a mass grave

This stretch of Syria's remote desert is an enormous and secret mass grave. A Reuters investigation combining forensic science, satellite imagery and witness accounts has uncovered a two-year conspiracy. From February 2019 until April 2021, former President Bashar al-Assad's government transferred thousands of bodies. From a known location in the Damascus suburb of Kataifa to another hidden location in the country's Doumer Desert. It was called Operation Move Earth. Its purpose? To conceal crimes committed during Assad's rule. This is Syrian mechanic Ahmed Ghazal. He told Reuters he saw bodies being taken in truck after truck. The gathering place of vehicles was here. Earlier this year, Ghazal led a team of Reuters journalists to the previously unreported Doumer grave. He said soldiers had ordered him to clear out his garage so the trucks transporting exhumed bodies and dirt could be fixed quickly and discreetly. Some people were bearded, some people were soldiers, and some people were newly dead. Their bodies still soft. Ghazal says a military driver answered his question. The bodies were from Kataifa. And the orders were to move and hide them before Assad's Syria opened itself up to international scrutiny. Reuters wanted to corroborate accounts from more than a dozen witnesses, without interfering with the graves. Here's how we did it. A team of forensic geologists helped devise a methodology and design a flight path over the two sites. Our drone operator then flew in a tight grid pattern 60 meters high. That process gave us 2,236 snapshots from Kataifa, the original mass grave site. At the Doumer site, we gathered 2,629 images. The drone pictures revealed bulldozer tread marks, elevation differences, and patches of soil detailed enough for a direct color comparison between the two grave sites. They were then stitched together using specialized software to create two high-resolution composite images 10 times sharper than satellite imagery. You can see distinguishing features on the ground that you can't see with the naked eye. That data can be translated into a measurement to reflect the actual color of that soil. At Kataifa, the drone captured detail from pits in the earth. The forensic geologists say this revealed red and yellow subsoils, characteristic of Kataifa, the kind that likely would have been dug up along with human remains. Dawson believes the composite images suggest that the gray soil above Doumer's trenches, reddened and turned darker. That's the kind of change you would expect if Kataifa's red and yellow subsoils were added to the soil at Doumer. To avoid disturbing the graves, Reuters didn't take any soil fragments. And to make it harder for intruders to find and tamper with a Doumer site before it can be protected, Reuters is not pinpointing its location. Only scientific analysis of soil samples taken from both sites could confirm the presence of Kataifa soil at the Doumer site, though Dawson says this science is just one piece of the puzzle. It has to be coupled together with the other information, the other data, the intelligence, the witness evidence, because as in all investigations, it's never just one piece of information or one piece of data. For Ghazal, Doumer represents so much more than scientific research. He says the site still haunts him. A psychological trauma, something terrifying, something which isn't easy, not easy for the mind to absorb or for the mind to imagine such scenes. It could take years of painstaking exhumation to reveal the true scale of death beneath the surface, and extensive DNA testing to reveal the victims' identities. For more UN videos visit www.un.org

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