Syrian mass graves expose "machinery of death" under Assad, top prosecutor says

FRANCE 24 English

Visit our website: http://www.france24.com  Like us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/FRANCE24.English  Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/France24_en

Transcript

00:00Human remains are visible among the mounds of earth in this field south of Damascus.

00:05They are the bones belonging to tens of thousands of Syrians,

00:09murdered under the dictatorship of former President Bashar al-Assad.

00:13Anyone who opposed him and their families were targets.

00:19Here they used to bring bodies and bury them.

00:22They would come, dig a grave, and in every grave they would have five or six people,

00:29then cover it up.

00:31There were big pits where they would bring bodies with freezer trucks.

00:36This is just one of several mass graves across the country where bodies were buried.

00:41Former US war crimes ambassador at large, Stephen Rapp,

00:45has described it as a state system of killing that hasn't been seen since the Nazis.

00:51The other aspect of this is establishing the truth,

00:54because as I indicated earlier, everybody in this country was terrorized by this regime.

01:01Every family seems to be affected by a disappearance,

01:05and they cry out for answers about what happened to their child.

01:09There's still faint hopes that somebody could be found alive.

01:14With the help of the international community,

01:16one of the tasks to rebuild Syria will be to find and identify the bodies.

01:21It won't be easy, and investigators warn the process could take years.

Category

Transcript

Recommended