On Tuesday, a chief prosecutor responsible for war crimes issues revealed a massive graveyard in Syria that exposed the “death machine” operated by the state during the Assad regime. He estimated that over 100,000 people have been tortured and killed since 2013.
Former US Ambassador-at-Large for War Crimes Stephen Rapp, who has investigated war crimes, stated after visiting two “mass graves” in Qutayfah and Najha near Damascus, “We can confirm that at least over 100,000 people were disappeared into this machine and tortured to death. Based on what we have seen in these graves, I have almost no doubt about these numbers.”
Rapp, who led the prosecution at the Rwandan and Sierra Leone war crimes tribunals, said, “From the secret police forcibly taking people from the streets and homes, to the guards and interrogators torturing them to death, to the truck drivers transporting the bodies and the bulldozer operators burying them, tens of thousands of people participated in the operation of this killing system.”
The brutal Assad regime was able to stay in power until today, closely intertwined with the capital “infusion” from the Chinese Communist Party.
Being one of the countries that supported restoring Beijing’s legal seat in the 1971 United Nations proposal, Syria has had close dealings with the CCP. Over the years, China and Syria have maintained significant trade connections, with China actively participating in Syria’s oil industry and infrastructure development.
In January 2022, Syria officially joined the CCP’s Belt and Road Initiative. It is estimated that China’s investment in Syria could reach billions of dollars.
After the Assad regime was overthrown by anti-government forces, the death toll signaled a funeral bell for what is considered the most significant killing of Chinese people in history. Rapp stated, “These massacres and death slaughterhouses are unacceptable to anyone with a conscience. We hope that authoritative organizations will investigate to prevent the truth from being covered up.”