When Human Rights Watch (HRW) visited the site days after the Assad regime's fall, they found large quantities of human remains scattered over a large area, writes the human rights organization. HRW urges Syria's new leadership to ensure that the site is protected and thoroughly investigated.
"The loved ones of those brutally killed here deserve to know what happened. The victims deserve accountability", says HRW's Middle East researcher Hiba Zayadin.
The site matches a leaked video recording filmed in April 2013. The video shows how eleven men with blindfolds are shot at close range and then pushed into the grave, where about a dozen other bodies already lie. The men holding the weapons laugh during the execution.
In other reports, residents of the area testify to being forced to help dig graves and move bodies.
Around 150,000 Syrians are missing after the long civil war in the country. According to the USA-based Syrian Emergency Task Force, which supports the Syrian opposition, the mass grave near Damascus may conceal countless bodies.
100,000 is the most conservative estimate, says the organization's chief Mouaz Moustafa to Reuters.
Mass graves have also been found in other parts of Syria since the regime's fall on December 8. Among other things, about ten graves were found on Monday in the country's southern parts, writes the Turkish news agency Anatolia.
