Mass graves are still being dug in Syria, anonymous whistleblower tells US senators

Mass graves are still being dug in Syria today, filled with victims of the ongoing conflict and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's regime, an anonymous whistleblower known as "the gravedigger" told US senators during a congressional hearing about the conflict on Wednesday.

Dressed fully in black from head to toe with his face and head completely covered by black cloth, the gravedigger spoke of the horrors he witnessed working as one of the civilian workers at a mass grave site in Syria from 2011 to 2018. While the gravedigger left Syria in 2018, he said he has spoken with others who fled the country more recently, and said they told him the mass graves are still being dug. The gravedigger gave a prepared statement through a translator.

Syria's civil war began in 2011 as a peaceful uprising against al-Assad. In the war that has now continued for more than a decade, an estimated 400,000 Syrians have been killed, according to the United Nations, and millions more have been displaced by the conflict both in and outside of Syria.