‘I feared I would end up in the trench’: Digging Assad’s mass graves in Syria

Ahmed (not his real name), a grave digger, points to where he was forced to dig trenches for a mass grave, next to a local opposition fighter - (Bel Trew)

It was only when the stench seeping out of the ground became unbearable that Ahmed* realised the full horror of what he was being made to dig each day.

In a remote location, around 25 miles (40 kilometres) northeast of the Syrian capital Damascus, regime officials had ordered the excavator to dig trenches 100 metres long, four metres wide, and three metres deep.