At least 100,000 bodies in Syrian mass grave, says advocacy group

The head of a US-based Syrian advocacy organization on Dec 16 said that a mass grave outside Damascus contained the bodies of at least 100,000 people killed by the government of ousted president Bashar al-Assad.

The site at al Qutayfah, 40km north of the Syrian capital, was one of five mass graves he had identified over the years, said Mr Mouaz Moustafa, head of the Syrian Emergency Task Force.

"One hundred thousand is the most conservative estimate" of the number of bodies buried at the site, he told Reuters on the telephone from Damascus.

"It's a very, very extremely, almost unfairly conservative estimate."

Mr Moustafa added that he was sure there were more mass graves than the five sites and that along with Syrians, victims included American and British citizens and other foreigners.

Reuters was unable to confirm his allegations.

Hundreds of thousands of Syrians are estimated to have been killed since 2011 when Mr Assad's crackdown on protests against his rule grew into a full-scale civil war.