Reckoning with the Assad Regime’s ‘Machinery of Death’ : Up First from NPR

Abu Fadi, an excavator driver, points out where he dug trenches where bodies were buried in a mass grave site in Qutayfa, Syria.

Claire Harbage/NPR

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Claire Harbage/NPR

Abu Fadi, an excavator driver, points out where he dug trenches where bodies were buried in a mass grave site in Qutayfa, Syria.

Claire Harbage/NPR

The fall of Syria’s leader in December opened the doors to a vast network of detention centers and prisons across the country, uncovering further evidence of the true scale of killings under former president Bashar al-Assad.

On this episode of The Sunday Story, NPR’s Ruth Sherlock takes us to a notorious prison where thousands were detained and killed, and she visits a suspected mass gravesite outside Damascus. She meets former prisoners and those forced to play a role in what has been called the regime’s “machinery of death.”

This episode was produced by Justine Yan and edited by Jenny Schmidt. The engineer was Gilly Moon.

We’d love to hear from you. Send us an email at TheSundayStory@npr.org.

Listen to Up First on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.