Daijiworld Media Network - Damascus
Damascus, Sep 12: Syria’s plan to convert a former military airport in Damascus into a facility for private and executive jets has triggered concern among rights groups and local residents, who fear redevelopment could disturb suspected mass graves and override long-standing claims over privately owned land.
Syria’s civil aviation authority said last week that it was preparing to reclassify Mezzeh military airport for limited civilian use, mainly for private and executive aviation, to complement Damascus International Airport. According to Syria’s state news agency SANA, rubble removal and infrastructure upgrades had already begun.
The redevelopment is emerging as a test for Syria’s new authorities as they seek to attract investment and redevelop state assets while dealing with unresolved legacies of the rule of Bashar al-Assad and his father, Hafez al-Assad, including the fate of tens of thousands of missing Syrians and property rights affected by decades of expropriation.
During the Assad era, Mezzeh housed key branches of the powerful Air Force Intelligence Directorate and several detention facilities where government opponents were allegedly tortured, executed and subjected to enforced disappearance. Parts of the facility were also used for presidential and other official flights.
Recently obtained documents from the Air Force Intelligence Directorate, secured by the Syria Justice and Accountability Centre (SJAC) and shared exclusively with Reuters, indicate that senior Syrian military officials approved Mezzeh in 2012 as a site for executing detainees sentenced to death by military field courts.
One document proposed shifting executions from Sednaya prison, then Syria’s most notorious detention facility, to Mezzeh because it was a “closed security compound” close to Damascus. Later correspondence referred to a firing range and a hangar near the runway as possible execution sites.
The documents show that officials ordered the construction of a platform at the hangar, requested nylon rope and instructed that the work be carried out under Air Force Intelligence supervision and in “utmost secrecy”.
A 2025 investigation by SJAC identified two suspected grave sites connected to people who died while detained at Mezzeh. The organisation said more than 1,150 detainees had died there, some through execution and others as a result of torture or mistreatment.
In a letter sent in July 2025, SJAC provided Syria’s National Commission for Missing Persons with the coordinates of the two suspected graves inside the airport and urged authorities to prevent construction or excavation until the locations could be investigated.
At the time, the commission told SJAC that there were no plans for construction or refurbishment at Mezzeh. However, after the redevelopment plans emerged, SJAC wrote to the commission again on September 8, warning that excavation, rubble removal or other construction activity could damage human remains and evidence that may be essential to identifying victims.
SJAC said it had not received a response to its latest letter.
Amer Matar, founder of the Syria Prisons Museum, a Germany-based organisation documenting detention facilities including those at Mezzeh, criticised the planned work, saying it showed a lack of consideration for Syrian families still seeking information about relatives detained under the Assad government.
“To construct a business airport on a site that may contain mass graves, without a thorough prior investigation, without site protection, without searching for the missing and their remains, and without preserving evidence, is an act of extreme recklessness and disregard,” Matar told Reuters.
The Syrian civil aviation authority, the National Commission for Missing Persons and the Defence Ministry, which has been operating the airport, did not respond to Reuters questions concerning the suspected graves and land ownership claims.
SANA quoted a spokesperson for the civil aviation authority as saying that refurbishment would take into account the surrounding urban area as well as relevant legal and social issues. The statement did not specifically refer to the suspected graves or land rights. It also remains unclear who will develop the airport.
The dispute over the land on which the airport facilities were built dates back decades. Under the Assad governments, private land was regularly expropriated for state projects, often without compensation.
According to land records from the Moadamiya municipality shared with Reuters, Mezzeh airport was built across 2.76 square kilometres of land belonging to hundreds of private citizens.
A former municipal official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said expropriation decrees were used retroactively to justify the government's use of the land when the airport was constructed in 1956, and that compensation had not been paid.
Residents demonstrated in Moadamiya a day after the redevelopment plans were announced. One protest organiser, who identified himself as Abu Khaled, said residents welcomed investment but wanted to be involved in discussions over the land.
“We welcome investment, but we should be sitting at the table and discussing our share with investors, not the state,” he said, asserting that residents had documented rights to the land.
The dispute comes as Syria faces increasing calls to address property seizures dating from the Assad era. On September 2, United Nations land rights experts urged the Syrian government to suspend and repeal laws they said had enabled systematic property dispossession under Assad.
The UN experts also called for mechanisms to return properties to their legitimate owners or provide adequate compensation, adding to pressure on Syria’s new authorities to address property rights alongside reconstruction and investment.