“The truth is not always beautiful.” – Lao Tzu

Project Khthon is a student-led humanitarian NGO established in 2022 that uses a complex combination of OSINT (open-source intelligence) and satellite imagery to locate, analyse and monitor mass graves and other war crimes in hidden conflict zones across the world within the shortest possible time frame. The name comes from the Ancient Greek word “χθών” – which, depending on the context, can mean “of the soil” or “of the underworld”: the voices of the lost victims are identified and amplified from the khthon, ensuring they will never be forgotten.

We had the pleasure to interview Khthon’s creator and director, Sam McKnight, 22, to better understand the Project and its mission.

Let’s get to know you as a person, student and director. What did you study and what experiences led you to this project?
I studied Ancient History and Archaeology at St Andrew’s University, Scotland. The idea for Project Khthon actually came from a couple of places: during my second year I was working on a research project about the site of Copán, in Honduras, and I came upon an article about how the researchers uncovered sacrificed young children’s mass graves. It really hit me emotionally.
Shortly after, in early 2022, the Ukrainian war happened and I started studying the mass graves being uncovered in south-eastern Ukraine. That’s when I wondered: what if civilians like me could use satellite images to find mass graves? I looked it up and nobody was really doing that. 
I worked almost entirely by myself for about a year: then, in 2023, I had some friends and uni colleagues who started to join the team. In the meantime, I found a mass grave site in Ethiopia and I got to test my idea: then I started hiring volunteers in late 2023.

The project is run almost entirely by young volunteers. How do you guys work and organize your research?
We ask for about 5-10 hours of work per week, so it’s like a part-time job. Being the director, I coordinate with a board of project managers, who take my directions and instructions and break them down into sub-tasks and assign it to their own researchers. It’s a lot of work: I am running a company of 60+ volunteers, it takes over most of my day.
However, I get to work with people who know their fields better than I do, so they suggest technical details while I make sure everything works together. My main skill is finding mass graves, but I had to learn how to be a good boss too.

How are you organized, legally speaking? You use open data, but you should expect some trouble while working with delicate discoveries (politics, public opinion). How are you planning to face them, eventually?
We already had to face some issues, actually: for example, we have recently been turned down from an European Union grant because of the possible political ramifications of our work.
Concerning public opinion, I believe that the right people will always appreciate your work.
Also, social media leads us to believe that everything is ready and available at any moment and we don’t see the work that a project like this demands; everyday we receive a lot of questions about why are we choosing to focus on a specific site, maybe leaving another one apart. The thing is there is a whole world behind this topic. We decided to start working on less known sites and for sure there’s still a lot of work to do: but we are all volunteers and we try our best.

How does the group keep a balance between work and mental health, due to the dramatic scenes you see everyday?
We do provide mental health resources and we’re absolutely aware of the problems that come from doing this work, but I believe that people who take part in the project are aware of what it will take, emotionally speaking. It is important to validate the pain that comes from empathy: it is normal to suffer seeing others’ suffering, and it’s good and healthy to seek help and therapy.

We heard you are still hiring volunteers. How does it work?
We accept applications through our email contact (contact@projectkhthon.com) and are still looking for volunteers. We highly recommend introducing yourself in the email (who you are, where are you from etc.) and we suggest sending in your CV too – so that we can better understand the candidate’s skills and interests. If someone has a new idea, they can just suggest it on the main team group chat and we get to discuss it: new inputs are absolutely welcome. I also like to think of Khthon as a place where young people without any work experience can get to do something practical, maybe for the first time.

In conclusion, we highly recommend taking a look at Project Khthon’s website and social media account. We are living in an extremely complex time and we believe this company has an admirable goal, since it incarnates the desire to do better, for a better world. For ourselves, and for everyone that will come after us.

Arianna di Pascale