ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – Another mass grave with the remains of dozens of Yezidis executed by ISIS was found in Shingal on Wednesday.
"The mass grave contains the bodies of 73 people, men, women and children executed by the Islamic State group when they controlled the region," local official Chokor Melhem Elias told AFP.
The latest discovery was located by security forces in the Rambussi area near the town of Qahtaniyyah.
An investigation into mass graves conducted by The Associated Press and published in August 2016, concluded that between 5,200 and 15,000 people are buried in 72 mass graves in territory the militants formerly controlled between Iraq and Syria.
More graves have been discovered as the group has been defeated in areas it once ruled.
When ISIS militants brutally marched into Shingal and its surroundings in August 2014, they arrested thousands of Yezidis. Some of them were collectively killed in the region, other girls and women were taken and later sold as sex slaves by ISIS members.
According to official reports released by Yazda, a Yezidi rights group in September, nearly 7,000 Yezidi men, women and children were abducted in the first days of ISIS’ attack on Shingal in August 2014.
The reports stated that as many as 1,636 women and girls and 1,173 men and boys remain unaccounted for.
The International Commision on Missing Persons (ICMP), an international organization dedicated to the issue of missing people around the world, is working with Kurdish and Iraqi authorities to preseve evidence for use in future court proceedings against perpetrators.
"The mass grave contains the bodies of 73 people, men, women and children executed by the Islamic State group when they controlled the region," local official Chokor Melhem Elias told AFP.
The latest discovery was located by security forces in the Rambussi area near the town of Qahtaniyyah.
An investigation into mass graves conducted by The Associated Press and published in August 2016, concluded that between 5,200 and 15,000 people are buried in 72 mass graves in territory the militants formerly controlled between Iraq and Syria.
More graves have been discovered as the group has been defeated in areas it once ruled.
When ISIS militants brutally marched into Shingal and its surroundings in August 2014, they arrested thousands of Yezidis. Some of them were collectively killed in the region, other girls and women were taken and later sold as sex slaves by ISIS members.
According to official reports released by Yazda, a Yezidi rights group in September, nearly 7,000 Yezidi men, women and children were abducted in the first days of ISIS’ attack on Shingal in August 2014.
The reports stated that as many as 1,636 women and girls and 1,173 men and boys remain unaccounted for.
The International Commision on Missing Persons (ICMP), an international organization dedicated to the issue of missing people around the world, is working with Kurdish and Iraqi authorities to preseve evidence for use in future court proceedings against perpetrators.
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