ERBIL, Kurdistan Region — Following the discovery of a series of mass graves in the newly liberated city of Sinjar over the weekend, Ghazal Qasm, a Kurdish Yezidi woman, has come forward to say she believes one of the graves contains the remains of her five sons, all killed by ISIS.
Discovered Sunday in Shingal after Kurdish forces pushed in and seized the Yezidi city from its fleeing ISIS occupiers, the grave is believed to contain the remains of 50 Yezidi men executed by the extremist group.
Ghazal recalled to Rudaw about being in Shingal when ISIS attacked in August 2014.
“I was at my son’s house,” she said Sunday. “We were seven families living together. I told my sons to leave but they said ‘it is nothing and we will not leave.’”
ISIS then continued advancing into Shingal and started arresting families.
Ghazal said they separated the young girls from the adults. She tried her best to hold on to her daughters, but ISIS members hit her with weapons and separated her from them. It was then, she said, executions began.
“They beheaded a young man in front of our eyes and killed the others. They took the girls and then opened the door on us,” she said. “One of my sons was injured when an ISIS militant said he was still alive, but another militant said ‘I am sure I killed them all.’ Then the militant fired another bullet at him and he eventually died.”
Ghazal said one of her sons is still missing after he was injured and taken by ISIS to Shingal, adding ISIS has also abducted five of her daughters. She went on to say ISIS also took all of the family’s livestock.
According to Pary Nouri Aziz, an official from the ministry of martyrs and Anfal affairs in the Kurdistan Regional Government, the mass graves left by ISIS need to be researched and documented.
“The mass graves should be uncovered in a scientific way so we will be able to press the matter of genocide,” she told Rudaw Sunday. “There should be a plan, and this plan should be supervised by the ministry of Peshmerga, because they are the first ones who arrived in those places. We have formally informed the ministry of Peshmerga that there is a mass grave and it is very important it be left undisturbed.”
