ERBIL: The Iraqi government has started exhuming a mass grave left behind by Daesh in the northwestern Sinjar region in the presence of Nobel Peace Prize laureate Nadia Murad, whose slain relatives are believed to have been buried in the area.
The exhumation, which is being carried out with UN support, began Friday in the village of Kocho. Murad’s official website said it marks the first exhumation of a mass grave containing the remains of Yazidis, a religious minority targeted for extermination by the extremists.
Daesh militants rampaged across Sinjar in 2014, killing Yazidi men and abducting thousands of women and children. Many followers of the minority faith are still missing, after women were forced into sexual slavery and boys were indoctrinated in extremist ideology.
“I pay my condolence to the Yazidis and the whole humanity. There is not a single Yazidi family that didn’t taste the bitterness of this extermination,” said Murad. “They all lost their loved ones, their properties and their dreams, and especially in this village,” she said.
Murad was one of an estimated 3,000 Yazidi women and girls who were kidnapped and sold into sexual slavery. She was raped, beaten and tortured before she managed to escape after three months in captivity.
Over 70 mass graves have been discovered in Sinjar since it was liberated from Daesh in November 2015.
In November, UN investigators said they have verified the location of more than 200 mass grave sites from the time of Daesh rule in northern Iraq, containing the bodies of between 6,000 and 12,000 victims.
Nada Selo, an activist from Kocho, lamented the slow pace of efforts to identify and recover victims.
“Negligence has been going on for four years and until now. The people were hoping during all this time to see their relatives alive. So honestly, this is a huge disappointment for us as Yazidis, and it is a real tragedy,” she said.
A statement issued earlier this week by Murad, global Yazidi NGO Yazda and their joint legal counsel Amal Clooney welcomed the process in Kocho. They expressed hope it would be part of a “comprehensive effort which will result in the exhumation of all Daesh mass graves in Sinjar and beyond, the return of victims’ remains to their families and the investigation of the relevant crimes, leading to the prosecution of the responsible Daesh militants.”
Daesh is on the verge of losing the last area it controls in Syria as US-backed fighters squeeze the extremists in the village of Baghouz near the Iraqi border. Over the past months a number of Yazidi women and children have been freed in eastern Syria.
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Iraq begins exhuming mass Yazidi grave left by Daesh
Iraq begins exhuming mass Yazidi grave left by Daesh
- Daesh militants rampaged across Sinjar in 2014, killing Yazidi men and abducting thousands of women and children
- Many followers of the minority faith are still missing, after women were forced into sexual slavery and boys were indoctrinated in extremist ideology
Clashes in Syria’s Aleppo deepen rift between government, Kurdish forces
ALEPPO: Fierce fighting in Syria’s northern city of Aleppo between government forces and Kurdish fighters drove thousands of civilians from their homes on Wednesday, with Washington reported to be mediating a de-escalation. The violence, and statements trading blame over who started it, signaled that a stalemate between Damascus and Kurdish authorities that have resisted integrating into the central government was deepening and growing deadlier. Deadly clashes broke out on Tuesday between Syrian government troops and the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).
After relative calm overnight, shelling resumed on Wednesday and intensified in the afternoon, Reuters reporters in the city said.
A spokesperson for Aleppo’s health directorate told Reuters that four civilians had been killed on Tuesday and more than two dozen wounded on Tuesday and Wednesday. Security sources separately told Reuters that two fighters had also been killed.
The health directorate said there were no civilian fatalities on Wednesday, and that it was not authorized to comment on deaths among fighters.
By Wednesday evening, fighting had subsided, the Reuters reporters said. Ilham Ahmed, who heads the foreign affairs department of the Kurdish administration, told Reuters that international mediation efforts were underway to de-escalate. A source familiar with the matter told Reuters the US was mediating.
THOUSANDS OF CIVILIANS FLEE
The directorate for social affairs said on Wednesday night that more than 45,000 people had been displaced from Aleppo city, most of them heading northwest toward the enclave of Afrin.
The Syrian army announced that military positions in the Kurdish-held neighborhoods of Sheikh Maqsoud and Ashrafiyah were “legitimate military targets.” Two Syrian security officials told Reuters that they expected a significant military operation in the city.
The government opened humanitarian corridors for civilians to flee flashpoint neighborhoods, ferrying them out on city buses.
“We move them safely to the places they want to go to according to their desire or to displaced shelters,” said Faisal Mohammad Ali, operations chief of the civil defense force in Aleppo.
The latest fighting has disrupted civilian life in what is a leading Syrian city, closing the airport and a highway to Turkiye, halting operations at factories in an industrial zone and paralysing major roads into the city center.
The Damascus government said its forces were responding to rocket fire, drone attacks and shelling from Kurdish-held neighborhoods. Kurdish forces said they held Damascus “fully and directly responsible for ... the dangerous escalation that threatens the lives of thousands of civilians and undermines stability in the city.” During Syria’s 14-year civil war, Kurdish authorities began running a semi-autonomous zone in northeast Syria, as well as in parts of Aleppo city.
They have been reluctant to give up those zones and integrate fully into the Islamist-led government that took over after ex-President Bashar Assad’s ousting in late 2024.
Last year, the Damascus government reached a deal with the SDF that envisaged a full integration by the end of 2025, but the two sides have made little progress, each accusing the other of stalling or acting in bad faith.
The US has stepped in as a mediator, holding meetings as recently as Sunday to try to nudge the process forward. Sunday’s meetings ended with no tangible progress.
Failure to integrate the SDF into Syria’s army risks further violence and could potentially draw in Turkiye, which has threatened an incursion against Kurdish fighters it views as terrorists.
After relative calm overnight, shelling resumed on Wednesday and intensified in the afternoon, Reuters reporters in the city said.
A spokesperson for Aleppo’s health directorate told Reuters that four civilians had been killed on Tuesday and more than two dozen wounded on Tuesday and Wednesday. Security sources separately told Reuters that two fighters had also been killed.
The health directorate said there were no civilian fatalities on Wednesday, and that it was not authorized to comment on deaths among fighters.
By Wednesday evening, fighting had subsided, the Reuters reporters said. Ilham Ahmed, who heads the foreign affairs department of the Kurdish administration, told Reuters that international mediation efforts were underway to de-escalate. A source familiar with the matter told Reuters the US was mediating.
THOUSANDS OF CIVILIANS FLEE
The directorate for social affairs said on Wednesday night that more than 45,000 people had been displaced from Aleppo city, most of them heading northwest toward the enclave of Afrin.
The Syrian army announced that military positions in the Kurdish-held neighborhoods of Sheikh Maqsoud and Ashrafiyah were “legitimate military targets.” Two Syrian security officials told Reuters that they expected a significant military operation in the city.
The government opened humanitarian corridors for civilians to flee flashpoint neighborhoods, ferrying them out on city buses.
“We move them safely to the places they want to go to according to their desire or to displaced shelters,” said Faisal Mohammad Ali, operations chief of the civil defense force in Aleppo.
The latest fighting has disrupted civilian life in what is a leading Syrian city, closing the airport and a highway to Turkiye, halting operations at factories in an industrial zone and paralysing major roads into the city center.
The Damascus government said its forces were responding to rocket fire, drone attacks and shelling from Kurdish-held neighborhoods. Kurdish forces said they held Damascus “fully and directly responsible for ... the dangerous escalation that threatens the lives of thousands of civilians and undermines stability in the city.” During Syria’s 14-year civil war, Kurdish authorities began running a semi-autonomous zone in northeast Syria, as well as in parts of Aleppo city.
They have been reluctant to give up those zones and integrate fully into the Islamist-led government that took over after ex-President Bashar Assad’s ousting in late 2024.
Last year, the Damascus government reached a deal with the SDF that envisaged a full integration by the end of 2025, but the two sides have made little progress, each accusing the other of stalling or acting in bad faith.
The US has stepped in as a mediator, holding meetings as recently as Sunday to try to nudge the process forward. Sunday’s meetings ended with no tangible progress.
Failure to integrate the SDF into Syria’s army risks further violence and could potentially draw in Turkiye, which has threatened an incursion against Kurdish fighters it views as terrorists.
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