MOSUL: Iraqi authorities have removed the remains of 139 people from a large pit believed to contain victims of Daesh, an official said on Sunday.
The Alo Antar hole — a natural desert feature turned into a mass grave by Daesh extremists — is located in Tal Afar, some 70 kilometers (40 miles) west of Mosul in northern Iraq.
It is not known how many bodies were dumped in the pit, but search efforts for other victims are ongoing.
“We have removed the remains of 139 persons and also human body parts,” said Dia Karim, director of the mass graves department at the Foundation of Martyrs — a government institution tasked with finding mass graves and identifying remains.
“They include women and men,” Karim said, adding that “according to testimonies, the victims date back to Daesh rule” or before when Al-Qaeda was present in the area.
Testimonies also suggest, according to Karim, that “the victims are Yazidis, Shiite Turkmen and security forces personnel from Mosul,” the de facto capital of Daesh’s self-declared “caliphate.”
At its peak, the group ruled over swathes of Syria and Iraq, while its fighters committed beheadings, torture and enslavement, turning life into a living hell and leaving behind many mass graves.
In northern Iraq, they committed some of their worst atrocities against the Yazidis — an ethnic and religious minority — including mass executions and sexual slavery.
Ahmed Assadi from the Foundation of Martyrs said the victims “were not buried but dumped in the hole,” whose full depth ranges between 42 and 12 meters.
“Some of the victims had been shot and others were found with their throats cut,” and several bodies were found in body bags.
Assadi added that some of the clothing found on them indicated that they might have been Yazidis or Turkmen, adding that other bodies were found in orange jumpsuits of the kind typically worn by Daesh hostages.
The bodies recovered from Alo Antar were taken to forensic departments to be identified using DNA testing.
The mass grave was discovered after Iraqi forces retook control of the area in 2017, but the work to recover the bodies only started in May of this year.
Iraqi authorities frequently announce the discovery of mass graves of Daesh victims, as well as those containing Daesh extremists themselves and others dating to the rule of dictator Saddam Hussein, but the identification process is slow, costly and complicated.
The United Nations estimates the extremists left behind more than 200 mass graves which might contain as many as 12,000 bodies.
A similar but much larger sinkhole known as Al-Khasfa in northern Iraq is also thought to contain the bodies of many Daesh victims.
In northern Syria, a 50-meter-deep gorge has been used as a dumping site for dead bodies during and after Daesh rule, according to a 2020 Human Rights Watch report.
Iraq recovers remains of 139 likely Daesh victims from mass grave
https://arab.news/p3xkj
Iraq recovers remains of 139 likely Daesh victims from mass grave
- The Alo Antar hole — a natural desert feature turned into a mass grave by Daesh extremists — is located in Tal Afar
UN rights chief shocked by ‘unbearable’ Darfur atrocities
- Mediation efforts have failed to produce a ceasefire, even after international outrage intensified last year with reports of mass killings, rape, and abductions during the RSF’s takeover of El-Fasher in Darfur
PORT SUDAN: Nearly three years of war have put the Sudanese people through “hell,” the UN’s rights chief said on Sunday, blasting the vast sums spent on advanced weaponry at the expense of humanitarian aid and the recruitment of child soldiers.
Since April 2023, Sudan has been gripped by a conflict between the army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces that has left tens of thousands of people dead and around 11 million displaced.
Speaking in Port Sudan during his first wartime visit, UN Human Rights commissioner Volker Turk said the population had endured “horror and hell,” calling it “despicable” that funds that “should be used to alleviate the suffering of the population” are instead spent on advanced weapons, particularly drones.
More than 21 million people are facing acute food insecurity, and two-thirds of Sudan’s population is in urgent need of humanitarian aid, according to the UN.
In addition to the world’s largest hunger and displacement crisis, Sudan is also facing “the increasing militarization of society by all parties to the conflict, including through the arming of civilians and recruitment and use of children,” Turk added.
He said he had heard testimony of “unbearable” atrocities from survivors of attacks in Darfur, and warned of similar crimes unfolding in the Kordofan region — the current epicenter of the fighting.
Testimony of these atrocities must be heard by “the commanders of this conflict and those who are arming, funding and profiting from this war,” he said.
Mediation efforts have failed to produce a ceasefire, even after international outrage intensified last year with reports of mass killings, rape, and abductions during the RSF’s takeover of El-Fasher in Darfur.
“We must ensure that the perpetrators of these horrific violations face justice regardless of the affiliation,” Turk said on Sunday, adding that repeated attacks on civilian infrastructure could constitute “war crimes.”
He called on both sides to “cease intolerable attacks against civilian objects that are indispensable to the civilian population, including markets, health facilities, schools and shelters.”
Turk again warned on Sunday that crimes similar to those seen in El-Fasher could recur in volatile Kordofan, where the RSF has advanced, besieging and attacking several key cities.
Hundreds of thousands face starvation across the region, where more than 65,000 people have been displaced since October, according to the latest UN figures.
