A survey of territory formerly held by the Islamic State has discovered dozens of mass graves containing anywhere from 5,200 to more than 15,000 bodies, according to reports.
Through exclusive interviews, photographs and research, 72 mass graves in Iraq and Syria were discovered. Further discoveries are expected as ISIS continues to lose territory, reported the Associated Press Tuesday.
Exact numbers for the total amount of dead are difficult to decipher, as many graves are located in areas too dangerous to fully explore. The amount of bodies in each grave can vary, with some containing families executed by ISIS fighters, and others holding the corpses of entire tribes.
Sinjar mountain, the site of ISIS’s massacre of the Syrian Yazidi community, is covered with graves. Sinjar became synonymous with the so-called caliphate’s attempted genocide against the Yazidis, who ISIS considers devil worshipers. An estimated 10,000 Yazidis were stranded on the mountain for months before being rescued by Kurdish forces in December, 2014. The United Nations estimated that 5,000 Yazidi men were killed during the siege, while as many as 7,000 women were sold into sex slavery.
Some victims have returned to their homes, desperately searching for the bodies of loved ones. Rasho Qassim told the AP that he regularly drives past the unofficial burial site of his two sons, waiting for the authorities to excavate the mass tomb so he can give them a proper burial.
“We want to take them out of here. There are only bones left. But they said ‘No, they have to stay there, a committee will come and exhume them later,” said Qassim. “It has been two years but nobody has come.”
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