Iraqi authorities today announced the discovery of a mass grave with the bodies of 14 people presumably executed by the Islamic State in the province of Nineveh (northern), during the period in which the ‘jihadist’ group declared its regional “caliphate”.
The Security Cell, dependent on the Iraqi Ministry of Defense, indicated that the mass grave was detected following information about the discovery of human remains in a neighborhood in the city of Tal Afar.
“The human remains correspond to 14 victims of the Islamic State criminal gangs and were buried here”, concluded the researchers, cited in a statement published on the social network X.
“Day after day, the brutality and vileness of the Islamic State terrorist groups, who shed the blood of the innocent and defenseless, is clear to the whole world,” said the information note, adding that measures are being taken to identify the victims .
The ‘jihadist’ group, which suffered a heavy military defeat on Iraqi territory in 2017, still maintains several hundred fighters in several roving cells in Iraq, where they have carried out attacks in recent months.
During this period, the Iraqi Government launched several operations which, according to the Baghdad authorities, resulted in the death or arrest of dozens of suspects, including several leaders of the ‘jihadist’ organization.
Last Monday, ten people accused of “terrorism” and membership in the Islamic State were executed in Iraq by hanging.
In recent years, Iraqi courts have handed down hundreds of death sentences and life sentences, decisions based on the Arab country’s penal code.
In June, UN experts expressed themselves “alarmed by the high number of executions announced since 2016 in Iraq, close to 400, including 30 this year”.
“When arbitrary executions become widespread and systematic, they may constitute crimes against humanity”, declared the special rapporteurs, appointed by the UN Human Rights Council but who did not speak on behalf of the international organization.
The experts also added that, according to official figures, 8,000 prisoners are on death row in Iraq.
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