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Islamic State left more than 200 mass graves in Iraq, the United Nations said Tuesday, the aftermath of the extremist group’s three-year occupation of the north of the country that could provide some of the first evidence of war crimes committed during their rule.
The Iraqi government has tried and executed dozens of Islamic State militants since the group retreated, but none for war crimes.
“The mass gravesites documented in our report are a testament to harrowing human loss, profound suffering and shocking cruelty,” said the U.N.’s representative in Iraq, Jan Kubis.
Exhuming the burial sites—containing up to 12,000 victims—is painstaking work for which Iraq is poorly equipped. After years of conflict, Iraq has one of the highest numbers of missing people in the world, but just 25 specialists trained in scientific exhumation techniques.
Families are deprived of a sense of closure from the brutality Islamic State imposed upon Iraq, until their relatives are identified, U.N. officials say.
“ISIL’s horrific crimes in Iraq have left the headlines but the trauma of the victims’ families endures, with thousands of women, men and children still unaccounted for,” U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet said in the new report, using an acronym for the extremist group.
The U.N. has documented 202 mass graves in parts of the country that were under Islamic State’s control. The first was discovered in 2014 containing the remains of 14 Yazidi civilians. Only 28 of the gravesites have been excavated, unearthing the remains of 1,258 bodies.
Nearly half of the mass graves are in Nineveh governorate—where Islamic State is still active—most of them around Mosul, the largest city under Islamic State control until 2017. The U.N. believes the biggest grave, in the Khasfa sinkhole outside Mosul, could contain several thousand victims.
In both Syria and Iraq—where Islamic State ruled swaths of land until last year—local authorities are scrambling to unearth mass graves, identify victims and advance reconstruction. But the daunting challenges go beyond staffing and technical training.
Some mass graves are located in areas where Islamic State still operates, such as Anbar and Salah al-Din governorates. Some of the sites may be littered with explosive remnants of war. The work is, however, considered a critical part of Iraqi efforts to move beyond the aftermath of a painful three-year period under Islamic State.
“Determining the circumstances surrounding the significant loss of life will be an important step in the mourning process for families and their journey to secure their rights to truth and justice,” said Mr. Kubis, the U.N.’s representative in Iraq.
Write to Sune Engel Rasmussen at [email protected]
