‘ THEY DON’T EVEN TRY TO HIDE IT’: DOZENS OF MASS GRAVES DISCOVERED AS ISIL ABANDONS TERRITORY IN IRAQ.
DOZENS OF MASS GRAVES CONTAINING THOUSANDS OF DEAD ARE DISCOVERED AS ISIL ABANDONS TERRITORY
Peering through binoculars, the young man watched as Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant extremists gunned down the handcuffed men and then buried them with a waiting bulldozer. For six days he watched as ISIL filled one grave after another with his friends and neighbours.
The five graves arranged at the foot of Sinjar Mountain hold the bodies of dozens of minority Yazidis killed in ISIL’s bloody onslaught in August 2014. They are a fraction of the mass graves ISIL extremists have scattered across Iraq and Syria.
In exclusive interviews, photos and research, The Associated Press has documented and mapped 72 of the mass graves, the most comprehensive survey so far, with many more expected to be uncovered as ISIL’s territory shrinks.
In Syria, AP has obtained locations for 17 mass graves, including one with the bodies of hundreds of members of a single tribe all but exterminated when ISIL extremists took over their region.
For at least 16 of the Iraqi graves, most in territory too dangerous to excavate, officials do not even guess the number of dead. In others, the estimates are based on memories of traumatized survivors, ISIL propaganda and what can be gleaned from a cursory look at the earth.
Satellites offer the clearest look at massacres such as the one at Badoush Prison in Mosul in June 2014 that left 600 inmates dead. A patch of scraped earth shows the likely site, according to exclusive photos obtained by the imagery intelligence firm AllSource Analysis and shared with AP.
On Si njar Mountain, Rasho Qassim drives daily past t he mass grave in Hardan that holds the bodies of his two sons. The sites are roped off and awaiting the money and the political will for excavation. The evidence they contain is scoured by wind and baked by sun.
“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, standing at the flimsy protective fence.
ISIL made no attempt to hide its atrocities. But proving what United Nations officials and others have described as an ongoing genocide will be complicated as the graves deteriorate. ISIL targeted the Yazidis for slaughter because it considers them infidels. The Yazidi faith has elements of Christianity and Islam but is distinct.
Through binoculars, Arkan Qassem watched it all. His village, Gurmiz, overlooks Hardan and the plain below. When the j i hadis swept through, everyone in Gurmiz fled up the mountain. Then Arkan and nine other men returned with light weapons, hoping to defend their homes.
The first night, a bulldozer’s headlights illuminated the killing of a group of handcuffed men. Then the machine plowed over their bodies. Over six days, the fighters killed three more groups — several dozen each, usually with hands bound.
Once, the extremists lit a bonfire, but Arkan couldn’t make out its purpose.
Two years later, the 32- year- old has since returned home, living in an area dotted with mass graves.
“I have lots of people I know there. Mostly friends and neighbours,” he said. “It’s very difficult to look at them every day.”
Nearly every area freed from ISIL control has unmasked new mass graves, like one found near a stadium in Ramadi. The graves are easy enough to find, most covered with just a thin coating of earth.
“They are beheading them, shooting them, running them over in cars, all kinds of killing techniques, and they don’t even try to hide it,” said Sirwan Jalal, the director of Iraqi Kurdistan’s agency in charge of mass graves.
No one outside ISIL has seen the Iraqi ravine where hundreds of prison inmates were killed. Satellite images of scraped dirt along the river point to its location.
The inmates were separated by religion, and Shiites had to count off, according to accounts by 15 survivors gathered by Human Rights Watch.
“I was No. 43. I heard them say ‘ 615,’ and then one ISIL guy said, ‘ We’re going to eat well tonight.’ A man behind us asked, ‘ Are you ready?’ Another person answered ‘ Yes,’ and began shooting at us with a machine-gun,” according to the Human Rights Watch account of a survivor identified only as A. S. The 15 men survived by playing dead.
Justice has been done in at least one ISIL mass killing — that of about 1,700 Iraqi soldiers who were machinegunned at Camp Speicher. On Aug. 21, 36 ISIL militants were hanged for those deaths.
Hundreds of mass graves are believed to be in areas that can only be explored when fighting stops. So far, at least 17 are known.
Some of the worst are in Deir el-Zour province. There, 400 members of the Shueitat tribe were found in one grave, just some of the up to 1,000 tribesmen believed to have been massacred by ISIL, said Ziad Awad, the editor of the local publication, The Eye of the City, who is documenting the graves.
“This is a drop in an ocean of mass graves expected to be discovered in the future in Syria,” said Awad.
THEY DON’T EVEN TRY TO HIDE (THE MASSACRES).