HRW: ISIS dumped hundreds in mass graves in Iraq

The so-called Islamic State (also known as ISIS) executed and dumped the bodies of possibly hundreds of detainees, mainly Shias and security forces, at a site near Mosul, Human Rights Watch said today.

The so-called Islamic State (also known as ISIS) executed and dumped the bodies of possibly hundreds of detainees, mainly Shias and security forces, at a site near Mosul, Human Rights Watch said today.

Multiple witnesses told the international organization that the bodies of those killed, including bodies of members of Iraqi security forces, were thrown into a naturally occurring sinkhole at a site known as Khafsa, about eight kilometers south of western Mosul.

“This mass grave is a grotesque symbol of ISIS’s cruel and depraved conduct – a crime of a monumental scale,” said Lama Fakih, deputy Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. 

The site is one of dozens of ISIS mass graves found between Iraq and Syria, but could be the largest discovered thus far, Human Rights Watch said.