The Islamic State terrorist organization, also known as ISIS or ISIL, has been reportedly killed and dumped the bodies of thousands of victims at a site called Khafsa in Iraq, the Humans Right Watch announced this week. Witnesses say that the bodies are being thrown into naturally occurring sinkholes at a site near Khafsa, an area located south of Mosul, Iraq. While the official number of bodies in the graves is unclear, it is believed to be somewhere between 2,000 and 4,000 victims if not more. It is being labeled as one of the biggest, if not the biggest, mass grave found in Iraq due to Isis.
To make matters worse, before abandoning the mass grave, ISIS soldiers set landmines and other improvised booby traps around it to kill those investigating the graves. An Iraq-Kurdish reporter and three Iraq security forces were killed due to one of these improvised landmines along with eight other people being injured including a camera man. Lama Fakih, Deputy Middle East Director at Human Rights Watch said that "This mass grave is a grotesque symbol of ISIS's cruel and depraved conduct- a crime of monumental scale. Laying landmines in the mass grave is clearly an attempt by ISIS to maximize harm to Iraqis."
Residents of the area said that executions at the 35-meter-wide sinkhole started in June 2014 and were conducted sometimes on a weekly basis until May or June 2015. The victims of the sinkhole could include Iraq security force members, former police and detainees at a local prison. The prison, called Badoush Prison, was captured by ISIS on June 10, 2014 and witnesses say that on that same day ISIS fighters executed about 600 prisoners. A mass grave two kilometers from Badoush Prison was discovered on March 11, 2017 and about 400 bodies had been exhumed from the grave with more possibly still there.
The mass grave in Badoush contained hundreds of bodies
The Khafsa sinkhole killings happened in large quantities witnesses report. One witness reported that on June 10, 2014 four trucks filled with blindfolded men who were lined up in front of the sinkhole and were shot so that their bodies would fall into the sinkhole. Another witness reported that in September 2014 ISIS fighter's arrived in a truck with 13 blindfolded women who were shot in the pit. These are just a few of the witness reports of the killings committed at the Khafsa sinkhole.
This mass grave and others located around Iraq show the brutality and carnage that is being left behind due to the Islamic State. Families have been split, loved ones have been lost and cities have been destroyed. Now as more and more of the destruction of ISIS is shown, it's important to remember that us here in western civilizations are not the only ones fighting them, people in Iraq and Syria are fighting them too and they deserve our support. For a more detailed look on the Khafsa Sinkhole, visit the Human Rights Watch website.
