IS buries victims in mass grave in football field

Iraqi authorities and a team of Western forensic experts yesterday discovered dozens of bodies under the ground of a stadium in the city of Ramadi, a stronghold of the self-proclaimed Islamic State (IS) in western Iraq.

Forensic workers excavate a mass grave at a football stadium in Ramadi city. Photo: Mirror

According to AP, they found at least 40 bodies, mostly women and children, under the stadium.Al Ramadi hascapacity of 40,000 people. Iraqi authorities believe that IS used the site as a mass grave during its occupation of Ramadi.

In May 2015, IS captured Ramadi, the capital of Anbar state, after attacking the Iraqi-US coalition. The city was only liberated last December, and now the crimes of IS are coming to light.An IS member captured by the Iraqi army pointed out the location.

In recent times, numerous mass graves, containing thousands of people, have been discovered in areas liberated from IS control in Iraq and Syria.

In June 2014, some 1,700 Iraqi soldiers were captured and killed by IS after IS advanced on Tikrit, the hometown of Iraq’s executed leader Saddam Hussein. The soldiers then tried to flee Camp Speicher. In April 2015, after the city was liberated, many mass graves filled with the bodies of Iraqi soldiers were discovered.

Last December, the UN Human Rights Office in Iraq said it had received reports of 16 mass graves discovered near the town of Sinjar after it was liberated from IS the previous month.

According to VNE