Islamic State mass grave uncovered near Mosul

Forces closing in on the Islamic State-held city of Mosul report the discovery of another mass grave at the Badush prison.

MENA

1 min read

The New Arab

11 March, 2017

Mass graves have been discovered around Mosul, which have been held since 2014 [AFP]

A mass grave has been discovered at the Badush prison near the Iraqi city of Mosul, the Hashd al-Shaabi militia said on Saturday.

The grave reportedly contains the remains of hundreds of people executed by the Islamic State group.

The pro-government paramilitary organisation said it had found "a large mass grave containing the remains of around 500 civilian prisoners in (Badush) prison who were executed by (IS) gangs".

The grisly find is the latest mass grave to be uncovered around Mosul, which has been held by the IS group since 2014.

Last month, it was reported that a sinkhole along the Mosul-Baghdad highway had become the grave for around 4,000 people killed by the extremists.

According to locals in the Khafsa area, around 2,000 of those thrown into the pit were security officials who were executed by IS.

In November, a mass grave containing around 300 bodies was discovered by security officers in a town around 30 kilometres from Mosul city.

The sheer scale of the killing perpetrated at Khafsa, however, dwarfs all other known sites in Iraq, even outstripping the IS massacre of around 1700 military recruits at the Camp Speicher military base near Tikrit.