Iraqi Kurds uncover mass graves in formerly ISIL-held Sinjar

It comes amid reports that members of the Yazidi minority looted and burned Muslim homes in Sinjar after its recapture from ISIL extremists.

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ERBIL, IRAQ // Kurdish forces said on Sunday they uncovered two mass graves outside Sinjar, a northern Iraqi town near the Syrian border that was ruled by ISIL for more than a year before the extremists were driven out last week.

It comes amid reports that members of the Yazidi minority looted and burned Muslim homes in Sinjar after its recapture from ISIL extremists.

The first grave uncovered was west of the town’s centre near the technical institute. It contained 78 elderly women’s bodies, the Sinjar director of intelligence Qasim Samir, said.

The second grave was uncovered about 15 kilometres west of Sinjar and contained between 50 and 60 bodies of men, women and children, he said.

More precise information from the second grave is unavailable at the moment, Mr Samir explained, because the surrounding area is thought to be rigged with homemade bombs, preventing investigation teams from reaching it.

The ISIL group captured Sinjar during its rampage across northern Iraq in the summer of 2014 and killed and captured thousands of members of the Yazidi religious minority, including women forced into sexual slavery. The extremists consider the faith of the Yazidis as heretical.

Kurdish forces backed by US-led air strikes pushed the extremist group out of the town in a two-day operation last week.

“These people [in the mass graves] were shot and buried during the Daesh invasion last year,” Mr Samir said. Sinjar was taken by ISIL militants in August 2014 following the earlier fall of Mosul.

During the same territorial push, ISIL advanced on Erbil, prompting the beginning of a US-led campaign of air strikes against the group, first in Iraq and later in Syria.

A security official with the Kurdish militia forces, known as peshmerga, also confirmed the discovery of the mass graves.

“This is not a surprise,” the official said, requesting anonymity. “In other areas that have been taken back, we have found similar mass graves.”

In the nearby town of Snuny, Kurdish militias uncovered 7 mass graves after retaking the territory earlier this year, the peshmerga official said.

Nawaf Ashur, a resident of Sinjar who was forced to flee with his family in August last year, said the news of the mass graves has jarred the Yazidi community.

“Everyone who was missing a family member was hoping that they were still out there, that they are still alive and maybe they’ll come back,” he said.

Thousands of Yazidis remain unaccounted for more than a year after ISIL took a number of majority Yazidi towns in Iraq’s north.

While hundreds of Yazidi women and girls have been released or escaped ISIL captivity, human rights groups estimate thousands still remain in ISIL custody.

“But now with the news of each grave found, we know not all of them will come back,” he said. “Some of them are never coming back.”

Meanwhile, witnesses said on Sunday that Yazidis were looting Muslim homes and setting them alight.

Yazidis fleeing the ISIL onslaught in August 2014 said that some of their Muslim neighbours enabled the attacks, identifying them for ISIL.

“Muslim houses were looted and burned,” especially those that had “Sunni” written on them after ISIL seized the town– possibly as a means for ISIL to identify which homes should be protected – said one witness, who declined to be named.

“I saw one of the mosques burned at the hands of Yazidis,” the witness said.

Kurdish security commanders denied that burning and looting was taking place, and accounts of the unrest could not be independently confirmed.

Rights group Amnesty international documented attacks by Yazidi militiamen against two Sunni Arab villages north of Sinjar in January, in which 21 people were killed and numerous houses burned.

Looting and burning has followed the recapture of other areas in Iraq from ISIL, sparking resentment among residents and posing a threat to long-term stability.

* Associated Press and Agence France-Presse