Discovery of Remains of 90 Yazidis in Two Mass Graves in Sinjar

Two mass graves containing the remains of 90 followers of the Yazidi religious minority have been discovered in Sinjar, Iraq, and it is believed that these individuals were killed by militants from the Islamic State group, ISIS. This news was reported by the German news agency on Saturday, December 16, citing local sources and quoting Qasim Shawwan, a Yazidi fighter, who stated that the two mass graves were found in the southwest of Sinjar, which was under ISIS control in 2014. He added that most of the bodies belong to young men who are believed to have been executed by ISIS militants. In this context, the Shafaq news website in Iraq quoted an unnamed government official stating that the victims also included children and women, and evidence suggests they were killed by gunfire from armed ISIS men. Meanwhile, the German news agency reports that it is unclear exactly when these two mass graves were discovered. The Islamic State group refers to Yazidis as 'devil worshippers' and deemed it necessary to kill or enslave them. This group abducted thousands of Yazidis after capturing Sinjar in the summer of 2014, and it has been reported that men taken captive were executed if they did not convert to Islam. Since the recapture of Sinjar, several mass graves have been discovered in the area. In November of this year, the United Nations reported that at least 74 mass graves have been discovered in areas previously controlled by ISIS since June 2014. Some of these mass graves have been found in Sinjar, a region in northwestern Iraq, where the UN states that the Islamic State group committed genocide against the Yazidi minority. At that time, according to a Reuters report, David Crane, a former war crimes prosecutor and professor at Syracuse University in the USA, emphasized in a separate report on the genocide by ISIS that Iraq and the international community have a duty to bring these crimes to justice. He stated in part of his report that 'the trial of the group known as the Islamic Caliphate for the genocide of the Yazidis in national and international judicial bodies depends on the preservation and maintenance of forensic evidence related to these massacres.' After months of fighting with ISIS militants, Iraq announced this month its military victory over the group and the liberation of all areas that were under its control.