Mass graves, including one containing bodies of at least 80 Yazidi women, has been found in Sinjar, which was recently liberated from Islamic State (Isis) control.
Sinjar, also known as as Shingal, was captured by the Isis terrorists in August 2014. The strategic town located between Mosul in Iraq and Raqqa in Syria served as a prominent supply route for the Isis.
Kurdish peshmerga forces, along with the Yazidi militia, captured the town on 13 November after defeating Isis.
A mass grave with the remains of up to 80 Yazidi women, executed by Isis, has been discovered on the edge of Sinjar in Iraq. The UN says abuses against the Yazidi minority, who the jihadists deem devil-worshippers, may constitute an attempted genocide.
The mayor of Sinjar, Mahma Xelil, and local Yazidis told AFP Isis took the younger girls as slaves, while executing Yazidi women aged 40 and above.
Sources claim Isis fighters, after taking over the town in 2014, rounded up the older women and took them to a place behind an institute in the Solagh area, where they were shot dead and bured in a shallow grave.
Badr Sleiman Taha, 24, a local resident, told Reuters her mother, aunt and grandmother were killed behind the institute in the Solagh area
A forensics team is expected to visit the liberated town of Sinjar to analyse the remains of the grave and the evidence collected from it will be presented to the UN, said Xelil.
In the north of Sinjar, several mass graves with bodies of several Yazidi men and boys have also been discovered. The mass graves contain bodies of hundreds of Yazidi men and dozens of boys as young as 12, who were executed by Isis in August 2014.
