SULAIMANI (ESTA) — Authorities have discovered a mass grave in Kirkuk province, which contains remains believed to be Yezidi people previously murdered by the so-called Islamic State (ISIS) terror group.
The mass grave was discovered in the Hawija district, 50 kilometers west of Kirkuk City, according to the Martyrs Foundation of Iraq.
“The Initial investigations indicated that the mass grave containing Yezidi girls mass murdered by ISIS,” it said.
The number of the remains is yet to be announced as the excavation process is still ongoing.
Islamic State seized large swathes of Iraqi territory in 2014, declaring a “caliphate” and killing thousands there before Baghdad declared victory in 2017.
The United Nations says the group left behind more than 200 mass graves that could contain as many as 12,000 bodies.
The Yazidis are an ancient religious minority who combine Zoroastrian, Christian, Manichean, Jewish, and Muslim beliefs.
ISIS, which views the Yazidis as devil worshippers, killed more than 3,000, enslaved 7,000 Yazidi women and girls and displaced most of the 550,000-strong community from its ancestral home in northern Iraq.
