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UN has found 200 mass graves in Iraq
More than 200 mass graves containing up to 12,000 bodies have been discovered in former ISIS ruled areas in Iraq, the UN has said.
The UN in Iraq (UNAMI) and its human rights office documented a total of 202 mass graves, including 95 in Ninevah, 37 in Kirkuk, 36 in Salah al-Din and 24 in Anbar. The report warned that more sites could be uncovered in the coming months and urged Iraqi authorities to properly preserve and excavate them to provide closure for victims’ families.
“The mass grave sites documented in our report are a testament to harrowing human loss, profound suffering and shocking cruelty,” said Ján Kubiš, the UN Secretary-General’s Special Representative for Iraq. “Determining the circumstances surrounding the significant loss of life will be an important step in the mourning process for families and their journey to secure their rights to truth and justice,” he added.
The US have warned that ISIS remains a potent threat to the region. Gen. Joseph F. Dunford Jr., chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, told military chiefs in October that ISIS still attracts about 100 new foreign fighters to the region each month. The New York Times says Western and Middle Eastern counterterrorism officials claim ISIS has reverted to its original structure of an insurgent group with a decentralised chain of command. Jordanian intelligence officials say they have worked closely with their US counterparts to prevent more than 12 terrorist plots in the past several months in the Middle East and Europe.
Last month, Russell Travers, the acting head of the National Counterterrorism Center, told senators in Washington: “Although ISIS’s safe haven in Iraq and Syria has largely collapsed, its global enterprise of almost two dozen branches and networks, each numbering in the hundreds to thousands of members, remains robust … ISIS remains an adaptive and dangerous adversary, and is already tailoring its strategy to sustain operations amid mounting losses.”