81 mass graves of Yazidis found in Iraq's Sinjar since 2014: Official

Iraqi Yazidis attend a candle-lit vigil in the Sharya area, in Iraqi Kurdistan region on August 3, 2020 [SAFIN HAMED/AFP via Getty Images]

A total of 81 mass graves of Yazidis have been found in Sinjar district in northern Iraq since 2014, according to a Kurdish official on Thursday, Anadolu News Agency reports.

Baravan Hamdi, Deputy Minister of the Martyrs in the Kurdish Regional Government (KRG), said these graves were dug by the Daesh terrorist group.

“These graves are acts of ethnic cleansing,” he told Anadolu Agency.

The KRG Deputy Minister said two mass graves were found two weeks ago in the Hardan village in Sinjar, and several bodies were exhumed and sent to Baghdad for DNA analysis and identification.

The Sinjar district was captured by the Daesh terrorist group in 2014 and, in 2015, the PKK terror organisation managed to establish a foothold in the area.

According to Iraqi figures, the Daesh group killed 1,293 Yazidis and kidnapped 6,417, of whom 3,530 had managed to flee from the group’s grip.

READ: Daesh detention centres are ticking time bombs in Iraq

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