BAGHDAD
The Iraqi Ministry of Human Rights announced Monday the discovery of a mass grave of 80 Ezidis in a village west of Nineveh province in northern Iraq.
“(The mass grave) contained the remains of 80 Ezidi citizens of different ages,” the ministry said in a statement.
Daesh took control of Nineveh province and other areas in the north and west of the country when it led a sweeping attack last summer.
In the subsequent months, the group expanded into areas inhabited by the minority Ezidis around Sinjar to the west of Nineveh.
According to reports, massacres were committed by extremists against the region’s occupants, who Daesh consider “infidels and devil worshippers.”
The reports also said extremists kidnapped hundreds of Ezidi girls and women and took them as slaves.
Over the course of the last few months, regional forces in northern Iraq discovered a number of mass graves containing the remains of Ezidis who died at the hands of Daesh.
