NORTH AND EAST SYRIA: The ISIS aftermath, mass graves and landmines discovered in Raqqa

RAQQA, Syria – The emergency Initial Response Team of the Raqqa Civil Council completed digging out a mass grave at Tel Zidan east of the city of Raqqa. The Initial Response Team recovered 234 bodies but was not able to identify the bodies. The Initial Response Team attributes the mass grave and large number of bodies to ISIS field executions.

Work began on the 13th of April to recover the bodies from Tel Zidan after residents of the area informed local Administration authorities of the mass grave. The initial response team of the Raqqa Civil Council also received reports on the presence of five other such mass graves in the countryside of Raqqa. A team from the medical forensics department and members of the Initial Response Team was formed to investigate the presence and background of such mass graves.

The number of sites discovered in the city of Raqqa and its countryside so far has reached 25 mass graves, where six thousand bodies were recovered, only 700 of them were identified.

In a related context, the ISIS war remnants and ISIS cells in Raqqa and environs are still causing civilian deaths. A child and his brother were killed by an ISIS landmine explosion in the village of Hunaydah, east of Tabqa, while they were grazing sheep. The children are Hammoud Issa al-Kuwaid (13) and his brother Hussein (15). Their brother Abdul-Rahman was injured. Internal Security Forces of the Democratic Autonomous Administration stated in a statement that they found the remnants of the mine, including electrical wires and batteries, which were dismantled and defected.