The United Nations says more than 200 mass graves have been uncovered in Iraq in areas formerly controlled by Islamic State militants.
The graves contain the remains of thousands of people, believed to be victims of the hardline Sunni group, who between June and December 2014, overran large swathes of northern Iraq and declared it part of their so-called caliphate.
The dead include women, children, the elderly and disabled, as well as members of Iraq’s armed forces and police.
The United Nations has said previously that almost thirty-three thousand civilians were killed by the group in Iraq, with more than fifty-five thousand injured.
The grave sites are concentrated in four provinces. These deaths occurred in what the United Nations has called “a systematic and widespread campaign of violence,” which may amount to war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide.”
